The truth about Allen Staal, and Donkey Kong

[homerwannabee]

Allen is a really, really, really good Donkey Kong player.    His problem is that his friends, and associates are the greatest Donkey Kong players ever.
At the moment Allen has the 70th highest documented score of all time.  For the sake of inclusion we allow for all the unsubstantiated claims, and put him at 100, and lets add 30 more for the unknown scores, and now we have him at 130.
Well guess what? That's still insanely good.
Why is that?  Because there were 130,000 machines made.
So let's put that into perspective.  Let's be conservative, and say 100 unique users have played each machine.  That's 13 million people who have played this game.
What this means is Allen is in the top 99.999% of all Donkey Kong players all time.
I personally think of myself as somewhat intelligent, but I know if I hang out with a bunch of MIT graduates I'm going to feel like an idiot.
This so happens to be where the most talented, and skilled Donkey Kong players hang out. In statistical terms Allen Staal is an outlier hanging with outliers of outliers.   

[ChrisP]

Allen is a really, really, really good Donkey Kong player. 

 :-\

His problem is that his friends, and associates are the greatest Donkey Kong players ever.

Allen has many problems. 

That's 13 million people who have played this game.
What this means is Allen is in the top 99.999% of all Donkey Kong players all time.

Well.... even if that were the correct number, how many of those 13 million people actually tried to get good? Or even played more than a few credits?

The only way to begin making this a fair comparison is to have those 13 million people play as many games as Allen has (and with the same panel of advice-giving experts on hand for most of them).

Given those same conditions, where would Allen stand among them? I don't know, but he would not be in that 99.999% group. 

I personally think of myself as somewhat intelligent, but I know if I hang out with a bunch of MIT graduates I'm going to feel like an idiot.
This so happens to be where the most talented, and skilled Donkey Kong players hang out. In statistical terms Allen Staal is an outlier hanging with outliers of outliers.   

It's important to remember that of the millions of people who have played these games, the percentage of those who have ever actually made an attempt at becoming seriously good at any of them is tiny. Comparing any competitor to the total population of people who have ever played one or more credits is really not useful. Fun in a sense, but if there must be comparison, it has to be competitor-to-competitor.

Even that is a problem. Speaking for myself, my PB at this game is nowhere near my potential, and never will be, because improving at it (or even playing it, outside of a tournament), is no longer interesting to me. It may be again someday, but not now.

A lot of people bowl, or play pool, or run, or swim. But how many do so competitively? And of those, how many are trying their hardest?

[homerwannabee]

See that's the thing, how many people of any endeavor take something to the next level.  Allen did that with Donkey Kong.  Just because a good percentage didn't take it super seriously doesn't lesson the accomplishment.

[mikegmi2]

I would tend to agree with Chris.  .0001% of the people that have played Donkey Kong actually attempt to break a million or get to the kill screen.  I would have to bet that if everyone did, at least 50%+ of those people could make it to the kill screen rather easily if they put in the same amount of time as all of us have. If there was a mandate for all US citizens to get to the kill screen or be forced to pay 50% federal taxes, the kill screen list would have 200,000,000+ names on it.

Even the current world record score, I would bet 20% of all people that played the game could break the world record, or at least get 1.1M...if they put in the number of hours other world record holders have.  The difference between 1M and 1.1M is essentially grouping up top on all barrel boards, and having good luck with how the fireballs behave on all barrel boards. Learning how to do this efficiently doesn't take long.  Plug and chug enough hours, and you're there.  Time becomes the most significant factor.

That's not to say it isn't difficult, and even unattainable for some...but put your mind to it, and put in enough time, and it is almost always achievable.

[marky_d]

I would say that more attempted to get good at DK and other games than you might think. The problems were limited quarters, machine availability and information availability (even though there were strategy books/magazines). But yeah, I agree most played casually.

[VON]

The 5 stages of grief:

Stage 1 - Denial
If BA can do it, surely I can do it.  This is gonna be easy!

Stage 2 - Anger
Washing machine lid.

Stage 3 - Bargaining
Why am I so unlucky?  If only I could stop being so unlucky...

Stage 4 - Depression
I can't play this game!  I'll never get a high score!  Ffffffttttt  Fk this I'm outta here!

Stage 5 - Acceptance
And I don't know how this pertains because Allen hasn't reached this stage yet.  He's stuck in a loop between stages 2 and 4. 

[Bliss1083]

I believe my 771k score around 2011 was good enough to be placed 7th. Can't fully remember. So if he had an interest in this game without the movie king of kong being created. He'd be a top 10 player. I remember chasing after I believe Ben falls 801k score. It's been so long can't remember if that was it.

[marky_d]

Ben had a 903,400 I think, which I'm pretty sure was 3rd or 4th at the time.

[Bliss1083]

Thanks marky. There was an 801k game I was chasing. Can't remember whose it was back then. Anyways that's ancient history. Lol.

[Bliss1083]

Lol. By chance thinking that the player would have improved his game but just checking I found out he didn't and it was stephen Boyer or Steven. His score was the 1 I was chasing back then.

[ChrisP]

Joseph, the funny thing about that score is it actually wasn't Boyer's PB. He beat the official 801K pretty quickly and got a kill screen, it just wasn't ever submitted.

You were chasing... a ghost!