The Book Shelf – Video Game Canon

Boss Fight Books Season 7 Announced: “EverQuest”, “Untitled Goose Game”, “Outer Wilds”, “Dance Dance Revolution”

Boss Fight Books celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year, and now they’re back with a brand new batch of books. A Kickstarter campaign for Boss Fight Books: Season 7 promising four new volumes in the series began on August 20th.

If you’re unfamiliar with Boss Fight Books, the publisher produces “documentary-style books about classic video games” that tackle the “history, meaning, and legacy of a single video game”. Would you like to know which titles will be included in Season 7? Drumroll please…

[Continue Reading…]

David Wolinsky’s Oral History of Gamergate, “The Hivemind Swarmed”, is Now Available in Bookstores

We’re ten years out from the online harassment campaign that came to be known as “Gamergate” and I’ve still never been able to wrap my head around the idea that some people thought a torrential barrage of death and rape threats was an appropriate response to writing about video games in a way they didn’t like. The creator of the Don’t Die interview series, David Wolinsky, was similarly baffled by Gamergate, and he recently spoke to a number of “major figures in gaming, tech, media, and politics” to get the real story behind the hashtag.

Wolinsky’s The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, the Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet is an oral history of Gamergate, but it’s also an examination into how the harassment campaign later influenced the alt-right movement:

An incisive oral history that brings together the voices of major figures in gaming, tech, media, and politics to reflect on the long shadow of Gamergate

With The Hivemind Swarmed, oral historian and documentary researcher David Wolinsky invites readers to sit in on a series of urgent, intimate conversations between some of the most distinguished voices across entertainment industries and media as they reflect on the longstanding impact of Gamergate. What went wrong, and what can we learn from Gamergate to help us build a more equitable online world?

The backstory: 10 years ago, a disgruntled software developer named Eron Gjoni posted online to accuse his ex-girlfriend, game developer Zoë Quinn, of sleeping with game critics in exchange for positive reviews. He offered no evidence to back up his claims. However, his posts were picked up by extremists in the gaming community who built a vicious online movement targeting women, minorities, and progressive voices. Rallying under the hashtag #gamergate, they sent their victims round-the-clock death and rape threats. Game companies, for the most part, declined to take action as their female employees were harassed out of their jobs. The FBI launched an investigation but found “no true threat.”

Gamergate holds the grim distinction of being the first modern online harassment campaign. It arguably served as a model for the alt-right movement that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House. And it highlighted a toxic media culture—not just in gaming, but in film, TV, journalism, and more—in which leaders, through their passivity, took the side of the oppressor. Now, 10 years later—in the wake of #MeToo, Charlottesville, the Trump years, and the January 6 insurrection—the questions discussed here are more important than ever.

The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate, the Aftermath, and the Quest for a Safer Internet was recently published by Beacon Press and it’s available in bookstores now.

“The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom” is Getting Ready to Rock in Winter 2025

Blake Hester put together a sprawling Oral History of ‘Guitar Hero’ in 2021 for Waypoint after sitting down with all the key players from Harmonix, RedOctane, and Activision.

But rather than leave the stage, Hester’s coming back for an encore with an expanded version of the original article, The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom, now in a book-length special edition package featuring die-cut tabbed pages and an amplifier-esque textured slipcase.

Altogether, he spent roughly a year tracking down and interviewing more than 30 people involved in the development of the game, the selection of the music, and the creation of all those plastic instruments. What followed was a tale worthy of the best of Behind the Music. A story of towering success followed by a crash back down to Earth… with redemption possibly existing just over the horizon.

Guitar Hero never taught anyone to play the guitar… but it sure felt like it. Game nights became head-banging parties that all your friends were invited to. As the fanbase grew, so did the setlist, with A-listers Aerosmith, Van Halen and Metallica all lending their unforgettable back catalogues. As the craze spread, so too did the play-along opportunities, with 2007’s Rock Band adding plastic drums, bass and vocals to the mix. It seemed like the party would never end… until it suddenly did.

