As an avid midlife gamer with nostalgic interest in gaming history I enjoy reading gaming books.
In this picture you can see the gaming books I own. My favorite is “Masters of Doom” followed by “The Ultimate History of Video Games” (I am aware there is a second volume).
I would like to hear more recommendations from you.
P. S: Note that PC gaming is my thing therefore it is highly unlikely that I will get a book about consoles or console games.
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Maybe you will find Blood, Sweat and Pixels by Jason Schreier of interest. Been a little while but I enjoyed it as an audio book.
I’ve read that tedium. Some chapters revealed something interesting, but everything else was empty. Why do I need to know what kind of wine the developers drank and in what pub after the bad news got announced to them?
This book’s core issues are very important. The book itself sucks!
If you like DooM and are interested in the techy parts of it at all, there’s a great series called “Black Book” that has a volume dedicated to DooM. The author is a cool dude and has done one for Wolf3D, DooM, and others - https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/
I second this. I’m not involved in game development in any way and I still enjoyed it.
Raising the Bar (out of print for several years now so I recommend just finding yourself a .pdf) is a book about the development of Half-Life 2 and bits of Half-Life as well. Geoff Keighley has also written a few “The Final Hours” books about the development of Portal 2, Titanfall, and Half-Life: Alyx, though I think all are digital-only.
I also second this one.
If you enjoy science fiction, Ready Player One is super great. Do not judge it based off the movie. Quite different plots. Do skip Ready Player Two though.
Came here to recommend RPO, myself. It’s an absolutely fantastic book. It’s loaded with tons of 80s/90s music, gaming, and pop culture references, and is just so damn fun.
I haven’t read either, but the following two are on my list:
- John Romero actually has a book coming out in like 3 days called DOOM Guy: Life in First Person
- Mark Brown from Game Maker’s Toolkit recommends Spelunky by Derek Yu (by the dev of, well, Spelunky).
Are you interested in books that are based on game series rather than being strictly about gaming? If so you should absolutely read the Halo books, they’re fantastic. Start with The Fall of Reach.
Another game series with a great set of books is Battletech/MechWarrior. The lore behind Battletech is crazy deep, I’ve watched so many YouTube videos about it and have only scratched the surface. I’ve only read one of the books but I want to get more of them.
I considered reading about game series but it must be a series that interest me, sadly that is not the case with Halo and MechWarrior. Thanks for your recommendations anyway of course.
Freeway Warrior by Joe Dever. An eternal classic.
I think this is a gamebook (as in CYOA)?
I am actually looking for gaming books (about video games).
Ah, I see. Well, the book for SCORN offers quite an interesting insight into the process of creation of this otherwise boring game. The world of Cyberpunk 2077 is also sweet.
I appreciate the mixup in book recommendation as this looks genuinely awesome!
It is. It was the source of fun for generations across whole globe.
It was recently re-released by a Swedish publisher.
Youtube’s Ashens has a couple of books about games published - Terrible Old Games You’ve Never Heard Of and Attack Of The Flickering Skeletons. If you know his style you can imagine the general tone.
both of Jason Schreier’s books - Blood, Sweat, and Pixels and Press Reset
I recently read “Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow” and I don’t recommend it.
Fuck Yeah, Video Games: The Life and Extra Lives of a Professional Nerd by Daniel Hardcastle.
This one got me interested, added it to my wishlist. Thanks!
There are the Boss Fight Books where each Book is about a single Game (MegaMan, Red Dead Redemption). The writing Style varies for each Book since they are written by different people.
This Game Analysis of Wario Land 4 is pretty interesting aswell. The focus is more on the Game Mechanics instead of personal experience.
There`s also this Dark Souls Book.
There is a Doom Novel Series aswell. I can`t really tell anything about them since I only read a few pages of the first book.
“The Ultimate Guide to Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest”
Couldn’t have beaten the game with it.
If you’re into lore expanding fiction, I really enjoy the Halo books:
- Fall of Reach
- Contact Harvest
- Ghosts of Onyx
- Forerunner trilogy (this some deep sci-fi)
- First Strike
I can’t personally recommend them yet but I’ve read great things about the lock on “magazines” (they look more akin to coffee table books) and have a set in my cart that I’m going back and forth on
