Earlier this year, Tim “timthetatman” Betar appeared in a Super Bowl LII commercial featuring a young boy who roamed the country with a football before finally reaching Hard Rock Stadium, the site of the big game. While the child is walking in the distance early, Tim calls, sits down, and shouts, “Take it home, boy!”
Six and a half months fast forward, and more than 300,000 people are standing on the edge of their seats, watching Timthetatman play the viral video game Fall Guys on his Twitch stream, waiting for Tim to finally “take it home.” “
After several days of trying, multiple losses and angry attacks, Tim finally deserved a victory in Fall Guys on Wednesday, much to the delight of gamers and fans everywhere.
“I was just at cloud nine,” Betar told ESPN in a telephone interview on Wednesday night. “I can think of another time that I played a video game and that I had a feeling. That was when I actually played World of Warcraft, which I played for years. Me and my guild got one of ‘ the big bosses down. And I do not know what this was back when I was 20 or younger, and I just remember that moment, I was, ‘oh my go, this is incredible. I’ll never get this feeling again “We finally did it.” And I had that very kind of feeling today, where I am, this is unbelievable. I finally did it. “
Fall Guys has become a gaming phenomenon since its release on August 4th. The premise is simple: 60 people playing adaptable bean-like characters per game go through a series of levels that include obstacles, team games, and survival challenges. At each level, humans are eliminated until there is only one bean (like pigeon, like dinosaur, like milkshake). The game is inspired by the TV Game Show Wipeout and the Japanese game show Takeshi’s Castle. It is one of those “easy to learn, easy to master” games that has captured the attention and hearts of gamers everywhere.
It’s consistently the most watched video game on Twitch, over heavyweights like Fortnite, League of Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone, even sometimes the perennial leading category “Just Chatting”. Fall Guys’ Twitter account has more than one million followers. Mainstream brands (including fast food chains Wendys and KFC), gaming figures and organizations consistently strive for the game’s attention. They place clips of the game and lobby for cosmetic skins in-game. There’s even a bidding war currently raging at a charity auction to get a skin in the game, which is currently at $ 420,069.69, where bids are everywhere coming from Tyler “Ninja” Blevins to Jimmy “MrBeastYT” Donaldson to esports organization G2 to even bidet attachment company Tushy, with the proceeds going to Special Effect, a UK-based charity that helps gamers with physical disabilities.
To put it another way, Fall Guys has become a sensation of the night.
Betar points out two key factors that make Fall Guys great as a spectator experience.
“I think it’s a really simple game, it’s really easy to understand. And it’s really unpredictable,” Betar explains. “You’re a little boy. And your goal is to beat other people in a race and get to the checkpoint, and it’s like a battle royale style. It’s really easy to understand. I think a lot of people just be able to sit, look at it and understand.
The chaotic nature of Fall Guys also produces some extremely memorable moments.
TIM NO Why!
(Fia @timthetatman) pic.twitter.com/PLHoTpEhBY
– ESPN Esports (@ESPN_Esports) August 19, 2020
“There was one (stage) where I think it was 39 people who qualified,” Betar said. “Seven people qualified and I was right there in the pack. I’m like, Oh, this is simple, right? I’m just going to jump over the lines. And then randomly one man turned around and grabbed me. I was like, Okay, that kind of slowed me down. And then all of a sudden, from behind me, someone else was swung forward, surrounded me and so I fell over and I’m like what’s crazy? Then my husband stands up. And I was like, hit by a ball and I fell back and then just like that I was eliminated.And I sat there, like, What just happened? I was two meters from the finish.And now my conversation is ripping and raging.They all take a kick out … I think that unpredictability, that’s something a lot of people love. ‘Did you see what happened to Tim, can you believe it?’ I think that’s what makes it really, fun to watch. “
Betar started playing with Fall Guys last week and admitted he wrestled with the game early on. Progressively he would get better, but it seemed the longer he came, the more he ‘could not take the crown’. What started with playful ribs from his conversation turned out in great interest from all corners of social media. Along with the rise of the game in the zeitgeist, Betar’s hunt for a winning must-watch stream. In addition, there were equal amounts of support and jabs.
“He’s really terrible at Fall Guys,” Ali “SypherPK” Hassan told ESPN with a smile in a video interview on Wednesday after streaming the game with Betar the day before. “I watched him watch. He takes the losses and rages over them, but he never stops. At least I do not see him, stop and think ‘what could I have done better?'”
