When did you first see KOK?

[homerwannabee]

Ok this is probably the only thing I have a head start on 95 percent of you.  You see, I actually saw this in the movie theater twice.  The first time when it had a super limited release, and I had to drive all the way two hours to LA at an indie movie art house just to go see it, and the second time when it had a wider release closer to home.  I knew about the movie because a few months prior they had promoted the release at the CGE Expo in Vegas.  I was really big in collecting for the Atari 2600 at the time.  I remember even seeing Billy Mitchell.  He stood out because of his brown leather jacket with his shirt and tie.  The movie obviously left an impression on me since I saw it twice.  I just didn't think I could hack it at the time, and only got into Twin Galaxies after seeing Steve Wiebe play Donkey Kong on G4.  So how about you?
When did you first see it? In the theater, on DVD, on tv, or on YouTube?  Also what year did you first see it?

[TheSunshineFund]

At an indie theatre in Princeton, nj.  Whatever year it premiered I assume.  I told my wife we were going to go see a movie about donkey Kong because I used to play it in the 80s.   I didn't even know mame existed.  Seeing the different classic arcade games in that movie was the first time seeing them again since probably 1990 or so.

[Weehawk]

I'm pretty sure I saw two different cuts of it leaked online before it ever played in theatres, but tragically the hard drive I was using then got wiped a couple of months ago, so I can't verify.

[marinomitch13]

Just at the end of senior year of high school for me. May 17th, 2008, I believe.

The senior class traditionally get done with classes a week early at my high school, so a bunch of my friends and I that had worked our butts off with AP tests (I took 17 my senior year, to put it in perspective ) had a small retreat up to a cabin in Northern Minnesota. It was a great time. When we eventually came back to the Twin Cities, a few of us were still hanging around at a friend's house for the afternoon/evening when my good friend (whose house it was... and who eventually would be one of my college roommates) called me downstairs (I was busy upstairs, you see, stuffing my face with burgers, chips, and brownies he place out on the table) and said, I quote, "Mitchell, you have to see this movie! It's just... it's just... it's ridiculous. You will see. You will see."

It was ridiculous.

It actually soared to the top of my favorites list for quite some time, and I actually used it as a go-to movie on 6 other occasions with friends before I ever even attempted to play DK. The rest is history.

[ChrisP]

I've been orbiting/lurking classic arcade gaming since forever and discovered Billy Mitchell in 1999 after hearing about his Perfect Pac Man. Some website published an interview with him and I was instantly fascinated with Billy.

I showed a friend the interview and he said, "There should be a movie made about him at least a documentary."

Fast forward 8 years to December 2007. I'm looking for something or other classic gaming-related and I bump into the KoK trailer. It was the first I'd heard of the movie, even though back then I went to the TG site from time to time. (Robert Mruczek's report on Abdner's Ms. Pac Man score in 2005 blew my mind. I was just... oh my god...  )

So obviously I got very excited at the prospect of a Billy movie, not to mention my friend's prophetic "there should be..." from almost a decade before.

I said this to my friend:

"This comes out on video at the end of next month. I just put it in my queue. I am honestly more excited to see this than any other movie next year. I don't know how I missed this when it was in the theatre."

So the movie comes out on DVD in January 2008, I watched it, loved the crap out of it, but pretty much left it there.

It was over 3 years before I myself actually started playing DK seriously. As much as I liked the movie, it never entered my mind to try to get good, even though I'd had MAME/DK on my PC since the late 90s and always liked DK. (Seems weird to me in retrospect.) But in April 2011 the US government killed online poker so I started messing around with CAGs more seriously in order to fill my sudden game-playing void. And here we are!

Anybody else besides Mitch and I have a long delay between seeing the movie and becoming interested in playing the game?

[CaptainJivePants]

Downloaded and watched it shortly after its release. My brother urged me to see it after he rented it from a store, shortly before that stopped being an option, because of my love for classic games. At that point, I had only seen and played about 25-30 arcade games in my life at various stores and ice arenas around the Midwest (and a Joust machine in Florida).

It seemed like a reality TV show, but it was still interesting. Ultimately, what I took away from the film was the fact classic arcade games still existed and they had a community that still existed. I always wanted to own arcade games, and wanted to find out more. Oddly enough, I lived about a 30-minute walk away from Logan Hardware, and then moved even closer to about a 15-minute walk. Unfortunately, I didn't know Logan was there at the time, and I ended up not discovering arcade gaming for another couple years when I moved to Brookfield and discovered Gobblin' Ghost had opened about a week or two before my move. While the film didn't make me want to be a DK pro, it did help encourage me towards a long-time NES favorite, DK Jr. Since DK Jr. was always up and running the first few months GGA was open, I got hooked.

