[Ecis2023]
Compared to other art forms, the video game market is still in its infancy. The publishing industry is still catching up to the moderate’s rapid rise. There are not too many gaming books since there are about literature and film, there’s a growing canon of intriguing video game books and their history.
You are reading: Top 40 Best Video Game Books of All Time Review 2022
In no specific order, here are 30 of the Best Video Game Books Must Read 2022 about matches, touching upon a vast array of games and subjects which affected us to gravitate toward this interactive creative outlet.
Table of Contents
- 1 Top 30 Rated Best Gaming Books To Read
- 1.1 Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier
- 1.2 Masters of Doom by David Kushner
- 1.3 Console Wars by Blake J. Harris
- 1.4 Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life by Chris Kohler
- 1.5 Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan
- 1.6 Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection
- 1.7 Hardcore Gaming 101 Series
- 1.8 World of Warcraft books
- 1.9 Assassin’s Creed Book Series
- 1.10 Dishonored Book Series
- 1.11 Dragon Age Book Series
- 1.12 Spelunky by Derek Yu
- 1.13 Masters of Doom by David Kushner
- 1.14 Gamelife by Michael Clune
- 1.15 Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell
- 1.16 Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
- 1.17 The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World by Dan Ackerman
- 1.18 All Your Base Are Belong to Us by Harold Goldberg
- 1.19 Hyrule Historia by Patrick Thorpe and Michael Gombos
- 1.20 The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon
- 1.21 The NES Encyclopedia
- 1.22 Retro Gaming: A Byte-Sized History of Video Games
- 1.23 Monstroso by Charlie Higson
- 1.24 The Legend of Zelda Official Sticker Book
- 1.25 The Sword of Herobrine by Jim Anotsu
- 1.26 Daniel X: Game Over by James Patterson
- 1.27 Ali-A Adventures
- 1.28 Press Reset By Jason Schreier
- 1.29 The Art Of Super Mario Odyssey By Nintendo
- 1.30 Firebreak By Nicole Kornher-Stace
- 1.31 The Art of Death Stranding
- 1.32 Significant Zero: Heroes, Villains, And The Fight For Art And Soul In Video Games By Walt Williams
- 1.33 Earthsea saga – Ursula K Le Guin
- 1.34 Mass Effect Book Series
- 1.35 The CRPG Book
- 1.36 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- 1.37 The Art of the Last of Us Part II
- 1.38 The Games That Weren’t By Frank Gasking
- 1.39 Men, Women, and Chainsaws – Carol Clover
- 1.40 The Infinite Playground: A Player’s Guide To Imagination by Bernard De Koven with Holly Gramazio
Top 30 Rated Best Gaming Books To Read
The single thing more entertaining than playing video games is studying these. In the last couple of decades, we have seen the number of video game books burst as players want to find out more about the business, and authors attempt to catalog and analyze what’s grown into one of the world’s most popular forms of amusement.
Pennbook has decided to compile a useful guide to everyone the best books about games and video game art books money can purchase.
With this out of the right direction, let us turn the page, will we?
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier
Though a number of these gaming books are somewhat more distant in the background, in Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier writes about a lot more modern day names with a focus on the enormous human cost necessary to create virtually every game you enjoy.
Whether Cartoon or AAA and also the way unsustainable, which can be for the sector as a whole. You will find tales about video games out of Destiny to Diablo 3 to Dragon Age: Inquisition in here, and all are worth a read.
Masters of Doom by David Kushner
John Carmack, John Romero, and Paul McCartney are the John Lennon and Paul McCartney of video games. Masters of Doom is their tale. These two men came from nothing and created two of the most popular video games franchises in history, Doom and Quake.
Considered among the best video game history books, Masters of Doom by David Kushner explores the roots of their most well known FPS of all time, and also the way it had been created and altered the landscape of gambling forever. An uplifting, sometimes cautionary tale of what it had been like for these young geniuses construction games such as Doom and Quake.
Console Wars by Blake J. Harris
You wouldn’t expect a perfect book in this genre to be considered thrilling, but that is what Blake Harris manages to catch in this story about the competition between Nintendo and SEGA from the 1990s. That will be a must read for any gamer and his personality, which makes you feel like you’re in the area as these discussions unfold.
Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life by Chris Kohler
Nintendo is just one aspect of Western gaming, and if you would like a deeper dip in that portion of the earth and its video games, then Chris Kohler’s video gamebook is for you. This book has insights from everybody from Shigeru Miyamoto to Hideo Kojima and is a rewarding read from the genre.
Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan
That is just another, the broader history of gambling you ought to check out since it’s commentary from Nolan Bushnell, Will Wright, John Romero, and Hironobu Sakaguchi of Final Fantasy. A whole lot of excellent insights here and also a fantastic companion to a number of the other classics recorded above.
Super Famicom: The Box Art Collection
Best Video Game Art Books
This beautiful launch from Bitmap Books is a compendium of stunning cover art, all obtained from Western Super Famicom releases. Every game’s pay is revealed via high quality photography and can be accompanied by a brief description.
This is the best coffee table book and a must for many Nintendo fans particularly those who grew up importing bizarre and terrific video games based only on their covers independently.
Hardcore Gaming 101 Series
Hardcore Gaming 101 is among those longest running game history sites online. Its completely priceless evaluation of classic games is a real godsend for gamers that wish to brush up on the history of their beloved pastime. Sometimes, the group supporting the site chose to repackage a number of its internet content in the kind of actual gaming books, each one packed with imagery and text.
World of Warcraft books
Chock full of tales and data, these books are fantastic for lovers searching for more from the Warcraft universe. The last two phrases are crucial here since some World of Warcraft books occur before the events of World of Warcraft itself. There are, nevertheless, 16 WoW books to get your teeth into. We recommend beginning with the handily titled Volume 1 book.
Assassin’s Creed Book Series
Oliver Bowden et al. do a great job of linking the dots and incorporating narrative flourishes into the Templar v Assassin’s Creed battle through the ages. It’s possible to begin using Renaissance because it had been the first book to be printed, together with all The Secret Crusade that follows Altair according to the first game, or with whatever one goes along with your favorite games.
Dishonored Book Series
An underrated set of books, both of those gaming books remain alive in the luxurious universe of Dishonored’s Empire of the Isles and its history and places to excellent effect. The Corroded Person is the very first book.
Dragon Age Book Series
Among the most wealthy, intriguing, and colorful game worlds in Thedas comes to life in these gamebooks. There are so much lore and background established from the matches to build on. To begin with the gaming books, you will want to Begin with The Stolen Throne.
Spelunky by Derek Yu
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By game centric writer Boss Fight books, Spelunky by Derek Yu details his rogue like platformer’s growth, which is considered one of the best indie games of all time. Yu’s autobiographical narrative lays his influences and his development in the sports market.
However, what is most intriguing about Spelunky is Yu’s incredibly in-depth explanations such as diagrams and graphs of the way he made his procedurally generated platformer. It is a fantastic video game book for lovers of the sport, in addition to aspiring game programmers.
Masters of Doom by David Kushner
It is not entirely unreasonable to explain John Carmack and John Romero since Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of video games. While they shared a passion for matches, Carmack and Romero had vastly different styles and personalities. Their differences probably contributed to their achievement for a team but additionally established rifts that would finally finish their partnership.
Kushner’s now classic biography of the guys behind Doom, Quake, and Castle Wolfenstein follows the duo’s route out of their troubled childhood, to menial tasks, into the founding of Software and the development of the most well known matches, names which changed PC gaming indefinitely.
At Id, Carmack and Romero became the video game equivalent of rockstars. It is a gripping read, one which touches on their matches’ impact on popular culture at large, the good and the poor, and certainly will provide you a broader perspective about the FPS genre and PC gaming generally.
Gamelife by Michael Clune
Michael Clune fell in love with video games the first time that he played with a little known computer sport Suspended when he was seven years old. Following that, the young introvert jumped to solo experiences, learning what he’d write as what you can not learn from individuals.
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell
Crucial looks at the video game happening are not as widely accessible as you’d believe. The market that has surpassed Hollywood in earnings remains in relative infancy.
In a mixture of personal essays, essays, and criticism, game author Tom Bissell tries to answer the question: Why are we drawn to video games? Why does this interactive type thing? If you are interested in assessing video games out of a critical but highly readable lens, look no more.
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
We generally see entertainment as a way to escape from our daily lives to get a temporary period. Your regular gamer probably viewpoints controller sessions as a way to destress, as well as a route to block out the real world by taking charge of the lifetime of a fictitious personality. Game designer Jane McGonigal knows this to be correct, but she presents a good situation for matches to remedy the planet’s continually multiplying problems.
