For me I am going to go with a shocker. I am going to say this forum has directly influenced more Donkey Kong players than the King of Kong has. Yes, I get it that if there is no King of Kong, than there is no forum, and thus no forum influence on the player of today, but that right there is indirect influence.
True the King of Kong has also inspired many people to pick up the game at least casually, but in my opinion this forum has directly influenced more players in a longer, and stronger fashion. To make a religious analogy. Although Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha all had wonderful messages if no one ever set up places of worship for like minded individuals their messages would likely remain very much unknown, and underground from the entire world. It was the community of individuals that truly kept all of those messages strong up to today.
So what I am saying is this is the community of Kong. King of Kong may have started the great fire, but it's this forum that has kept putting logs on the fire to continue the strength of where it is today. So yes, this forum is still very new. It only started 5 months ago, but in those five months look at what has happened, and the building up of interest of this game. I know personally that before I knew of this forum I sort of fell a bit wayword of going after Donkey Kong. I was toying around with Lady Bug, 1942, Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, and Moon Patrol. But since I have caught the fire it's been mainly Donkey Kong like it was originally going to be.