Opinion
18 CommentsMighty No. 9's new trailer is a 'masterclass' in Marketing 101 failures
The title of the latest trailer for Mighty No. 9, which launches June 21, is "Masterclass," and the video does in fact work as a teachable example of what not to do when promoting your game.
The trailer's description states that "Mighty No. 9 is a side-scrolling action game that takes the best elements from 8- and 16-bit classics you know and love and transforms them with modern tech, fresh mechanics and fan input into something fresh and amazing!"
That may be the case, but the video embodies none of these qualities. It betrays its own description and seems to miss the mark on some basic marketing best practices.
What went wrong here? Let's dive in.
SHOW, DON'T TELL
Video games are a visual medium. They are often the best product to implement a "show, don't tell" strategy, which...
Opinion
28 CommentsOverwatch's most interesting trait can be its hardest to get used to
Overwatch is, in broad terms, a hero-based first-person shooter. You pick your hero, you play the round and you attempt to use each character's abilities to their fullest. But Overwatch's most interesting wrinkle is also the hardest to get used to: You can switch characters at any time.
This is part of the reason the game isn't free-to-play, according to Blizzard. "We really made the decision on the business model based on what we thought was right for the gameplay," game director Jeff Kaplan told Polygon at Blizzcon last year. "If you've played a lot of Overwatch, you know that hero-switching [mid-match] is a core part of it — it's a really fun dynamic part. The difference maker between ... Overwatch and other games is the fluidity in the team compositions and matching what the other...
Opinion
67 CommentsHow Blizzard turned me into a salesperson for Overwatch
Let me be clear about something up front: I don't really care if you buy Overwatch. This story isn't about using my influence to try to get a large number of people to purchase the game. I love that you're here, but in terms of your decision to buy or not buy Overwatch? I don't give a shit.
My friends are another story.
I, like many people, assumed that Overwatch would be a free-to-play game. I play with the same core group of five or six people on most nights, and getting them to try games when there is no money to risk is pretty easy. They'll try anything once, even if time being at a premium means that one of us has to step up to champion the game to get people interested. If that doesn't happen? The evening is spent with Diablo 3, or maybe Rocket League. Heroes of the Storm is...
Opinion
98 CommentsGame of Thrones proves that social media etiquette no longer exists
This week, something peculiar happened on the internet.
While that's not too odd — something peculiar always happens on the internet — this directly impacted Game of Thrones fans. On Saturday, the most recent episode of the show was leaked online. The episode, which was unfortunately released a day early through HBO Nordic, was immediately shared around the world and even the network itself seemed to just accept what had happened.
Who said pirates couldn't be respectful?
Here's the peculiar bit: Despite the episode being pirated, shared and downloaded by thousands, people weren't going around ruining it for those who were waiting until Sunday night to watch it. Instead, they were posting links to the episode with an array of spoiler alerts, giving people who didn't want to know...
Opinion
78 CommentsOculus is picking a fight with developers and fans it has no chance of winning
The very small, and often very excitable, world of virtual reality was in an uproar last week when Oculus VR released a software update that broke a third-party program that allowed Rift games to be played on the HTC Vive.
"Our latest software update included several new features, bug fixes and security upgrades, including an update to our entitlement check that we added to curb piracy and protect games and apps that developers have worked so hard to make," Oculus told Polygon. "This update wasn't targeted at a specific hack."
We were told this was coming. "When we first learned about hacks that modify our software to interfere with the security, functionality and integrity of the Oculus ecosystem, and allow games to run outside the scope of our QA, testing and support, we immediately...
Opinion
103 CommentsSomeone help Tony Stark
Tony Stark should have died at the end of the first Avengers film.
The final scene saw Iron Man take a nuclear weapon through an alien wormhole, detonate it in the middle of a pan-dimensional army and then, by luck, fall back down to Earth where he was caught by the Incredible Hulk. It was an act of self-sacrifice, as well as an answer to Captain America's earlier criticism of Stark's selfishness.
Stark didn't die, because heroes with that much star power can't die in films based on comic books. But the writers of the ensuing movies have been increasingly showing the strain that his survival has put on his mental health.
This was a major theme in Iron Man 3, with Pepper Potts struggling with the act of supporting Stark. She doesn't do a great job, but who would? Dealing with a...
Opinion
20 CommentsDoom’s first 10 minutes are perfect
The latest Doom game wants to be loved so much.
I don't mean that as a slight; Doom is absolutely a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, and doesn't waste a single moment before beating you over the head with that experience.
I snuck down into my basement for a quick session during my lunch hour when I first picked up the game, and was afraid I would just barely have time to get to the "good part." You know what I mean: the moments after the explicit, or sometimes implicit, tutorial when the game itself actually begins. If the game it still pausing every so often to explain how to duck, you haven't gotten there yet.
"Doom starts immediately and violently," our review states. "You begin the game in chains and within seconds, you're beating things to death and blasting...
Opinion
80 CommentsThe PlayStation 4 power and eject buttons are still confusing people, three years later
The PlayStation 4 was released in 2013. I attended an event for critics and writers where I was given one, I was taught how to use most of the system's features and I spent the rest of the evening in a hotel room playing games and exploring the new system. The PlayStation 4 is, by far, the system on which I spend the majority of my non-PC gaming time. I've been there since before the first day of its release, in other words.