The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is the definitive story of a game that, entirely fittingly, lived fast and died young. Building upon Blake Hester’s celebrated 2021 history of Guitar Hero for Vice, it widens its gaze to cover the evolution of the Rock Band series, from its first tentative press of the red fret button to its insane overblown crescendo of songs, hype and impossible-to-pack-into-the-loft plastic peripherals.

The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is currently seeking funding through Volume, and will be published by Read-Only Memory in Winter 2025 if it reaches its goal by July 19th.

UPDATE (7/3/24): The crowdfunding campaign for The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom has added another option for those interested in learning more about the birth (and quick death) of a new game genre. In addition to the Deluxe Edition ($80) and the Harmonix Signed Edition ($100), prospective buyers will also be able to pick a less-deluxe Standard Edition that’s been priced at $60.

MIT Press Will Add “Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy” to its Platform Studies Series on May 14

MIT Press‘s long-running Platform Studies series has used an academic lens to explore the technical aspects and cultural impact of a diverse array of video game consoles since it began in 2012. But after covering successful platforms such as the NES, the Super NES, the Wii, and the Atari 2600, the next book in the series will definitely surprise a few readers.

Jose Zagal and Benj Edwards have made the unconventional choice to focus on… wait for it… the Virtual Boy in Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. More than just an infamous failure, the Virtual Boy offered a unique experience that still has people talking about it today:

With glowing red stereoscopic 3D graphics, the Virtual Boy cast a prophetic hue: Shortly after its release in 1995, Nintendo’s balance sheet for the product was “in the red” as well. Of all the innovative long shots the game industry has witnessed over the years, perhaps the most infamous and least understood was the Virtual Boy. Why the Virtual Boy failed, and where it succeeded, are questions that video game experts Jose Zagal and Benj Edwards explore in Seeing Red, but even more interesting to the authors is what the platform actually was: what it promised, how it worked, and where it fits into the story of gaming.

Nintendo released the Virtual Boy as a standalone table-top device in 1995—and quickly discontinued it after lackluster sales and a lukewarm critical reception. In Seeing Red, Zagal and Edwards examine the device’s technical capabilities, its games, and the cultural context in the US in the 1990s when Nintendo developed and released the unusual console. The Virtual Boy, in their account, built upon and extended an often-forgotten historical tradition of immersive layered dioramas going back 100 years that was largely unexplored in video games at the time. The authors also show how the platform’s library of games conveyed a distinct visual aesthetic style that has not been significantly explored since the Virtual Boy’s release, having been superseded by polygonal 3D graphics. The platform’s meaning, they contend, lies as much in its design and technical capabilities and affordances as it does in an audience’s perception of those capabilities.

Offering rare insight into how we think about video game platforms, Seeing Red illustrates where perception and context come, quite literally, into play.

Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy will be available in bookstores on May 14.

Jordan Mechner’s “Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family” is Now Available

Jordan Mechner previously chronicled the early portions of his career in The Making of Karateka: Journals 1982-1985 and The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993, but more recently he’s turned his illustrator’s eye to his own family history.

Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family is now available in bookstores in hardcover and as a downloadable ebook via First Second Books, and it tells the story of “his family’s journey through war, Nazi occupation, and everyday marital strife.”

Writing on his official website, Mechner describes Replay as “a very special [and] personal work for me” and explains that the graphic novel memoir “interweaves the story of my life as a game developer (making Prince of Persia, Karateka and The Last Express) with my dad’s flight from Vienna as a child refugee in 1938-41 through Nazi-occupied France, and my grandfather’s back story as an Austrian teenage soldier in World War I”:

In this intergenerational graphic memoir, renowned video game designer Jordan Mechner traces his family’s journey through war, Nazi occupation, and everyday marital strife.

1914. A teenage romantic heads to the enlistment office when his idyllic life in a Jewish enclave of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is shattered by World War I.

1938. A seven-year-old refugee begins a desperate odyssey through France, struggling to outrun the rapidly expanding Nazi regime and reunite with his family on the other side of the Atlantic.

2015. The creator of a world-famous video game franchise weighs the costs of uprooting his family and moving to France as the cracks in his marriage begin to grow.

Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner calls on the voices of his father and grandfather to weave a powerful story about the enduring challenge of holding a family together in the face of an ever-changing world.

