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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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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
I recently read “Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow” and I don’t recommend it.
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).
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.
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!
I think it would be more worthwhile to learn a programming language. The great majority of gamers have no clue how games actually work, and it isn’t that difficult to at least grasp the basics. It will completely change your perspective while gaming and you’ll have a deeper understanding of features, design decisions, etc.
Thanks for your advice but I am pretty sure that is not what I am looking for (source: I did start a programing career in college eons ago but lose interest and become a dropout. :)).
