Meet the Mob: Cody Winn

Um, hi!

My name is Cody Winn (some people might say I’m full of Winn, if they wanted to make a terrible pun) and I thought it was about time I posted one of these “Meet the Mob” blogs — even if my contributions to the community have been lacking lately. I guess that’s what you get for trusting me with your pre-Bitmob launch secrets and opportunities, Hsu: laziness.

Let’s see, where to start. Well, most of you know my real name (kudos to Bitmob for making us do that, by the way, as it’s great for building a kinder, more supportive community), but maybe not my username, NintendoTheory, which I use almost everywhere. It comes from my love of Nintendo games, of course, but also the band Linkin Park, who in my angst-ridden teen years I apparently found appealing.

I’ve been playing videogames since I was two or three years old, the very first one being Super Mario Bros. 2, which is far better than people give it credit for (and better than the “real” SMB2, in my opinion). The first system I ever owned was an SNES, and the first game I ever owned was Street Fighter II.

I’m currently the proud owner of as many consoles as I can fit into my entertainment center, and I’m very much looking forward to owning a PS3. However, I spent most of my young life as a Nintendo fanboy: I completely skipped the PS1 because they were “the enemy,” and at the tail end of my fanboyism I refused to touch an Xbox controller because they were “tainted.” Yeah, I’m glad those days are behind me.

Though it’s my dream career and I absolutely love doing it, I never really fancied writing until I joined 1up.com back in the Fall of 2004. I’ve had my blog up over there for almost five years now, and it will continue to be there as long as the site exists. Besides getting me into writing, 1UP has allowed me to “meet” some of the most wonderful friends I’ve ever had, and to this day I still haven’t found a community that’s completely torn apart the “e-friend/offline friend” barrier for me like it has (though I imagine Bitmob will reach that level too, someday).

I started getting into 1UP just after I’d come out of a very painful time in my life. I won’t bother you with the details, but let’s just say it got to the point where not existing became a pleasant thought — a thought that luckily never panned out. Part of it had to do with my anxiety problems, which began to develop when I was 16-years old. Sadly, I didn’t really accept them as a reality until it was too late, so I’m still dealing with them today.

I’ve made a lot of progress though: I’ve gone from not being able to leave my house to holding conversations with people in public, and at this point I’m only really bothered by some of the more difficult social aspects of life, like traveling to game conventions or, say, taking some of the offers I’ve gotten from 1UP and *gasp* EGM when it was still alive.

But enough sadness! My specialty is bringing smiles to you, the smiling people full of smiles.

I was still having trouble with my your/you’re/our/are/they’re/their/there stuff when I began my adventures in writing, and the actual content of my blogs wasn’t all that great either: I mostly posted my fake interviews with Martha Stewart, my fake poker games with Jesus, and my ridiculously bad Jedi/Nintendo crossover fan-fiction.

… I can’t believe I just admitted all of that.

Anyway, I slowly honed my craft over the years, thank god, and started to catch the eyes of people like Hsu and Sam Kennedy (1UP). I’ve gotten to know them pretty well, and they’ve even occasionally let me in on information of the secret variety. Though I’m also very good friends with Hsu’s girlfriend, Raychul, so he’s pretty much required to like me, ha ha.

I have my foot wedged in the industry’s door at this point thanks to the connections and friendships I’ve made, but due to the aforementioned anxiety problems I can’t quite walk through said door yet. I keep hacking away at my personal problems though, and I’m also (hopefully) becoming a better writer every day, so things are looking up.

Before I got into writing my main love in life was art. I’ve been known to do mostly portraits these days, like this one or this one, though I’ll occasionally sketch the Mario Bros. or chibi Gordan Freeman too. Ever since I started focusing on my writing, my art has kind of taken a back seat to it, though I’m trying to change that lately by getting the pencils out as often as possible.

In terms of what I like out of my games, first and foremost they need to have solid controls. Without that, nothing else really matters. I also like my games to have a unique art style, tell their stories through your in-game actions instead of cut-scenes, and not be frustratingly difficult. RPGs are my favorite, though I like pretty much anything. I tend to shy away from sports titles, RTSs, and MMOs though.

This blog is probably getting a little long, so here are some quick, random facts about me to round this thing out:

• My favorite Nintendo character is Toad.
• I have a peanut butter sandwich every day.
• I’m a huge fan of knit caps, and my drawer full of them is close to bursting.
• I’m a strong advocate of Sprite, which heals the common cold. Seriously!
• I’m a pretty friendly, optimistic guy. This doesn’t always work out in my favor though.
• My favorite game of all time is Majora’s Mask.
• I tend to sell my games. A lot. Quality over quantity, right?
• Craig Ferguson is my hero.
• I am a Scrabble fiend.
• … oh, and this is what I look like.

And I guess that’s it! Thanks for reading! Hopefully you enjoyed learning a bit about me, though honestly I’m not too interesting, ha ha. When I’m not here blogging on Bitmob, you can find me on 1UP and Twitter.