[tudose]

the first release i watched in 2007 was the screener that just said "CREDITS" at the end instead of actually rolling any lol. didnt think much of actually playing until i rediscovered mame a couple yrs later. got my bro and his friends to watch and they played for a bit around summer of 09. i started taking it more seriously around oct/nov 09 when my bro beat my ~250k pb. it was on after that. good times

i know youre going to read this. please come back, sir

[LMDAVE]

I heard about this doc being made before it was released, and I found it online for download (Torrent) before it was officially released, it was the first cut. I was immeditaley blown away and found the TG site and joined shortly after June 2007 i believe. What the haters never did accept to this day is TG didn't get smeared at all, I thought TG was the coolest thing ever after seeing KoK, I thought RTM was like a celeb, I was like, "man what if I get to chat with him online"...it wasnt' until the backlash of these people complaining afterwards that turned things negative. The arguements I got in with RTM and Douglas Loyd were priceless.


-I found Steve Wiebe immediately on MySpace, and he only had 5 friends, he wasn't a big Myspace user. I added him but we didnt' chat much, but as soon as KoK hit the streets, that Myspace number blew up, then he went to facebook.

-I was so blown away about a killscreen on arcade machines, I had no idea all these games I played back in the day could reach that limit.

-I started play DK on MAME not even paying attention to the detail of submission and I was playing with pause mode, etc... I remember getting 100K and hitting pause to go take a leak, and com back and continue my game practicing. It wasn't until I started reading the fine print at TG about the details of what would be accepted. You would think after watching KoK that would have sunk in.

[Weehawk]

The arguements I got in with RTM and Douglas Loyd were priceless.

Ah...they can try to rewrite history, but the camera never forgets.

http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php/topic,679.msg15575.html#msg15575

[SanTe]

For me it was May 2007 at the Seattle International Film Festival, three months before its theatrical release.  To my knowledge that is the only cut of the film that circulated before the final version that was released to theaters and DVD.  I still have it.  (PM me if you want it.)  I like it better.  It's not hugely different, but the music is better for the most part.  That happens a lot with small films.  They get rights to certain music for use in a cut that will play at film festivals.  If the film gets picked up for distribution the music rights holders demand more money, and one or more pieces of music get replaced with something cheaper for the final version.  Happened to "High Score" too.  Again, the original version is better, mostly because of the music.

[lakeman421]

I used to play poker online full time and when it was shut down in 2011, that's when I got into the classics. A couple of my friends were going to Funspot to attempt to break a record every weekend. So I tagged along and they told me about the film. I think I just found it on YouTube and loved the film. I broke records on Cheeky Mouse and Strategy X around that time, but wanted to master a game well known to be considered a world class gamer. Kok has the scene talkin about the top 5 games and picked DK cause it appealed to me the most. That's when my buddy made the bar bet about me getting into the top twenty on TG. If I did he was gonna be me a beer every time we went to Funspot. I learned on Funspots machine and eventually started going back and forth with arcade and MAME and the rest is history. Now he owes me a lot more beers at Funspot

[dimmu--borgir]

Arcade party at a friend 2008. Swedish TV broadcast it as well some months after.

Swedish TV? Damn.

[SanTe]

I'm pretty sure I saw two different cuts of it leaked online before it ever played in theatres, but tragically the hard drive I was using then got wiped a couple of months ago, so I can't verify.

An IRC buddy who'd seen the film sent me a fairly low quality version of the movie in early 2008, which was the first I'd heard of it. It may have been the rough-cut version of it, which I've been looking for again without any luck.

the first release i watched in 2007 was the screener that just said "CREDITS" at the end instead of actually rolling any lol.

I heard about this doc being made before it was released, and I found it online for download (Torrent) before it was officially released, it was the first cut. I was immeditaley blown away and found the TG site and joined shortly after June 2007 i believe.

Ahem.     

[hchien]

That's when my buddy made the bar bet about me getting into the top twenty on TG.

Out of curiousity, what was the 20th TG score at the time?

[tudose]

oh yer dat original cut. awesome. thanks!