Worth Reading: 05/16/2014

I saw Godzilla last night! It's a worthy re-telling of a classic story, and I'm glad the big guy is back.

But there is something revealing about the way I prepared for Godzilla: I stopped participating in the marketing. To some degree, you can't avoid the hype train that leads to the release of a movie, game, or other major media event, but huge parts of marketing are participatory. You don't have to watch every trailer and clip that comes out, and you don't have to read the early impressions. I might have looked silly leaping for the remote control to flip past the latest trailer, but I did it anyway.

And I gotta admit: it really paid off. Almost everything in Godzilla was a surprise. The movie was more powerful. It makes sense for marketing to pluck some of the most visual arresting pieces of a work, but it feels like there's little restraint shown these days.

I don't do this for every movie. I mean, not every movie is new Godzilla film. I like participating in the marketing for other movies, I like seeing everything I can. I'm looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy, but it's not Godzilla--I'll be okay with soaking everything in.

I'm only able to use movies as an example because I don't have a choice with video games. As a writer that often sees and plays games ahead of release, I'm sometimes an extension of that marketing machine. I wonder how all of you deal with that. Are there particularly "special" games where you avoid everything that's out there, making the moment you boot it up all the more special?

Hey, You Should Play This

• 30 Flights of Loving
• Circuits
• Missile Comes Back to Me

And You Should Read These, Too

• "The Last Survivors of Meridian 59" by Simon Parkin

You could do a whole series of stories in this vein. It's one I've kicked around for a long time. Seriously! I've been considering a regular feature on visiting old gaming communities since I was a reporter at MTV News years and years ago. Maybe I should get around to it. But I'm fascinated by what drives some people to stick around with communities long after everyone else has left. This piece gets at the core of what I'd suspect drives most of it: relationships. The game draws you in, but the people prompt you to stay.

"Joshua Rotunda, a designer from New York who has played the game since he was fourteen, says that it’s the high stakes risk/reward dynamic that first drew him in and continues to hold his interest. 'My friend and I began playing at the same time,' he said. 'Shortly after starting, my friend’s character was attacked and killed in one of main city streets by a gang of veteran players. Even though I was much weaker than them, and alone, I attacked the group. My friend quit the game, but I was fueled with the need for vengeance in this little world and drawn in.'"

• "Understanding Nintendo's Tomodachi Life problem" by Christian Nutt

And here's a good reason why I never ended up publishing anything about Tomodachi Life. When someone like Christian Nutt writes a piece as emotionally affecting and personally illuminating as this, it's better to simply let this do the talking. If you don't understand why some people were so irked by Nintendo's response to the Miiquality campaign, in which users politely asked Nintendo to consider adding gay relationship options to Tomodachi Life, I really do recommend reading this.

"Why does Nintendo's statement rankle? It speaks to a basic truth of gay life: Straight people don't understand our lives -- that living, for us, is an inherently political act. If you think this is an exaggeration, you've never had to push down a quaver to clearly and calmly say, in an obviously male voice, "my husband" to a customer service phone rep at an insurance company, or had a government official ask which one of the couple is "the bride" when he's filling out a form, only for him to abruptly realize the absurdity of the question when he notices your expression.

Worth considering also is the idea that regardless of whatever the Japanese version supported or did not support, the Western edition of the game should incorporate same sex marriage in the name of cultural adaptability and fairness. I am not unsympathetic to this perspective, of course.

On the other hand, you must also consider the much larger political problem the company would have on its hands if the same sex marriage switch was simply flipped. In considering this, the anarchic, sandbox nature of the game must be considered, too: As the player, you can't really make anybody do anything."

If You Click It, It Will Play

These Crowdfunding Projects Look Pretty Cool

• Codemaster hopes to teach young people the magic behind programming.
• Kaiju-a-Gogo thrusts you into the role of a mad scientist with control over a massive monster.

Tweets That Make You Go "Hmmmmmm"

Oh, And This Other Stuff

• Barry Meade, creator of The Room, declares that mobile is burning and F2P is to blame.
• Jeremy Parish profiles the Wonderswan, once thought to be a successor to the GBA.
• Gita Jackson looks at how Watch Dogs reflects the city it's set in, Chicago.
• Scott Shackford and Emily Ekins try to uncover the politics of people who play games.
• Taylor Hidalgo analyzes the different ways Metroid games characterize Samus Aran.
• Gameological readers ponder the use of Nazis as cartoon villains in games over and over.
• Phil Hartup considers the subversive nature of Prison Architect.
• Keith Stuart writes about how little the world knows of gaming's nuance in 2014.
• Nathan Grayson learns how Below having a PC version will actually change the game's design.
• Kyle Prahl writes about a recent in-game memorial for a Final Fantasy XIV player who passed away.
• Ethan Levy examines the monetization implementation in Hearthstone.
• Jason Schreier humorously explains how to tell when an E3 rumor is fake.