The Internet Archive will be hosting a virtual Book Talk event for Replay with Mechner on March 27 at 1:00 PM (Eastern Time). It’ll be hosted by Chris Kohler of Digital Eclipse (coincidentally, the developer behind The Making of Karateka compilation for the PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S), and tickets are currently available for free.

Guardian Faber Will Publish Keza MacDonald’s “Super Nintendo” in 2026

Keza MacDonald has been writing about video games for a long time. She is currently a Video Games Editor at The Guardian (as well as serving as the regular steward of their Pushing Buttons newsletter), and has previously written for Kotaku and IGN. MacDonald is also the co-author (with with Jason Killingsworth) of You Died: The Dark Souls Companion.

But for her next trick, she’ll be flying solo with Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun, a new book all about Nintendo and why the company is “the key to understanding video games and what they do for us”:

Super Nintendo explores the cultural and social impact of video games through the franchises of Nintendo; the Japanese company is universally regarded as being the most influential in the industry, having produced landmark series such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon.

Having exploded in popularity in recent years, video games are now the dominant cultural medium of the 21st century, adored by millions of people around the world. By telling the stories of these games – of those who made them and those who play them – MacDonald will provide readers with an unparalleled understanding of how and why Nintendo spreads the joy it does, revealing what our affection for games tells us about ourselves. In doing so, she speaks to that most human of desires: the desire to have fun.

MacDonald recently published a fantastic interview with Shigeru Miyamoto for The Guardian, so she’s clearly the right person for this topic.

Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun will be published in the UK by Guardian Faber in Spring 2026. A worldwide release will presumably follow.

“Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment” is Coming from Jason Schreier on October 8, 2024

After releasing Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made in 2017 and Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry in 2021, investigative journalist Jason Schreier is getting ready to publish his next deep dive into the development side of video games.

Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment will explore Blizzard’s founding and its early years creating classics like Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft. But it’ll also tackle the company’s more recent woes as corporate intrigue surrounded its Irvine campus in the wake of its merger with Activision, as well as an examination of the sexual misconduct and discrimination lawsuits levied against the company, and Blizzard’s eventual acquisition by Microsoft in 2023.

[Continue Reading…]

David Craddock Will Explore the Many Ports of Doom for Boss Fight Books in “But Does It Run Doom?”

John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack, and Sandy Petersen changed everything when they released Doom in 1993. It wasn’t the first first person shooter (nor was id Software’s earlier game, Wolfenstein 3D), but it defined what the genre would look like for years to come and led to a stampede of “Doom Clones” that continue to be produced to this very day.

Even after writing all that out, it’s still hard to believe… Doom is 30 years old.

David Craddock, the author behind Stairway to Badass: The Making and Remaking of Doom 2016 and Rocket Jump: Quake and the Golden Age of First-Person Shooters, recently moderated a discussion between Romero and Carmack that has been embedded above. The two developers touched on a lot of interesting topics as part of the anniversary celebration, and at the end, Craddock revealed that he’s cooking up another Doom-adjacent project for release in the not-too-distant future.

The author will work with Boss Fight Books to publish But Does It Run Doom?, an exploration of the many ports (both official and unofficial) that have been based on the seminal shooter. Here’s what he had to say about the new book, including a promise that it’ll also delve into some of the very weird machines Doom has appeared on…

These guys have graciously allowed me to insert a quick plug for a project I have coming out and it’s in the vein of what we’ve been talking about.

I’m partnering with Boss Fight Books to release a book called But Does It Run Doom? I’ll be writing about some of the conventional ports such as the Super Nintendo [and] PlayStation, but also some of the more out-of-leftfield ports such as on pregnancy tests, on the sheep in Minecraft…

So look for that on @BossFightBooks on Twitter [and] BossFightBooks.com. [They’ll] have information coming out.

This is somewhat of a departure for Book Fight Books, but hopefully that means they’ll have more to say about But Does It Run Doom? soon.