By retooling instruction, to revolutionizing company, to more private issues like mental illness, she posits the games that the majority of us play may, in some capacity, provide for the larger good. It is a video game book that’ll get you to consider games as more than only a medium for pleasure.
“A game is an opportunity to focus our energy, with relentless optimism, at something we’re good at (or getting better at) and enjoy. In other words, the gameplay is the direct emotional opposite of depression.”
The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World by Dan Ackerman
Tetris is probably the most recognizable video game of all time. The original puzzle game surfaced almost 33 decades before, however as CNET editor Dan Ackerman points out, that the game is played today a rarity because most games don’t hold players’ focus for at least a couple of months.
Ackerman’s book sets out to analyze the planet that has stayed so enamored with all the mystery games to this day. In a book that is half source narrative, half cultural comment, Ackerman leaves no cube exemptions, matching the pieces together with pure precision.
All Your Base Are Belong to Us by Harold Goldberg
BioShock. World of Warcraft. Super Mario Bros. Grand Theft Auto. Madden. All five matches represent vastly different styles and genres, but they all share something: They contributed to the growth of video games in culture.
Game critic Harold Goldberg goes back in 50 decades of gambling history to describe why and how the moderate became pervasive, and also talked with a number of the industry’s most famous designers, such as Ken Levine and the superbly closed-off Houser brothers, amongst others.
Hyrule Historia by Patrick Thorpe and Michael Gombos
Video Game Art Books
You can call this low hanging fruit since a coffee table book about Hyrule’s history is sure to be of interest to anybody who has gotten their hands on a few of many excellent and frequently game changing Legend of Zelda games. Then again, a listing about video game books would feel incomplete without the time that eventually unraveled the string’s perplexing, oft debated timeline.
Originally published in Japan together with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, this hardcore compendium is thoroughly detailed, along with full color concept artwork and a surprising number of textual commentary and revelations concerning the long running franchise. To put it simply, if you are a little Zelda fan, it should be on your shelf.
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon
Much more historical exploration of video games, from arcades into PC into handhelds. If you read only one book on video games’ history, then choose this one, then the moment you are done, catch another. I had been joking about the only one book part. There is no shortage of interesting stories to find.
The NES Encyclopedia
Penned by highly respected UK games journalist and Nintendo Life contributor Chris Scullion, The NES Encyclopedia intends to catalog every game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Yes, Chris, is that mad. However, you know what? He has wholly pulled it off, and this book is your best source for anybody, even the tiniest bit considering the vast NES library of matches. Scullion understands when to put on the understanding and should crack a joke, so it is a real joy to see.
Retro Gaming: A Byte-Sized History of Video Games
Best Retro Gaming Books
When there are some fairly weighty tomes available that attempt to graph the whole history of the games business exhaustively, there is something to be said for a less heavy approach. And that is what amuses Nintendo Life scribe Mike Diver has performed with this excellent book.
Packed with educational nuggets of advice and heaps and loads of beautiful graphic novels, this video games book is the perfect way to quickly get yourself (or a loved one) up to speed decades of games, programs, and much, much more.
Monstroso by Charlie Higson
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Fans of tactical and war games will adore the immersive Monstroso. Monstroso is a real life warrior Oscar generates after having a mysterious record on his daddy’s computer. This warrior is programmed to perform anything Oscar requests him but he realizes that his new buddy will only ever get him in trouble! Get prepared to end up in the center of mad struggles, experiences, and creatures!
The Legend of Zelda Official Sticker Book
Hardcore fans of this epic Legend of Zelda will adore these beautiful sticker activity novels based on your favorite games! This decal is packaged with all of the figures in the show, super fun pursuits, and totes of puzzles.
It features hundreds of stickers so lots of you can also share them with friends and family! This will keep you amused until another Nintendo video game is introduced and return to the beautiful world uniquely and enjoyably.
The Sword of Herobrine by Jim Anotsu
The Sword of Herobrine follows Arthur and Mallu’s narrative, a sister and brother that could not be more distinct. Mallu enjoys playing games of Minecraft while her brother certainly hates the match. When his sister gets sucked in the Overworld, Arthur does not have any option except to rescue her. This is a narrative packed with zombies, creepers, and many more creatures than you can rely on! Prepare for an epic experience.
Daniel X: Game Over by James Patterson
Daniel X is one of the best superheroes to exist and contains conquer tonnes of evil doers. In this book, he should eliminate a set of shape shifters who have a famed video game enterprise.
