Video game-related books

Calandrino said:
Score! Beating the Top 16 Video Games by Ken Huston is an interesting time capsule from the early 80s. For one thing, the author complains about the jump button in Donkey Kong being on the right side of the joystick, when it should obviously be on the left. He recommends crossing your hands over each other (right hand on stick, left on jump button) to make the game easier to play.
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I wonder if he's a southpaw; game controllers are designed with the d-pad/control stick on the left and the buttons on the right for a reason.

regalterry said:
Console Wars by Blake J. Harris felt a tad too biased in favor of SEGA of America, casting SEGA of Japan as the villains, but it's nonetheless a very interesting glimpse into the big war for the American market between SEGA and Nintendo.
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Much of video game history, especially when repeated on Internet forums, is either mythologized or exaggerated, and especially Sega fans have a revisionist history as to why Sega doesn't make video game consoles. I believe I mentioned that there is acknowledgment that Kalinske was simply in the right place at the right time but it doesn't go so far as to say that the Sega Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog was lightning in a bottle, and like any normal fad, won't last more than a few years.
 
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O-oh.. was about to say the Sin War books about Diablo are pretty good.

Think about books is that they're heavily biased and sometimes even disingenuously fabricated by a third party. "Oh word, a developer's story about his success?"; chances are some youtube vlogger will do a better, quicker job.
 
⋖ cørdion ⋗ said:
Think about books is that they're heavily biased and sometimes even disingenuously fabricated by a third party. "Oh word, a developer's story about his success?"; chances are some youtube vlogger will do a better, quicker job.
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You're on the /r/fuckcars thread, you should probably know that some YouTube "history" is full of just as much nonsense as anywhere else, and they often parrot other wrong sources anyway. Howard Scott Warshaw has written a book about he single-handedly ruined Atari and the video game industry (the programmer of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) but the problem was that the whole industry was headed for a bubble and his contributions to that are relatively minor (heck, he even changed the story of programming E.T.--the title screen was made by someone else).

Despite that, it's become so ingrained in video game culture that no one argues it. Most of these primary sources are lost anyway--there's that comment that Miyamoto supposedly made about Donkey Kong Country which he has since denied but it's also equally plausible since it traces back to an interview that DID involve DKC and we're talking about someone who will change his story to what is politically convenient (Peach always meant to be a strong character, etc.) AND is enough off an egotist to kill any project at Nintendo Co. Ltd. he didn't like.
 
Game Over by David Sheff is a decent read about Nintendo. Written in 1993 so obvs only covers up to that date.
 
Xarpho's Return said:
I wonder if he's a southpaw; game controllers are designed with the d-pad/control stick on the left and the buttons on the right for a reason.
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On the contrary:

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In perspective, it's not that weird. He probably played Pac-Man with his right hand and was used to that. A lot of old arcade games either put the movement controls on the right or mirrored the buttons on both sides. Atari 2600 joystick had the button on the left too.
 
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I have a bunch of Bitmaps books which are pricey but nice. Also have the Untold history of Japanese Game Developers Vol 1, Gamecube anthology ultimate edition and like two dozen art books.
 
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