[Here’s the latest eBook bundle I compiled for the Storybundle crew – and it’s a particular favorite of mine because of the amount of exclusives we commissioned, and the depth of some of the writing – so much good/rare/overlooked stuff here, dig in!]

The Retro Wonders Game Bundle – Curated by Simon Carless

The first Video Game StoryBundle of 2018 is a massive one, since we have three brand new game history/analysis ebooks you can’t get anywhere else, as well as some amazing overlooked & sought-after tomes based around retro video game goodness. Continue reading →

Since it’s definitely 2018 already (for quite a long time!), and I haven’t actually managed to update this website since 2017, thought it might be good to ACTUALLY DO SO with some notes on what I’ve been up to:

– Game Developers Conference 2018 totally happened, a couple of weeks ago! We had 28,000 attendees – an all-time high – and there’s lot of pictures of them on GDC’s Flickr account. (IGF ceremony above!)

We also made hundreds of videos & slide decks free on GDC Vault, if you want to check out top talks from the show. It was the first GDC without Meggan Scavio (aw), who now runs the AIAS, but the first with my former colleague Katie Stern (whee!) here as GM, and am excited to see how we build on the experience, with her at the helm. Continue reading →

[The final Storybundle of the year is here, and this one is particularly choice, I think. Really have fun compiling these eBook bundles, and with both the charity and curator cut going to Prisoners Literature Project this time around, you’ll be doing some good by picking i up, too!]

We only do 3 of these Video Game StoryBundles per year because we care about quality. Why? Have you noticed these weekly bundles on one particular subject get same-y so quickly? We don’t do that and won’t do that. We vary things up – while still bringing you books from a few regular sources that we enjoy.

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Just so every darn post on this blog isn’t a Game Storybundle announce (there’s another one coming up in a few weeks, haha!), here’s a few things that I’m up to and excited about, recently:

– Yep, Game Developers Conference is booting up for another cycle, and it’s taking place from March 19-23, 2018. In addition to overseeing the folks who run the event, I’m helping out with the Indie Summit, Advocacy track, and the second year of the Board Game Design Day I help to organize with Soren Johnson. Plus there’s the return of GDC Retro Play, the IGF, and one or two (cool!) new things we’ll reveal in due course!

– The whole No More Robots thing (an indie publisher I’m helping back & advising) is still going great. Our first product we’re publishing, procedural mountain bike game Descenders, has a limited public Beta coming up on October 27th. Plus, we have two other games signed that we’re excited to talk about soon. The work, naturally, is 99% Mike Rose’s, but happy to be along for the ride.

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[Well, the Game eBook Storybundle series, which I very much enjoy curating, returns – again benefiting the Video Game History Foundation as optional charity – & this one is special since it has a bunch of ‘first time in eBook’ or even ‘first time published anywhere’ books in it! Hope you enjoy…]

Picture, if you will, a secret bookshelf. Three times a year, behind a special oak panel, it’s refreshed with a ton of fascinating books about video games, as if by magic. Those books span gamuts, from fascinating anthologies to wonderful cultural histories, all the way to single-book drill downs on some of the best video games in history. But how – you may ask – would you get access to this wonderful magic bookshelf?

Well, it turns out that if you just log on to the Internet and go to the StoryBundle website, these so-called ‘Video Game StoryBundles’ run thrice in a calendar year, and the latest one, available at a ‘pay what you want’ prices and including exclusive tomes on Undertale & ROM hacking, & the first-ever eBook version of the acclaimed Indie By Design interview/profile book, is available… when? When? Right now, good Sir!

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By now, you may have noticed that Mike Rose – former IndieGames & Gamasutra editor, more recently at indie publisher Tinybuild where he worked with rather good games like Punch Club, Party Hard and Clustertruck – has announced a brand new independent video game publisher, No More Robots.

I’m delighted to say that I’m an initial investor in No More Robots, and also am advising Mike & team (which also includes supersmart UK lawyer/biz guy Jas Purewal as another advisor/investor) on strategy/A&R. Continue reading →

Just because I never actually blogged about it here, wanted to alert y’all to Video Game Deep Cuts, the weekly newsletter I started up a few months ago.

As described in the overview, it’s “the best longread & standout articles about video games, every weekend”, and it started because, as I noted in the inaugural newsletter, “Inspired by REDEF in particular, & other recommendation newsletters like Level Up Report in general, I’ve found there’s a lot of value in compiling good/interesting content in one focused place.”

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[Totally delighted that we’re debuting the first Game eBook Storybundle of 2017 that I’ve once again curated! Some of the highlights of this one are an excellent Dark Souls book, an exclusive book on classic video game bugs, a tome on the launch of the NES, & lots more – with the Video Game History Foundation – of which I’m a board member – the designated bundle charity.] 

“Continuing its popular “pay what you want” ebook bundles, StoryBundle is very proud to present the Rogue Souls Game StoryBundle. This very special bundle includes 10 standout game-centric ebooks headed by Dark Souls tribute ‘You Died’ & Rogue genre history ‘Dungeon Hacks’ – with the newly launched Video Game History Foundation non-profit designated as the charity for this bundle.

The basic purchase tier ($5 or above) for the Rogue Souls Game StoryBundle includes ‘Beep – The Complete Interviews’ from Karen Collins & Chris Greening, conducted for the acclaimed game audio documentary of the same name and featuring a ton of amazing interviews with notable Western and Japanese game audio greats. Also included is ‘Boss Fight Books – Mega Man 3’ by Salvatore Pane, an affecting personal history that’s also a deep look into Capcom’s all-time NES classic Mega Man 3, one of the trickiest but most rewarding platformers ever to grace Nintendo platforms.

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