The Video Game Library Newsletter - Vol. #018
Another big week thanks to Comic-Con! Also an inspiring interview with Cheryl Platz, a look at the intersect of StarCraft and education in South Korea, and a dive into 151 games.
Welcome back to The Video Game Library Newsletter!
This was (hopefully) my last scheduled week of travel for work, so once again I find myself, late on a Saturday night, scrambling to assemble the week’s Newsletter. Luckily, there’s an amazing community in the Discord and over on the socials that have been wonderful at keeping me apprised of all the latest in the world of video game literature.
Remember, a simple tag on the socials when you see some book news is a HUGE help in making sure these Newsletters are complete. And if you enjoy all the work that goes into these weekly digests, please consider supporting at the Paid tier for some extra content. It really goes a long way.
This week in 📰 News & Highlights, San Diego Comic-Con collided with a flood of GameStudies releases - resulting in another crazy week. From the surprise return of Marvel VS Capcom: Ultimate Complete Works to the exciting announcement of Dragon Age II from Boss Fight Books, there’s a ton to cover!
In 📚 Behind the Shelves, I talk about a new genre tag added to the site, inspired by the upcoming Last of Us scriptbooks, as well as some behind-the-scenes hurdles with the site’s hosting provider.
In 💡 Recommended Read of the Week, I take a closer look at An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games by Simon Parkin. A beautifully designed time capsule that balances classic hits with hidden gems and serves as a fantastic entry point for newcomers and longtime fans alike.
In 💾 From the Archives, we explore South Korea’s fascinating use of StarCraft as an educational tool across disciplines like business, science, and language.
And finally, in ✨ Community Interview, I had the opportunity to chat with Cheryl Platz - author of The Game Development Strategy Guide - for a wide-ranging conversation about sustainable dev practices, universal player motivations, and the power of building for communities.
It’s a jam-packed issue, so let’s dive in 👇
📰 News & Highlights
Between San Diego Comic-Con and the crazy output this year from Routledge/CRC Press, I knew this week was going to be big. Some really exciting announcements and releases for all you video game fiends out there, so let’s dive in!
More exciting Boss Fight Books news this week, as they’ve announced they’re publishing Charlotte Reber’s Dragon Age II. This is a making-of book, complete with interviews with David Gaider, Jennifer Hepler & Lukas Kristjanson. Live on Kickstarter now - and the 40th book in the series! What an amazing run so far!
Who here loves the Mystery Dungeon games? Well, thanks to John Harris and Limited Run Games, there’s a new book that just went on pre-order this week. While We Love Mystery Dungeon is unofficial and completely unauthorized, is the biggest literary deep dive we’ve seen into this roguelike franchise.
Some fun Star Wars news this week out of San Diego Comic-Con. Low Red Moon, a prequel novel to Star Wars Outlaws by Mike Chen, is slated for a galaxy near you on Feb. 3 of next year. Star Wars books are always a gray area - but since this one has “Outlaws” right in the title, I’ll be making an exception.
And in more news coming out of Comic-Con, Udon Entertainment has just announced a revival for Marvel VS Capcom: Ultimate Complete Works. Out of print for over a decade, this expanded hardcover features over 140 additional pages of material!
Relive Joel, Ellie, and Abby’s emotional journeys in The Last of Us: Part I and Part II Scripts, coming this December from Dark Horse. This news story is definitely getting the most coverage this week.
Strictly Limited Games has announced a new limited edition. Dezatopia & Mecha Ritz Steel Rondo comes complete with an 80-page dev book.
This week saw the release of Eulalia Febrer Coll’s Music In eSports: On The Convergence of the Music and Gaming Industries. We’re seeing more and more of these music-theory GameStudies books, and I’m here for it!
And also from CRC Press, The Complete Guide to Videogame Performance Directing: Place, Time, Action from Tom Keegan. This book teaches the complex, sometimes confounding, and often beautiful art of directing live performance for videogames.