I still don't know what the front buttons do.
Stop laughing, I'm not alone
I'll admit that this is kind of a shameful secret, and everyone is welcome to make fun of me. I'll just kind of touch the front of the system over and over until it either turns on or the disc is ejected. I purchase most of my games digitally, or I'm provided download codes from a...
Opinion
24 CommentsHow Game of Thrones is taking back nudity
Last night's Game of Thrones ended with an awe-inspiring sight: Daenerys Targaryen, standing at the door of a burning building, having just immolated the male leadership of Vaes Dothrak. She was naked, poised and regal. The Dothraki people bowed. Daario witnessed the sort of power that turns a leader into a god, and Jorah had his faith in the queen refreshed.
And no, that wasn't a body double.
"I'd like to remind people the last time I took my clothes off was season three," Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke told Entertainment Weekly. "That was awhile ago. It's now season six. But this is all me, all proud, all strong. I'm just feeling genuinely happy I said 'Yes.' That ain't no body double!"
Clarke was once involved in a bit of a kerfuffle about the show's use of nudity, as her...
Opinion
15 CommentsDisney Infinity was a triumph
Today I read that Cracker Jack boxes now include a QR code that links to mobile games, instead of a physical toy.
"The Cracker Jack Prize Inside has been as much a part of the nostalgia and love for the brand as the unforgettable combination of caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts," Haston Lewis, the senior director of marketing at Cracker Jack parent company Frito-Lay, said in a press release. "The new Prize Inside allows families to enjoy their favorite baseball moments through a new one-of-a-kind mobile experience, leveraging digital technology to bring the iconic Prize Inside to life."
I was recently at a museum with my children and saw a variety of antique Cracker Jack toys under glass, and marveled at what you used to get inside the box. I have memories of what used to come with...
Opinion
11 CommentsDead parents, Steven Universe and processing grief
Steven Universe is a show known primarily for its bright colors, fantastic music and handling mature themes about love, gender and consent with a surprising deftness for an action cartoon series aimed at a young audience. But when folks are listing the Cartoon Network hit's virtues, there's one that doesn't get nearly enough attention.
A lot of Steven Universe is about presenting how its characters deal with grief.
Throughout the Crystal Gems' adventures, their familial foibles and attempts to relate to the humans around them, there is a continuous, quiet acknowledgement of loss. The empty space left when their former leader Rose Quartz "gave up her physical form" — died — in order for her half-human son, Steven, to be born, is ever-present.
To Steven's family members, Rose was a...
Opinion
49 CommentsThe invisible gamers
I grill my friends relentlessly about their gaming habits.
I have a pretty good network of close friends and acquaintances, and they share many traits that make them attractive to the gaming industry. Most are in their mid-30s, and they have a pretty good disposable income. They may game for an hour or two a night after the kids go to sleep. They upgrade their PCs every few years, and buy two games or so a month.
And they're completely invisible to the industry outside of their gaming purchases.
How many of them are there?
It's tricky to track the number of these "invisible gamers," but my gut says there are way more of them than there are of us. And by "us," I mean people who read gaming news on a daily basis, and talk about games on our social networks. We read reviews the day...
Opinion
38 CommentsWho cares how many people dislike a piece of marketing?
As of this writing, 474,689 people disliked the trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. 204,064 people have liked it. 9,290,024 people have viewed the trailer since it was released on May 2.
That means that we don't know how around 93% of the people who viewed the trailer see it. They could love it, they could hate it. We have no way of knowing. Of the people who disliked the trailer, we have no data that indicates whether or not they'll buy the game.
"First of all, you gotta love the passion of gamers," Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said during an earnings call when asked about the dislikes. "This is an industry like no other and a fan base like no other. We love that our fans treat this franchise like their own and have such strong points of view about it. There...
Opinion
37 CommentsSpider-Man became the most boring superhero on film, but Marvel's changing that
When Spider-Man came out in 2002, I was enthralled with it. Like most people, I thought Tobey Maguire was a great Peter Parker and a pretty good Spider-Man. When Spider-Man 2 hit, I enjoyed it, but it didn't capture the same kind of movie magic that I loved in the first one. By the time Spider-Man 3 came out, my fatigue with the character had begun to set in and I left the theater feeling disappointed and, more than anything else, okay with never watching another Spider-Man movie again.
Fast forward five years from 2007 to 2012. Sony has decided to reboot the Spider-Man franchise following the disaster that was Spider-Man 3. They've brought in a new Peter Parker — played by the charming, boyish and English actor Andrew Garfield — and things were beginning to look up for the studio that...
Opinion
4 CommentsFragments of Him offered me catharsis after the shock of losing someone
It's both strange and serendipitous that Fragments of Him, a game that confronts grief head on, arrived not long after Zach died.
Zach and I had been close in high school. I met him when I was 17, and we spent much of our time together steeped in teen misery. We felt as though we had found the one other person who understood how terrible it is to be young and sad.
That mindset was something I soon got tired of, though, as I started getting ready for college. Zach was younger than me and less willing to put aside his anger and loneliness. That's what bonded us, after all: how much we couldn't stand everyone else around us.
But I couldn't live like that anymore. The misanthropy we shared wasn't natural to me anymore, now that I was in college and broadening my perspective. But he...
