Thousands of books about video games have been published in the last forty years. It’s not just history books. Social Commentary, Psychology, novelizations, strategy guides, and autobiographies have flooded the market, especially in the last ten years.
So many books have been released that it might be hard to know where to start. Things can be overwhelming for someone trying to get into the huge world of literature about video games. I had this problem when I started collecting and reviewing books.
I put together a few lists to help readers get started. I’ll give some comments on the books that I find particularly interesting. Each book is very good and is fun to read.
I had considered leaving some of the books on social commentary off of this, but I feel that it is important to include them. The history of moral panics around video games is as important as how they make people feel. While I don’t agree with what the two authors wrote in their books, it is important to have them in case someone wants to counter their facile arguments.
Histories
I had a very hard time narrowing this down. There are so many books on the history of video games, companies, and periods that it can be overwhelming. Some of them are more accurate than others, depending on when they were written. This is a list of the books that I found to be the most interesting.
- Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari by Scott Cohen – This book looks at the financial situation around the time of Atari’s collapse. It looks not only at Atari but also at its parent company.
- Rocket Jump by David Craddock – While it might have been easy to include Masters of Doom in this book’s spot, I feel that David does a better and more complete job of covering what happened at id Software during the 1990s and early 2000s.
- From Pinball to Pixels by Ken Horowitz
- Play Nice by Jason Schreier
- Game Over by David Sheff
- Jacked by David Kushner
- Commodore Trilogy by Brian Bagnall – These three books tell the story of Commodore. They are very detailed and have a lot of quotes from the engineers who worked there. Together, they tell the history of each computer the company released and abandoned.
- Suddenly, I was a Shark! by Caleb Ross
- Monster Kids by Daniel Dockery – This book is all about Pokémon and the cultural influence it had. It covers the first three generations of video games and the pop culture surrounding them.
- The Race for a New Game Machine by David Shippy and Mickie Phipps
- Smoke and Mirrors by Mike James – This one tells the story of the vaporware console, Coleco Chameleon. It also goes into the people behind the console and the various failed business ventures of the man behind the console.
- Gaming the Iron Curtain by Jaroslav Svelch – An amazing look at Eastern Europe’s computer and video game industry during the Cold War. It is an area of the world that doesn’t get covered as much, but has a fascinating history when it comes to video games. (YouTube Review Link)
- Itchy Tasty by Alex Aniel
I could’ve kept going with this list, but I had to cut it off at some point. I tried to grab something from each part of gaming history, such as arcade, console, and computer. I feel like this is the largest genre of books.
There is a language barrier for me, so other books in foreign languages aren’t going to be on this list. It isn’t a slight against those authors or books; it is just hard for me to recommend something I can’t or haven’t read.
Novels
I haven’t read too many novels and novelizations at this point. Here are the books that I have enjoyed so far. As I read more novels, I’ll expand on this list.
- Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller by Chet Williamson
- X-COM: UFO Defense by Diane Duane
- Myst Trilogy
- Shadowkeep by Alan Dean Foster
Biographies
There is something about reading a biography that I like. As a historian, I like to hear about what happened from a person who was there. Granted, it means you’ll get a skewed view of what occurred, but as long as you remember, it can be fun to read about.
This is a small selection of the biographies and autobiographies I’ve read over the years. They range from developers, executives, and strategy guide writers. I know there are many more, but this gives you a nice place to start.
- Creating Q*Bert by Warren Davis
- Once Upon Atari by Howard Scott Warshaw (YouTube Review Link)
- Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings by Ken Williams
- Disrupting the Game by Reggie Fils-Amie
- Back into the Storm by Bil Herd
- The Walkthrough by Doug Walsh (YouTube Review Link)
- Imagine That! By Ed Smith and Benj Edwards
- Sid Meier’s Memoir! By Sid Meier (YouTube Review Link)
I would recommend The Walkthrough, Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings, and Creating Q*Bert from this list. These three were the books that I got the most out of.
Boss Fight Books
Boss Fight Books is one of my favorite publishers. They’ve published over thirty books and have had several successful Kickstarter campaigns. Here is a short list of my favorite books they’ve published.
- Breakout by David Sudnow
- Galaga by Michael Kimball
- Resident Evil by Phillip J. Reed
- Golden Eye by Alyse Knorr
- Animal Crossing by Kelsey Lewin
- Postal by Brock Wilbur and Nathan Rabin
- Silent Hill 2 by Mike Drucker
- Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham
- Metal Gear Solid by Ashly and Anthony Burch
- Minesweeper by Kyle Orland
- Katamari Damacy by L.E. Hall
Social Sciences and Commentary
Some of these are fun to laugh at. I’m going to add a few that are critical of video games in an attempt to give both sides of the argument. While I don’t agree with all of them, I think it is important to point out the books that I don’t agree with.
I’ll do my best to balance things. If you don’t want to see the books that are, in my opinion, full of lies, then avoid those books. If you want to laugh at the absurdity of their arguments against video games, then check them out and try not to get upset.
- Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games is Wrong by Patrick Markey and Christopher Ferguson – This book does a spectacular job of pointing out the problems with the moral panic over violent video games. They go through the psychological studies and explain why the findings don’t mean what propagandists claim they mean.
- Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill by David Grossman – This book is the peak of poorly researched moral panic propaganda against video games. Much of the book isn’t true, and it ends with “parents should pay attention to what their kids are doing.”
- Lost in a Good Game by Peter Etchells
- Video Fever by Charles Beamer
- Ten Things Video Games Can Teach Us About Life, Philosophy, and Everything by Daniel Griliopoulos and Jordan Erica Webber
- Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul by James Paul Gee
If you were looking to research how video games have been looked at over the years, these books are a good place to start. You can track the changing narratives of the various moral panics in the United States surrounding video games. There is a big blind spot in this list.
I haven’t come across books like this for Europe, Japan, or other markets. I’m sure they exist, but I haven’t found them due to language barriers and a lack of time. It would be great to get some recommendations so I can create a more comprehensive list.
Collector’s Guides
I wasn’t sure if I should include this here. There are quite a few of these books, and they’re great sources for information. They also make great coffee table books. Here are a few I like.
- Ultimate Nintendo Guides by Pat Contri – Three books covering the NES, SNES, and N64 game libraries. They also include articles, hardware, and unreleased games.
- Game Encyclopedias by Chris Scullion – Chris has written several encyclopedias on the Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, and Game Boy. There are others, and I wasn’t sure which one to put here.
- Go Straight – This is a guide to the Beat’em Up Genre.
- A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Game from Bitmap Books
- Hardcore Gaming 101 books – There are so many of these that I have trouble pointing to one book. The eight volumes of their Digest are all very good.
Wrap Up
There were a lot of revisions to this list. As I was looking through my library, I kept coming across one that I thought could be on one of these lists. So many books have been written about various topics that it can be very hard to whittle down a best of or top ten.
I also didn’t want to do what so many other media outlets do when they regurgitate the same ten to twenty books. It feels like they keep putting the same books forward, or plagiarizing from one list written in 2015. They also seem to want to shy away from the more obscure topics and writers.
At some point, I’ll go through more of the books I’ve read and add a supplement section to this or more genres. There are thousands of books out there. This list merely scraped the surface, giving curious readers a decent starting point.
Here is a link to a few of the book reviews I’ve done for Animal Crossing, Myst, and Creating Q*Bert.