“The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters” documents a highly competitive true-story rivalry for the world’s record score on ... the Donkey Kong video game. Beyond being entertainingly good, this film about an offbeat topic includes a free-society lesson in the form of Twin Galaxies, which, in a sense, plays a supporting role in the movie.

Formed in the early 1980s by Walter Day, a traveling salesman turned arcade-owner, Twin Galaxies' focus is video and pinball games; it bills itself as “the world authority on player rankings, gaming statistics and championship tournaments…." This voluntarily-organized and run regulatory institution sets worldwide standards of play and recognition of the best scores -- and it has nothing to do with government. Twin Galaxies was not legislated into existence, is not run on taxes, does not lobby for subsidies to build state-of-the-art arcades for “gamers,” and so on.

You might think it silly to use Twin Galaxies as an example of what people in a free society will voluntarily provide. However, like the Shriner’s Hospitals, which offers free medical care for children, Twin Galaxies is a great example. It shows that people voluntarily organize to take care of needs, real or perceived, regardless of how important, silly or trite they may appear to you or me.