Elden Read: Your Gaming Summer Reading List

Those that pay even a little attention to the gaming space are aware that FromSoftware’s Elden Ring has become a phenomenon (and one that can be enjoyed in a number of convenient ways). This kind of popularity, with sales at levels usually reserved for mega-blockbuster franchises like Grand Theft Auto or Resident Evil , has yielded a great deal of attention - including profoundly off-beat takes from the NYT.

While much better write-ups on the cultural phenomenon surrounding Elden Ring aren’t terribly hard to find, the flurry of occasionally baffling perspectives from broader media is demonstrative of a larger issue: Video games are difficult to write about, because we aren’t quite at the point where a sufficiently large audience is engaging with the medium beyond sundry levels of fandom.

Not yet, anyway - the inevitable march towards ubiquity will also bring a sense of normalcy to the act of playing video games. When something is no longer treated as exceptional, it allows for greater exploration of what it means rather than what it is. This mirrors where we are in the broader marketing world - decision makers know this media is drawing disproportionate amounts of attention, yet don’t have a grasp of how to approach these opportunities (let alone how to approach them well). Most don’t really have a grasp about the medium or its legions of fans at all, particularly compared to levels of understanding around other media (TV, social, etc.) where a great deal of time and attention has been directed towards learning the minutiae.

So sticky is this problem that I decided to write an entire damn book about it (which you can preorder now, wherever books are sold!). The intended outcome was to provide an accessible level of knowledge about the history, culture, science, and business of gaming to move the conversations with potential partners for the gaming industry forward. On a personal level, the act of writing a book provided motivation to read a lot of books in order to address these topics beyond the superficial. 

You can see for yourself if I was successful in July. In the meantime, here are some of the works that were most influential to the book, should you wish to get a headstart:

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A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players, by Jesper Juul

Gaming scholar Jesper Juul paints one of the most comprehensive roadmaps towards how gaming emerged from a niche passtime to something enjoy by nearly every human on the planet. From mobile phones to Wii remotes, Juul’s insightful analysis shows how shifts towards flexible technology and design (those that have been reading here regularly will find this theme familiar) fundamentally altered our orientation towards gaming, if not modern media more generally.

Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America, by Michael Z. Newmann

Before the revolution, there was a fledgling coin-operated amusements business looking to break into the mainstream. Newman traces the history of gaming from early coin-drop roots in seedy locales to respectable fixtures in the household and suburban malls, thereby giving the (occasionally contradictory) cultural backdrop that influenced the early days of video games, and in doing so the foundation upon which many of our modern biases around gaming are based.

Developer’s Dilemma: The Secret World of Video Game Creators, by Casey O’Donnell

Game development is hard. Really, really, hard. One might go so far as to wonder why any rational person would want to do it at all. If you’ve ever wondered why, O’Donnell’s account is a great place to start - from proprietary practices/tools to the near-impossible process of combining “art” and “technology” into something “fun,” this book provides one of the more in-depth views towards the secretive and high-stakes world of game development.

Getting Gamers: The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on the People who Play Them, by Jamie Madigan

Call it pop-psychology if you want, but you can’t deny that Madigan both 1. Knows his stuff and 2. Can write in a way that makes occasionally dry topics quite entertaining. Playing games touches many different aspects of human psychology that are important to understand for approaching the medium in a thoughtful way. Madigan does an enviable job breaking down the most essential topics in a manner that is accessible for non-academics, including thornier topics such as violence and addiction.

Good Luck, Have Fun: The Rise of eSports, by Roland Li

You can tell Li’s book was written early on in the emergence of esports because it is written as “eSports” in his title. On a more serious note, Li provides one of the more comprehensive accounts of the early days of esports - from bursting bubbles to new life on the back of the live streaming revolution. The professionalization of game play is a long time coming, and understanding that it is not merely a recent flash in the pan is the necessary base-line that many interested in this space may lack.

Lost in a Good Game: Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do for Us, by Pete Etchells

Etchells is on the frontlines of psychologists pushing back on (often lazy) mainstream media takes on the effect of games on our psychology. His book is an exploration of the psychology of gaming that is personal yet reinforced with empirically-serious science. This is perhaps my top pick for “book wary parents should read” when/if their kids express an interest in gaming, as the facts on the potential positive impacts of gaming often outweigh the fiction of moral panics.

One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games, by Joost Van Dreunen

Imagine a dragon laying on a horde of treasures. Now, instead imagine that the treasures are massive amounts of data about the gaming business and the dragon is an affable Dutchman. That’s basically my experience with One Up - no other book on the industry has made me ask myself “where did he get this data?” so consistently only to find that the reference was information painstaking compiled by the author. The end result is one of the few indepth views available to those outside the industry on how game companies (precariously) stay out of the red. 

The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us - And How They Don’t, by Nick Yee 

Consider this your “must read” if you have even fledgling interest in the “metaverse.” Yee was styding behaviors in massive multiplayer games like World of Warcraft long before the metaverse was even a glint in Zuck’s eye. In doing so, he has found that humans are, well, still quite human in virtual worlds. The Proteus Paradox refers to the phenomenon where we carry our biases from the real world into virtual worlds, with implications that are manifold if virtual worlds are to become an everyday part of our lives.

The Toxic Meritocracy of Gaming: Why Gaming Culture is the Worst, by Christopher A. Paul

Paul begins with a basic presence - why are gamers often such jerks? The answer is not quite as simple as one might think, spanning topics as complex as identity and gatekeeping to recognition (or lack thereof) of privilege. When personal identity is on the line, threatening influences can breed bad behaviors, and Paul unpacks the most important factors at play in a cogent way.

Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming, by T.L. Taylor

It would not be overselling to say that Taylor is a pioneer in the academic study of games. As a fellow Sociologist, her work has biased towards the ways in which game fans interact both within and around gaming communally - in this case, the outcome is one of the more comprehensive explorations of game streaming. Bleeding work into play is fraught with conflicts - understanding the motivations behind both consuming and producing streaming content shines light on what is a fundamental shift in video-based media.

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Any of the above would make a nice contribution to your library, though this list is hardly comprehensive (more than happy to expand it out if there is more generalized interest in me doing so). While it is true that there isn’t yet an established, large-scale audience for deeper thinking on gaming, it is not for a lack of quality work that already exists. What we will likely find is that these works will become all the more important in future years - I don’t have nearly enough hubris to believe mine would be included in that category, but perhaps it can serve as a jumping-off point for the interested.