Perhaps the most iverich with the “disses” was the Twitter account of Fall Guys himself, who took every and every opportunity to remind everyone that Betar in his game was still without W.
@timthetatman Hi Tim, we just have all our player ranks based on how well they are doing with them, and I thought you would like to know that you are not really in the last place 👌
There’s another account that’s done less than you … but it’s actually a developer account we use for AFK testing
– Fall Guys 👑 (@FallGuysGame) August 16, 2020
The gifted Betar took it all in stride and was grateful to have what has grown into a cultural moment in gaming, which began completely organically – when he was asked about how it all turned out and whether he became one of them entered, a member of Betar’s team replied “it was all Tim.”
“I just think it’s ultimately something that was fun,” says Betar, trying to explain how this has become one of the biggest stories in gaming of the year. “I think a lot of people know me in the sense, I do not take things really personally. So like when Fall Guys started to know about me, everyone knows I like it. And it was just this cute little banter and it’s that simple, right? and I think that’s part of the reason people’re attracted to it. Like Tim, just jump, (press) square, what are you doing? Right? and I’m having trouble doing just that. to do that is such a simple task, right? And then in the end, you just got everyone rooted for me. I got people who tweeted me videos of them, cheering for me. many eyes were drawn because it was so simple, and so light-hearted. “
On Tuesday, Tim broke his own personal peak record of viewership, more than 150,000 viewers on Twitch. Betar said that the longer it took to win and the more people started watching, the more nervous he became because he did not want to let them down. The win still bothered him and time did so too, as he had sponsorship obligations for the rest of that day. During that time, ESPN unveiled a story about Betar’s futile futility that included an ESPN app alert that got many to its phones, including Betar’s family.
“The first thing that popped into my head when I saw ESPN pushing a warning ahead [me] on people’s phones and stuff, my dad was very confused, “Betar joked. My dad will look at his phone and be, wait a minute, like, what’s going on here? Why does Tim appear on my ESPN app? I think I was just kind of like it was surreal for me because (as) kids I sport my whole life. I’ve always watched a lot of different sporting events, you know, I would watch SportsCenter and ESPN all the time and watch me on ESPN. That is, not something I never would have thought it would have happened. That it’s really cool. I was very humbled. “
Then on Wednesday, the moment had finally arrived. With many great streamers rallying around him, including Ninja, Benjamin “Dr Lupo” Lupo, Jack “CouRageJD” Dunlop and more, Betar would finally bring it home. After days of crying and screaming, putting his head in his hands, storming out of pure room after room, he looked straight at the camera this time and wrote “LET’S GO! YOU SAID IT COULD NOT BE DONE! THERE IS THE KING! ”His Twitter messages also blew up at an unusual pace.
– timthetatman (@timthetatman) August 19, 2020
“The amount (of mentions) really shocked me,” Betar said. “Stuff was trending. I’ve never seen such a thing in my attention before. That was a first time thing for me.”
When tongue in cheek was asked what he has to say to all his doubters now that he has finally done it, Betar, much calmer without a camera in front of him, jokingly said “Look at me now, King of the castle! I got my one crown Meanwhile you have (people) with 50 crowns.But I’m proud [of] my one. “
So, if it had not happened on Wednesday, how long would Tim have tried to win? A week? A month? Several months?
“I told Alexis, my wife that I was, I just had to go until I got a win,” Betar said, laughing. “Like there’s really nothing else I can do at the moment. I thought of other games I normally play like Call of Duty and stuff like that, and I love Call of Duty, but I was into it. “I was like, I have to do this. There’s nothing else for me right now. I had to get this profit. I had to figure this out.”
Despite eventually catching a dub, the trash talk does not look like it will stop, especially from its inner circle.
“Hey Tim, glad you finally got a win in Fall Guys,” Twitch Streamer and Betar’s friend from high school Action Jaxon told ESPN in a statement. “It looks like things are really looking up to you and you’ve had a lot of success. JUST KIDDING loser, it’s my high school PJ. Are you going through Tatman now? Looks like you can hardly win anything yet. Remember Tirzah out of math class? The girl you had a tailor on? Well, we’m married now. I make $ 200K a year and drive a Jeep Wrangler. I think some things never change, he Tim? “
It’s unclear whether Tim will not continue to play Fall Guys at the same rate he had last week, or whether it will remain in the rotation of games he streams, but of course the question will be many, he got one … can he get two? For now, Betar can take a moment to enjoy the final chapter of the greatest saga of 2020.
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