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.