Then we have the twin releases of Event-Database Architecture For Computer Games, both Volume 1: Software Architecture and the Software Production Process and Volume 2: Game Design and the Nature of the Beast. If you’re a GameDev looking for the most comprehensive software architecture discussion in literature, these 2 books are probably a safe bet.
For your dose of gaming history, Jean Zeid’s French graphic novel The Age of Video Games: A Graphic History of Gaming from Pong to VR and Beyond also released this week in English.
And if you’re a Japanese reader, you’re in luck! Hiromasa Iwasaki’s A Truly Insightful History of Video Games (本当にためになる ゲームの歴史) just hit store shelves this week.
For those who remember Minecraft: Survival Challenges - The Adventure Edition from earlier this year - it just got its Japanese release this week.
Did I miss something cool? Want to see this laid out differently?
Drop it in the comments or swing by our Discord to share it with the community.
Let’s keep this celebration of game-inspired books going strong!
📚 Behind the Shelves
Every week, I take you behind the scenes of The Video Game Library. From surprising discoveries to cataloging challenges, there’s always something new as we dig deeper into this ever-expanding archive of game-related literature.
Sadly, what little free time I had this week to work on the site was met with this error. It sounds like Wix, the hosting platform that I’ve built The Video Game Library on, has been having a rough week.
Even with the errors though, I still managed to create a new sub-genre on the site. While script publishing in “Scenario Books” has been a long-time trend in Japan, the North American market has only recently started leaning into it. With the latest announcement of The Last of Us Part I and Part II Scripts, thought it was about time to carve out a little corner of the site for these. Here’s just a few:"
With all the travel I’ve been doing, I’ve also started leaning into more automated toolsets like Buffer. This newsletter lends itself well to multiple social media posts to cover the various topics, announcements and releases, and in the past 2 weeks, over 50 scheduled Bluesky posts went out without a hitch (hmmm…except one on the morning of Jul. 25th). Not sure if anyone else has experience (or recommendations) on tools like this, but I’m all ears!
And while mail was slow this week, I did get the latest issue of Nintendo Force. Playing through Donkey Kong Bananza now and loving it. Excited to add this one to the shelves.
This, as usual, is only a small sample of what happened behind the scenes, so take a peek at the site to see everything that’s been added since last week! And while you’re at it, drop your thoughts in the comments below. Your feedback helps shape how we deliver these looks behind the curtain.
💡 Recommended Read of the Week
An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games
Simon Parkin
Earlier in the week, a conversation kicked off in the Discord about this book. The Amazon listing shows Fortnite as one of the entries - indicating a ‘revised’ print happened. I pulled my copy off the shelf, but alas, it was the original 2014 edition. It sat on my coffee table while I was away, and upon returning, I decided to flip through it.
This book is a really well-crafted time capsule of some of gaming’s most impactful and genre-defining titles. Written by respected video game journalist Simon Parkin, this book serves both as a nostalgic trip for longtime players and a foundational overview for newcomers eager to understand gaming’s trajectory over the decades.
Each of the 151 featured entries is given a two-page spread that includes a brief history of the game, a critical look at its legacy, and vibrant screenshots, sprites and promotional art. The layout is clean, and I found just as much enjoyment turning to a random page in the book as I did following it end-to-end. Parkin does an excellent job of balancing well-known juggernauts like Tetris, Super Mario Bros., and Street Fighter II with lesser-known titles like Meridian 59, Another World, and Rez. And interspersed between the games are write-ups on the decade and the consoles that released in it. The result is a global snapshot of gaming's evolution across platforms and genres, from arcades to consoles, PCs to handhelds.
To that end, it’s worth noting that this one focuses more on historical highlights than deep analysis. Entries are relatively short and to the point across their two pages, making this more of a coffee table guide than a comprehensive deep dive. But whether you’re a seasoned gamer or just starting your journey, this is a great book to showcase the icons that helped shape the industry.
You can find details about An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games here.
💾 From the Archives
Each week, I’ll dive deep into the shelves of The Video Game Library to spotlight a hidden gem or forgotten series — with the hope of surprising you with something new, unexpected, or long overlooked. This week, I wanted to share…
…a powerful way Korea is using StarCraft to teach across disciplines.