Their next video game launch is just another of the wicked plans: they wish to control the minds of children throughout Earth. Can Daniel X figure out how to save the day once more, or is it game over for him? Please adhere to the alien hunter on his epic mission!
Ali-A Adventures
That is right: the favorite YouTuber composed a book! Ali-A is the writer of the beautiful story and the main character (together with his cute puppy, Eevee). When he’s at the start of Alien Liberator two, he’s made to change from a gambling superstar to some hero and combat the cruel aliens that crash the function. Can he save the day with his lovers’ assistance or lose the struggle to the end of game boss?
Press Reset By Jason Schreier
Jason Schreier, the author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, has released this latest videogame book. Schreier’s second behind the scenes look at the video game industry focuses on the collapse of some of the most prominent video game studios over the past decade and the next steps. You won’t find a more compelling or better researched overview of the complex realities of the video game industry than each chapter.
The Art Of Super Mario Odyssey By Nintendo
The Super Mario Odyssey 2017 is one of Nintendo’s most beloved games. This book, which includes concept art, preliminary sketches, and notes from the team, reveals the talent and art that created this beloved game. This book allows readers to look at the world of Super Mario, from its artwork to its marketing.
Firebreak By Nicole Kornher-Stace
This sci-fi first book is a mix of Ready Player One and Black Mirror. The story is set shortly, in which two corporations have caused a split in the remaining 45 US states. Mallory prefers to stream SecOps, Stellaxis’s wargame than engage in the chaos around her. Mallory is suddenly offered a side job, where she will be trying to find a missing girl and one of SecOps’s characters. Mal then finds herself in danger that she has only seen in the game.
The Art of Death Stranding
Death Stranding was one of the most exciting games of the past year. It had a unique aesthetic and style but also offered a beautiful world to explore. Get the book to go beyond Sam’s in game adventure.
Significant Zero: Heroes, Villains, And The Fight For Art And Soul In Video Games By Walt Williams
Walt Williams, who was writing for school newspapers, never dreamed that he would one day be writing for the most popular video games. This book tells the story of Williams’ unlikely rise to the top in the video game industry. He does this by revealing the secrets of the creation and development of video games.
Earthsea saga – Ursula K Le Guin
When I interviewed fantasy role playing games, developers, they referred to this series as often as Lord of the Rings. Le Guin’s stories of adventure and magic conjure a sense of immersion and atmosphere, making it easy to see how important they were for game makers, screenwriters, and authors.
Mass Effect Book Series
Mass Effect’s futuristic science fiction setting is reminiscent of the Dragon Age series. The one called Mass Effect: Revelation is the best.
The CRPG Book
The book Computer Role Playing Games is unique. Bitmap Books published this book with exceptional quality. It features beautiful photography, exciting interviews, and beautiful screenshots. It is highly recommended.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Fantastic science fiction where a young boy escapes the harsh realities of his life into a virtual reality called Oasis. This video gaming book is full of references to 90’s video games and is a page turner!
“It was the dawn of a new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame.”
The Art of the Last of Us Part II
Pre-order The Last of Us 2. Why not pre-order the accompanying book of art? As I did. You can pre-order Deluxe Edition as I did and enjoyed Naughty Dog’s post apocalyptic world.
The Games That Weren’t By Frank Gasking
We’ve already talked a lot about the most popular video games. What about the games that didn’t make it to players? Frank Gasking examines the games that never saw the light of day in The Games That Weren’t. These games never made it to gamers for many reasons. Many of them have intriguing stories and mysteries. Gasking will tell these stories.
Men, Women, and Chainsaws – Carol Clover
This book about the psychology and gender dynamics of horror entertainment, entitled Gender in the Modern Horror Film, is focused on movies, but it deserves to be here since I’ve cited it in almost everything I’ve ever written about Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Dead Space. This is a key study in the field of pop culture analysis.
The Infinite Playground: A Player’s Guide To Imagination by Bernard De Koven with Holly Gramazio
Bernard De Koven is most well known for The Well Played Game: A Players Philosophy. The academic book, published in 1978, has been a key text in modern game studies. De Koven’s final work, The Infinite Playground, was published this year. It is at once scholastic and humane.
Other Highly Recommended:
- Japansoft: An Oral History – edited by Alex Wiltshire
- The Infinite Playground: A Player’s Guide To Imagination
- Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris
- Game Over Press Start to Continue by David Sheff
- The Making of Prince of Persia by Jordan Mec
- A Game Design Vocabulary – Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
What’s your option for these books about video games? Happy Reading!
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