Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture, on Serial, as quoted by Wired:

“So as people discovered that podcasts can be compelling in their regular media consumption, maybe we should’ve seen Serial coming from a mile away,” Thompson says. “As podcasts get more and more sophisticated, of course one is going to say ‘Wow, look at Fargo, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos—look at all these great stories being spread out and talked about before the next episode comes. Why not do it with a podcast?’ It seems so inevitable.”

Serial is unique in the sense that you as a listener are along for the ride. You are experiencing it with Sarah Koenig and the Serial crew. You’re being let in on a secret. And if you don’t listen right away, the secret is already out.

Not all serialized content lends itself to brilliance. Serialization is not the key. Great storytelling is the key. That’s not to say that episodic content can’t house great story too, but the water cooler conversation is dismantled by the uncertainty that others may not have the same desire to catch the latest episode. There is no grand secret.

What I would like to see from more podcasts, books, movies, TV shows, and video games is complete pre-meditated stories built out and enfold in chunks, teasing audiences along toward a grand reveal. I wonder if Tolkien experienced a fortunate accident? In the case of Serial, the experience has been a layer deeper. The audience has been tuning in to someone else unraveling a secret. And whether or not Koenig solves the mystery, the truth is finite.

John Gruber, The Talk Show:

In general, I would rather read an interesting, well-written novel that’s poorly typeset than read a terrible novel that is beautifully typeset. Of course. That’s the difference. Even me as somebody obsessed with typography would agree with that. Whereas with music, nobody ever says “I don’t care if the music sounds bad,” like at a technical level. It’s fundamental to listening to music. But as the person making the device, that should be the obsession.

Relinking similar thoughts about broken video games from myself.

Chris Suellentrop, intro to Matter’s _The __New York Review of Video Games _week long feature:

Welcome to _The __New York Review of Video Games. _If that name conjures for you an anachronistic, elbow-patched editor sitting at a dimly lit desk amid piles of plastic Atari 2600 cartridges and Sega Dreamcast discs, then good. It has done its job.

If not, then let me try this:

Video games are almost a $100 billion industry, sure. But video games do not matter only because they are large. They are also a new popular art, the kind of thing that comes along once a century. Two intertwined forces, computers and interactivity, have changed the world radically over the past 50-odd years. What is a video game? It’s a creative work — a competition, a story, an experience — that exploits the intersection of those two forces.

This is an incredibly important feature, comprised of great minds and personalities. A must read not only for video game enthusiasts, but those involved in the culture-at-large. So, everyone.

Ken Levine, creator of Bioshock, writing for Matter’s New York Review of Video Games feature:

There are two games that really kicked off what we think of as the modern “open world” game: Super Mario 64 and Grand Theft Auto III. These games unshackled the player from linear progression through a game’s levels. I think Shadow of Mordor is the first “open narrative” game. You’re not just checking off missions in a variable sequence. You’re changing the dramatis personae. Whenever you succeed or fail, the characters in the story respond to your actions, and not in the manner of a branching “choose your own adventure.” It is an excessively simple, yet impressively flexible, crime story.

Merriam-Webster:

The next two words on the list, nostalgia and insidious, saw huge increases in use this year, primarily because of their entertainment connection. Nostalgia was used in discussions about the television series Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire, and other cultural milestones like the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ arrival in America. “We saw more than a 100% increase in lookups of nostalgia this year,” says Kory Stamper, an Associate Editor at Merriam-Webster. “It was certainly used in reference to pop culture and television, but it was also used as a way to frame larger political discussions. We spotted examples of nostalgia used in connection with the annexation of Crimea and the defeat of Eric Cantor. People often think of nostalgia as a return to ‘good old days,’ so these uses that go beyond the personal may have surprised some readers and sent them to the dictionary.”

…

Lookups for feminism were strong throughout the year, as the word was used in many highly publicized comments–from the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision to the Gamergate controversy. One big spike came after TIME announced its 100 Most Influential People–a list including Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, and Pharrell Williams. TIME’s claim that 2014 was the “year of pop feminism” sent many people to the dictionary.

In 2014, more than ever (and for reasons other than Merriam-Webster’s), I seemed to obsess over the idea of nostalgia. It coursed through many of my pieces including Hail Mario, Golden Age Thinking, and Iterative vs. Redesigned Experiences. It also seemed to be a common theme strewn out through several of Nintendo’s recent first-party titles: The Excitebike Arena in Mario Kart 8, NES Remix, and the plethora of new characters and legacy nods in Super Smash Bros. to name a few.

On the topic of feminism, it is very interesting to see just how large the Gamergate conversation has become. 2014 felt like a truly remarkable year for the feminist movement and this list offers a small shred of proof.