StarCraft isn’t just a game in South Korea - it’s a national institution. With over 4.5 million copies sold in the country, roughly half of its global performance, the original StarCraft and its Brood War expansion helped launch Korea’s status as the world’s leading e‑sports powerhouse.
Given this influence, it's no surprise that Korean authors have leveraged StarCraft as a pedagogical tool, creating books that teach real-world subjects (English, business strategy, economics, politics, science and more) all through the lens of gameplay and fandom. Here are just four standout examples from The Video Game Library:
1. BUSINESS
Starcnomics: 5 Business Strategies Unearthed from StarCraft
(스타크노믹스 스타크래프트에서 캐낸 5가지 경영전략)
Published in 2000, Starcnomics explores five management strategies directly inspired by StarCraft gameplay. Expansion vs. risk, resource allocation, tactical flexibility, macro vs. micro thinking. It applies them to modern business and organizational culture in Korea.
2. LANGUAGE
To Master English, You Only Need One Copy of StarCraft (스타크래프트 한 판으로 영어 끝장내기)
This creative English-learning primer uses in-game vocabulary, unit names, iconic lines, and quotes to teach English etymology and usage. Terms like “Hydralisk,” “Carrier,” and memorable quotes like “It’s a good day to die” are broken down into rootword lessons, offering a playful but surprisingly effective approach to vocabulary acquisition for Korean learners
3. MILITARY
Show Me The StarCraft: Learning Military, Economics, and Politics Through StarCraft
(쇼 미 더 스타크래프트 스타크래프트로 배우는 군사·경제·정치)
This interdisciplinary book draws analogies between StarCraft faction dynamics (Protoss, Zerg, Terran), in-game conflict, and real-world frameworks in political science, logistics, and economic theory.
4. SCIENCE
Science Hidden Inside StarCraft
(스타크래프트 속에 과학이 쏙쏙!!)
This book carefully unpacks the scientific concepts embedded in StarCraft - from radiation and nuclear energy to genetic engineering, EMP blasts, adrenaline, and minerals. It sets out to explain them in a way that makes science engaging and accessible.
These 4 books are some examples of literature that reinforce StarCraft’s legacy in Korea, turning immersive gameplay into valuable lessons across disciplines.
📚 Want to check out some of these titles? We’ve catalogued them all right here at The Video Game Library.
✨ Community Interview
Last week, my Newsletter featured a book called The Game Development Strategy Guide, which garnered a ton of excitement from the readership. This week, I’m so excited to share an interview with its author, Cheryl Platz.
With an amazing career that spans major players like Microsoft, Amazon, and Riot, Cheryl’s book distills decades of industry experience into a powerful resource for anyone looking to build sustainable, thriving games - without burning out their teams.
In this conversation, we explore Cheryl’s journey through games and tech and why she believes now is the time to rethink how we build for both players and developers. We also chat about her upcoming Enduring Play podcast, player psychology, industry-wide layoffs, and the evolving motivations behind why people play games today.
Hope you enjoy!
To kick things off, for those who may not know you yet, who is Cheryl Platz, and what has your journey through the tech and game industries looked like so far?
I am a human-centered experience designer, game designer, and writer whose career has covered pretty much every facet of human-computer interaction: video games, location-based entertainment like theme parks, consumer technology like Alexa and Cortana, cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, and productivity experiences like service design for the Gates Foundation’s employee experiences during the pandemic. I’ve worked with every form of storytelling and intellectual property in video games: from video game originals like The Sims and The Urbz; anthology games with top Disney characters like Simba, Winnie the Pooh, and Lilo and Stitch; a multiverse game with MARVEL’s vast universe of comic book and cinematic characters; film IP like The Chronicles of Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, and transmedia IP like League of Legends/Arcane. I’ve worked on live-service games and traditional games, supported nearly every modern gaming console family imaginable including the N-Gage, led design for major cross-industry partnerships like the Riot Games + Xbox Game Pass partnership, and shipped a launch title for the historic Nintendo DS. It’s been a wild ride – and at many points, it wasn’t clear what the next step would be. So if you’re struggling in the industry right now, just know that not every journey is a straight line.
