STFU 2009: The 10 People We Hope Will Shut the F*** Up at This Year's E3
These 10 people need a reminder that mouths are for putting hamburgers into, nothing more.
5/28/2009 7:10 PM | 24 Comments | Page 1 of 3
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
1. Steven Spielberg
Who He Is: Hollywood director; Oscar-winner; Boom Blox producer.
Why He Needs to STFU: It's nice to have some celebrity clout around the formerly not-always-ready-for-primetime videogame realm. But the amount of methane that flies out of Spielberg whenever he talks about games could single-handedly re-inflate the Hindenburg. I seriously doubt that Spielberg was anything close to resembling "hands-on" with the production of
Boom Blox or its sequel,
Boom Blox Bash Party -- so when he does his I'm-a-beleaguered-developer song-and-dance at E3, it comes off as more than a little insincere.
2. Media Molecule
Who They Are: Makers of
LittleBigPlanet; makers of many award-acceptance speeches.
Why They Need to STFU: Media Molecule did the impossible in 2008: The formerly humble developer somehow moved from
last year's speak-up list to this year's STFU list. In 12 short months Media Molecule went from being a tiny, mysterious, U.K.-based company to being more overexposed than poor old Susan Boyle. We fully realize that we created this monster by bringing M.M. to the stage countless times at the DICE Awards and the GDC Choice Awards and lavishing it with statues. But one more "You love us; you really, really love us!" moment and we'll chase you into the old windmill and set it on fire.
3. Will Wright
Who He Is: Father of the Sims; creator of
Spore.
Why He Needs to STFU: We love hearing Wright talk as much as anybody. Heck, we'd gladly pay $1.99 per minute to hear him read his shopping list. ("Eggs. Milk. Beard shampoo.") That said, Wright currently suffers from what appears to be a chronic case of Peter Molyneuxitis. He built up
Spore so much over the past five years that we practically expected it to cure cancer and resolve all conflict in the Middle East. When it finally shipped, it turned out to be a halfway-decent real-time strategy game that most of us stopped playing after two days. Will: Next time, less talk, more action, OK?
4. Satoru Iwata
Who He Is: President of Nintendo.
Why He Needs to STFU: We thought Reggie Fils-Aime was the source of Nintendo's evil. But like a final boss fight in a game, after you defeat Reggie, another, even more powerful boss appears. And that boss is Satoru Iwata. No one currently embodies Nintendo's preening, self-satisfied attitude quite like Gasbag-san. Have you noticed his ability to make workplace abuse sound cute during his speeches? Example from his GDC keynote: "My team said, 'We can do this in two years'; I told them that they had two weeks." (Peals of laughter usually ring out.) OK, we get it, Iwata, Nintendo is successful. But rubbing everyone's nose in it, repeatedly, with your charts and graphs at every opportunity, only makes us all anticipate the day when the tables turn on the Big N. once again. And that day will come. It's inevitable.