“Doom At 30” is a “Guide to Thirty Years of Ultra-Violence” from Marc Normandin and Trevor Strunk

Between David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, Dan Pinchbeck’s Doom: SCARYDARKFAST, and John Romero’s Doom Guy, a lot of words have been written about the development of Doom and its impact on the rest of the games industry. But you’ll definitely want to make room on your digital shelves for at least one more upcoming book about id Software’s masterpiece.

Doom At 30: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Three Decades of Ultra-Violence is the brainchild of Marc Normandin (Retro XP) and Trevor Strunk (No Cartridge), who have joined forces as No XP Publishing and gathered together more than a dozen writers to explore the franchise from every possible angle:

DOOM at 30: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Three Decades of Ultra-Violence will be a digital book, zine, whatever you want to call it, that takes a deep and complete look at the 30 years of the franchise. It will include reviews and discussions of every DOOM game — including the ones once thought lost to time, as well as modern add-on episodes like John Romero’s Sigil — the DOOM movies, and an array of features diving in from all angles. The tech, the WADs, the mods, the violence, the terror, its place in various genre canons, and, of course, DOOM 3 opinions. Many, many DOOM 3 opinions. DOOM at 30 might be unofficial and unauthorized, but we want it to be the definitive look back at the franchise’s first 30 years all the same, which is why there’s even more than what’s listed above planned.

The duo is currently seeking funding to publish Doom At 30 through Kickstarter. In addition to the various reward tiers, they’ve also shared who’ll be joining them on this project, and the list includes more than a few names that should be familiar to fans of video game history: Demetrius Bell, Madeline ‘Mads’ Blondeau, Kerry Brunskill, LaToya Ferguson, Elijah Gonzalez, Brendan Hesse, Sorrel Kerr-Jung, Cameron Kunzelman, Liz Ryerson, Colin Spacetwinks, Jackson Tyler, and Carli Velocci.

If you want to get am idea of what Doom At 30 will offer, Normandin recently published several bonus articles that look at how John Carmack and John Romero built their groundbreaking 3D tech and the expanded universe of mods that have arrived in Doom‘s wake.

He talked briefly about id Software’s early experiments in the first person shooter genre (including Hovertank 3D, Catacombs 3D, and Wolfenstein 3D) at RetroXP. And over at Astrolabe, he examined some of the fan-made mods that have emerged over the last 30 years, including Romero’s unofficial fifth episode, Sigil.

The Kickstarter campaign for Doom At 30 will end on Wednesday, September 20.

UPDATE (9/21/23): Doom At 30 was unable to reach its funding goal, but Normandin wrote on Bluesky that he’ll “think up something else to make it happen down the road”.

Stuart Gipp’s “All Games Are Good” is Now Available to Assure Us That There Are No Bad Games

It shouldn’t be surprising, but you’ll see a lot of the same titles if you peruse the Best Games lists that make up the Video Game Canon. Obviously great games like Tetris and Half-Life 2 and Resident Evil 4 and many others have served the listmakers well across the decades.

With more than 1,400 games included in the aggregate list, there’s also a massive buffet of good games to play, along with plenty of forgotten corners to explore. And though it might be hard to believe, some of the titles you’ll found on the Video Game Canon (like Atari’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial at #539) are thought of as bad games by a not-insignificant number of people.

But does it have to be that way?

Stuart Gipp, a writer who makes his home at Retronauts and Merry Hell, has written an entire book to let the world know that All Games Are Good. And as a fan of more than a few of those bad games, I have to admit, he’s probably right…

What makes a game good? A compelling storyline, perhaps. Intuitive, responsive controls are a stand-out quality. But now (at last!) one man dares to stand up and speak truth to power – all he wants is to jump on frogs and collect colourful fruit.

This edifying, entertaining and occasionally emotional rummage through a lifetime spent playing all the wrong games should last the test of time as a under-appreciated and over-criticised chronicle of the games that nobody else writes about.

Open your heart, eyes, mind and wallet, and you too will understand that All Games Are Good.

All Games Are Good features Gipp’s completely honest thoughts about more than 200 games that were “woefully under-appreciated, over-criticized, or simply forgotten” in their time. He’s got a lot to say, and this weighty tome is now available from Press Run, the book publishing arm of Limited Run Games.