Clearly you’ve worn many hats throughout your career. What inspired you to write The Game Development Strategy Guide, and why now?
I trained in user experience design and game design and the first part of my career was dedicated to games – but I left in 2007 because the sector I was in, handheld console gaming, was contracting due to the explosion of mobile gaming. I took the opportunity to challenge myself in a new way by working on large-scale server software at Microsoft. I didn’t expect that walkabout to take over a decade or to take me to experiences like Alexa, but I’m deeply grateful for my unique path because it meant I was in the right place at the right time when Riot Games needed a new Director of UX for their Player Platform as I was looking to reinvent my career again after the pandemic. I’ve spent the last few years in senior leadership on live-service games.
This specific lived experience: deep immersion, walking away, then coming back to deep immersion – has given me the ability to speak to what’s changed in a way that folks who have been living the changes gradually can’t always see as easily. As for why now – well, it’s clear that our old ways of working aren’t working. The tens of thousands of layoffs DESPITE record income means that there’s fundamental cognitive dissonance out there about what successful game development should and can look like. With the help of the experts I’ve collaborated with on this book, I hope to help move us in the right direction. It IS possible to make thriving games without destroying the teams that make them.
You mentioned earlier working on high-profile projects at companies like Microsoft and Amazon. How did your experience in big tech shape the way you approached writing this book?
What a great question! And that’s part of the answer: leading with curiosity. Coming from big organizations where lots of people would assume things were bad or incorrect for a reason, I discovered time and time again that asking the right questions often led to surprising answers. “Has anyone ever documented this?” “Did anyone mean for this character to look this way?” It’s shocking how often the answer is “no, this wasn’t intended.” That has led me to bring curiosity into all of my work. I ended up with SO many footnotes and references because I was constantly looking for more information, more input, more ways to strengthen my hypotheses and the content I was sharing. My editor was very patient. But the other part is a focus on collaboration. As a veteran leader in large organizations, I have seen the power of driving shared understanding across teams and disciplines. I have also seen what happens when teams break down too far into silos because they don’t understand their roles and start fighting over work. I want this book to make it easy to approach someone from any discipline and ask good questions, to build relationships, to get to a shared understanding of the game you’re trying to build together.
Your book covers everything from player psychology to monetization models. What do you think are some of the most overlooked concepts in game development that you hope this book shines a light on?
I’m often surprised at how many game teams can’t identify their core game loops. We talk about this fundamental game concept in Chapter 4 – Game Designer’s Toolkit. This isn’t just important for game designers – it’s important for anyone making informed decisions about what to fix, change, or deprecate in a game. I’ve worked on several games where the team was prioritizing the wrong work – shiny new features that had nothing to do with the game’s core loop – while neglecting the core engine that drove daily player interaction. When you neglect the core reason for play, you start to see the scary metrics drop: regularity, retention, spend per player. It’s not always exciting for game teams to think about their core game, but it’s critical for the long-term health of a thriving game community. Small changes to a game’s quest system, for example, can have disproportionate impacts on engagement in a way you might not get from a new feature.
You emphasize creating games that thrive. What does a “thriving” game mean to you in today’s rapidly changing landscape of live services, indie hits, and short attention spans?
It’s a great question, and I think there are two answers. To me personally, “thriving” means a game that listens to its players, treats its development team sustainably, and has a roadmap for continuous improvement that aligns with the needs of players, devs, and the business – all while honoring the game’s core motivators of play. Easy, right? But “thriving” should be something that you define for you, your game, your community, and your studio. Thriving might mean different things at different levels. If you don’t make live-service games, thriving for an individual game isn’t going to mean indefinite engagement, but that will make it all the more important you understand how to sustainably support your team as they roll onto the next game your studio makes. If you’re making a live-service or multiplayer game, then thriving will have to account for the unpredictable behavior of players and how you react to the unexpected in real time.
You talk about “universal player motivations” in Chapter 1. Can you give us a sneak peek: what are some key motivations developers often underestimate, and why is it so crucial?
