The Best Books for Gamers (2024) read now

For all you dedicated gamers out there who’ve heard the occasional nudge to take a break from your beloved video games and dive into a good book, we’ve got you covered with the ultimate compendium of the “Best Books for Gamers.” This selection promises to satiate your gaming passions while keeping your parents, significant other, or intellect content. As ardent fans of the finest SNES and Master System games, it’s natural to find yourself here on Retro Dodo. However, have you ever paused to ponder the tremendous challenges that lie behind the creation of our cherished gaming masterpieces?

Do we ever stop to think about how hard it was for companies like Sega and Nintendo to get where they are today? The answer is probably not for most people, including myself. Once we start playing LylatWars or King of Fighters and start hitting buttons, we can’t help but get lost in the game. Here is where the best books about games come in. They show us a whole new side of video games and give us a look into the minds of the people who make the games that have changed our lives.

Best Books for Gamers Comparison Table

A Handheld History

Check Price

First of all, our own book, A Handheld History, is the best book about video games. Yes, Retro Dodo’s new book, A Handheld History, has been getting a lot of attention in the past few months. We reached our crowdfunding goal of $24,000 in one month in less than 23 hours, which is an amazing thing that you, the Retro Dodo reader, and the rest of the retro game world made possible.

From Gunpei Yokoi’s first ideas to the best retro handhelds coming out today, A Handheld History tells the story of the game world, how the handheld console came to be, and why it is so popular today.

Game Boy: The Box Art Collection

Check Price

The brilliant minds behind Gameboy: The Box Art Collection can be found over at Bitmap Books, and it is the next entry on our list of the finest gaming books. Because Bitmap Books is the publisher of some of the most visually amazing gaming compendiums that we have ever seen, that publisher’s name is going to come up quite a bit as we progress through this piece.

This book will teach you everything you need to know about the handheld that not only defined a generation but also an entire industry, the Game Boy, regardless of whether you are a die-hard fan of the Game Boy or are new to the world of Nintendo.

Console Wars

Check Price

Author Blake J. Harris looks at Sega’s rise and fall in a very interesting way. Through interviews with people like Tom Kalinske, the former CEO of Sega in the United States, readers get some of the best access ever to how what is arguably the biggest console fight of all time went down.

Even more impressively, Console Wars looks at how marketing and development helped Sega of America steal market share from Nintendo. In the history of video games, the 16-bit age is one of the most famous times. This book is a must-read if you want to know what happened from the inside. The authors were able to talk to former workers in a way that has never been done before.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

Check Price

Video games are fun, interesting, and a good way to forget about the rest of the world. The book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier shows that making video games is almost the exact opposite. This brutally honest look at what developers and game teams go through to bring a game to market is so good that you’ll only need to pick it up once to read it from cover to cover.

Schreier has great access to conversations with dozens of current and past game developers about what goes on behind the scenes. Everything from money worries to differences in creativity are described in great detail, making you love the games you play even more. One of the best video game stories ever told is Schreier’s inside look at how Stardew Valley’s independent maker, Eric Barone, made a game that has sold more than 20 million copies.

TOURNAMENT TROUBLE BY SYLV CHIANG AND CONNIE CHOI

Check Price

Tournament Trouble is the title of the first book in a brand-new series for middle grade readers called Cross Ups. The series is about video games, as you might have guessed from the title. The one thing that Jaden, age 12, cares about more than anything else in the world is developing his skills at the game Cross Ups, which he and his friends are utterly obsessed with. Jaden has been playing Cross Ups since he was seven years old.

He wishes he didn’t have to hide his love of gaming from his mother since she believes that playing video games makes people more violent. She is under the assumption that playing video games causes individuals to become more aggressive.

FAQs