50 Books for Everyone in the Games Industry

Ground Glass writes "Over at Next Generation there's a comprehensive feature on the books that everyone in games should read. It's by game designer and author Ernest Adams, and attacks the medium from every possible angle. Adding these books to your Amazon wishlist could only give you a better understanding of where games have been and where they are (and should be) going."

Comments

I guess...

[Gice]

As is the case with 50 xxx of anything, one has to, in this case, also seperate the wheat from the chaff. Some of those books are excellent reads, others seem like somewhat of a stretch to relate to either the interests of a gamer or a game programmer, or game theorist.

Snow Crash.

[torpor]

I remember, oh how long ago now it seems (1993), visiting the makers of a very fine game (Spectre VR), a company called Velocity, who had "Snow Crash" (Neal Stephenson) as required reading for all programmers. A very fond memory indeed, sitting in Embarcadero, watching the subs and the whales in San Francisco Bay, following along to Hiro P and the gang, while I boned up on my required reading for the job. Pleasant.

Seems to me not much has changed since then, and things (SecondLife) are pretty much as predicted. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So I say this, if you had to have one book for games programmers to read, and not 10, which would it be?

My own recommendations

[ludomancer]

You could come up with this same list of books by just visiting your local bookstore and picking up everything on games. He only mentions a few things outside of that. Disappointing.

I'd hoped he was going to recommend reading books like, say, Charles Dickens, or some Oscar Wilde, or a science magazine. Nothing is better to draw inspiration from than media you have very little contact with already. I think if you sat a developer down with a pile of game books, and another developer down with a pile of classic literature or something, the latter would ultimately produce the more unique experience because he would be exposed to new ideas outside of the realm of interactive media.

Just a thought.

Film Theory

[Cy Sperling]

I see film theory missing from that list. The movies have been around for long enough that the form has distilled a very effective common language for visual storytelling. It never ceases to amaze me how poorly many games work story-wise that could be improved with basic film storytelling techniques. Cut scenes alone are mini-movies, and yet often are missing out on the use of good editing and shot set-up. Any game that is attempting to tell a story needs to be concerned not only with script, but with visual compisition, editing and pacing, lighting, camera movement etc.

Re:Film Theory

[Cy Sperling]

Your hyperbole aside, many people play games because of story- otherwise we'd all still be playing pretty versions of Tetris. To deny that games and movies don't share some of the same territory in visual storytelling is naive. Most games nowadays do tell a story one way or another. Storytelling in games SHOULD be interactive, but that doesn't mean that the storytelling should be ham-handed and clumsy. RPGs with poor storytelling are inherently broken. Not every game is a 1st person shooter clone. You cite GTA which is 3rd person- and does quite a bit of cinematic storytelling. I would argue that the storytelling and cutscenes in GTA are part of it's charm and success. Rockstar understands how to weave cinematic storytelling into a hugely interactive setting. Sure you don;t play the cutscenes in GTA, but they are entertaining and contribute to the immersion in the story and game-world. Not every game uses a free camera either. Resident Evil 1, 2 & 3, for example, made excellent use of a fixed camera- and did so in a nicely cinematic way. I am not suggesting that games become movies- I am suggesting that movies have a refined and well developed visual language that we all inately understand and that games can use that to their advantage. When you complain that cutscenes interrupt play, I submit it is because the cutscenes are poorly executed, distracting and ineffective specifically because they are created without an understanding of how visual storytelling works. As for creating objects and light in a realistic fashion- that is just ridiculous. Reality is boring- we experience it every day. Games, like movies, represent a heightened state of reality- where the unexpected can happen- where the unreal unfolds plainly before our eyes- where we can experience the fantastic as if it were real. You can't tell me that World of Warcraft is succesful because of it'srealism. Precisely the opposite. Games and movies create worlds. The escape from what is real is exactly the point.

Game Over, Press Start to Continue

[Bones3D_mac]

I read the original version of this one back when it had the longer title, Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children, about twelve years ago. It's a pretty entertaining read and even goes back into Nintendo's history prior to their entry into the video game industry. (For those who don't already know, Nintendo was already several decades old, prior to their entry into the video games arena, as a playing card manufacturer.)

Most interesting of all though, is how they describe Hiroshi Yamauchi throughout the book. He almost has mafia-like qualities about him and apparently operated the company in that manner, taking no crap from anyone.

Definitely worth a look if you're into what goes on behind the curtain of the company that gave us Mario.

Death March

[mad.frog]

Having worked in said industry long enough to know better, I can unequivocally say the one book I WISH I had read prior to taking said job is "Death March -- The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects" by Edward Yourdon.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-March-Developers-Impos sible-Computing/dp/0130146595