The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers: Gold Paperback – August 4, 2014

As a kid, I played some handheld games and went to some game arcades. I remembered Nintendo and Sega.However, only in the last few years when I started to play the Fire Emblem games and found out that someof the early games never left Japan. Then I came across this book and I loved it. It is interesting to see allthe creators, programmers, artists, and others who made video games in Japan from the1980's to presentday (2013) possible. Even some of the games not sent to America sound awesome. However this book is long.So be warned, but it is a great read for anyone who loves or loved video games. Buy this book and the second volume too.

Rare information, some humor, and some sadness of how each of the people worked and how they answered their interview questions gives a perspective more people need to be aware of. Huge difference between designing for fun and replayability versus strategic mental manipulation triggers for monetization in developing games. Everyone interested in working on board, card, tabletop RPGs, and video games should read this. Looking forward to tracking down more of the related series.

Interesting and Free!

One of the most amazing books I have ever encountered in my entire life. (And I own almost 600 non-fiction books; seriously, my closets look like Hogwart's library, minus that depressing mirror).

This book is huge and densely packed with interviews. At first, the lack of a table of contents and a useful index was daunting, but as I skipped around and read random interviews I got over it. There's so many great untold tales of game development here. I glad they are documented. An excellent book!

I’m hardcore into Japanese video games, including retro video games. Or at least I thought I was until I started reading this book. I must admit defeat for Japanese video game fandom, John Szczepaniak, the author of The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers: Volume 1, is much more of a geemu otaku than me (...*hangs head in shame*). Full disclosure: I did NOT contribute to the Kickstarter campaign...I didn’t really know about it.So for the most part, I have great respect for what this book accomplishes. It was an important contribution to the world of video game studies for these untold stories of Japanese game developers to finally be told. There is valuable information here for hardcore fans and scholars of Japanese video games alike.However, I believe you have to cherry pick the information you’re looking for. The book is almost entirely interviews with only a little commentary, explanation, or analysis. If you don’t know what a “PC-88” is, you’re probably going to have a hard time getting through most of the text found herein. I don’t recommend this book for a straight read-through. I tried it, and as much as I love Japanese video games, I couldn’t do it, my interest just wasn’t maintained enough to read the entire thing.One of the reasons for this is the interview questions are essentially the same for each interview: What was the first game you played? There was a rumor about [Project Blank] at the company you worked for. What can you tell us about it? (To which, the developer always answers that [Project Blank] was in another division of the company, that he didn’t work on it, and/or he can’t comment on it.) Now, I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing that the interview format and questions are generally the same. It would help maintain consistency and automate the interview process. The problem comes in that the developers’ answers just really aren’t all that interesting. Personally, I didn’t find the first games they played or how their offices were arranged to be of much significance. And most of the developers can’t comment about many of the secretive racy topics that the author always tries to bring up and which you’ll see in the product description, like “Konami’s secret games console.” If you want to read this book for insider info on “Konami’s secret games console” I’ll save you some time with this spoiler: there’s nothing in this book about it from the game developers themselves.I got the most from the Masaaki Kukino interview (worked on Castlevania arcade), the Suikoden Chapter, the section on Visual Novels and doujin games as a cultural study, but especially the Keiji Inafune interview. I believe Keiji Inafune to be one of the most brilliant minds the Japanese game industry has ever known, and that brilliance shines forth in this interview. So in the end, the price of the Kindle version has been worth it to have this resource in my collection.However to be frank, about all I learned from the other interviews I read is this: Some Japanese game developer I’ve never heard of worked on some video game that I’ve never heard of for an old Japanese computer system I never had access to in my life. Now if you’re the biggest fan in the world of that particular game, you’ll get a lot out of the interview. I just didn’t get much value from most of the interviews so I must not be as hardcore into Japanese games as I thought.I will add this book to my Game Studies List on my website and aStore as it is a good resource for a very niche topic. But I do recommend reading a sample or checking out at the library before a full purchase to make sure this resource will be helpful to you or not. Volume 2 is already out, but I’ve got other books on my “To Read List” right now, so I’m not in a rush to jump into the second volume just yet. Maybe someday.

Very good book. I love the insights of how other developers came to their ideas and implementations. I wish there were more interviews w/ actual game programmers but I guess they are in the future volumes.

Absolutely fantastic and detailed. So in-depth I can't even figure out what to say. This is a massive book (in size and goodness). I can't believe this exists.