Absolutely! Raph Koster’s classic A Theory of Fun helps us understand what it means to say players are driven by fun, but also talks about the importance of motivators like mastery and competition. What was fascinating to me while leading with curiosity and writing the book was that those classic motivations are being dwarfed by newer motivations made possible by internet-connected games. The 2024 Inside Gaming study from Fandom found that 54% of players play for stress relief, which speaks more to motivators of play like meditation and comfort than the broader motivator of “fun,” and explains a bit why the proliferation of match and sort games see such success in the market. Just behind that, 46% of players reported playing for the pursuit of “Creation, Imagination, and Self Expression” – which is why I cite Self-Expression as one of the three “modern” motivators of play, along with Companionship and Education. It’s hard to overstate how important self-expression is to this generation of gamers: I was just in a game studio broadcast for an RPG where fans were complaining they wouldn’t play if there weren’t more clothing options. The business model for League of Legends is based almost entirely on self-expression. Meanwhile, motivators like competition and mastery hit lower on the list. Only 18% of players said they wanted competition – so why are so many live-service games leaning so heavily on PvP and ranked play? There are so many new opportunities out there.
You’re launching the Enduring Play podcast soon as a companion to the book. What can listeners expect from the show, and how does it expand the conversations started in the book?
The Enduring Play podcast features extended interview sessions that were used as the research for the book. Folks that read the book will recognize a few of the pull quotes, but everyone will gain additional context as there was so much more to share that didn’t make the pages of the already-big book. The Game Development Strategy Guide was written to be a more timeless reference manual, so it doesn’t lean too much into highly topical concepts like generative AI and the current state of layoffs. But if you want to get into those spicy topics, we’ve got your back: the podcast has plenty of nuanced discussion about how AI is landing for industry veterans, about the state of the labor market firsthand from industry veterans many of whom have experienced the layoffs firsthand, and of course extended conversations about many of the topics in the book.
Your company, Ideaplatz, helps train today’s designers to create tomorrow’s experiences. How does that mission tie into the lessons in The Game Development Strategy Guide?
As I’ve moved into the leadership phase of my career I’ve really enjoyed finding ways to empower others to be their best selves, but I can’t scale to the absolute deluge of folks asking for 1:1 guidance. I founded Ideaplatz originally to address a very specific need: I was working on voice assistants and we couldn’t hire anyone to work on voice assistants because all of the knowledge was locked up in tech companies. Over the years, I’ve expanded the material I teach through Ideaplatz because game design is actually a really nuanced form of user experience design: you’re still taking into account human factors but you’re also painting with paintbrushes like story and emotion in a way you don’t get in productivity software. And many of the lessons that I teach for tech, helping creators build shared understanding while building the world’s biggest software projects, are applicable for gaming. Video games are big tech projects that have to contend with movie studio levels of creative volatility.
Whether you’re a solo indie dev or part of a 300-person AAA studio, what’s one mindset shift you think every game creator needs to make if they want to build games that last?
Oooh, just one? That’s a tough one. I’ll go with this: build for the community, not the game. I hear a lot lately about the “overnight success” of games like Balatro, but if you dig in – Balatro was no fluke. That was the product of extended community engagement and iteration. By leading with curiosity, building with and not for players, you open yourself up to discovering something that’s bigger than you could have achieved on your own. And in doing so, you will have accumulated passionate fans who will stand at your side when it’s time to launch. In a world saturated with AI games, this is the defense against the dark night. The authenticity of sustained community engagement is the path to thriving games. It's hard work and it’s dangerous to go alone, but the journey is worth it.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of video games - not just in terms of tech, but in how we tell stories, connect players, and grow communities?
The existence of organizations like the Thriving in Games Group (and their Digital Thriving Playbook) and the Accessible Games Initiative give me energy and hope. These are well-established professional organizations created through the course of years of effort and supported by a coalition of industry heavyweights, and each of them is dedicated to creating games that expand our market and enable more thriving communities. Both share resources freely, making it possible for developers of all sizes and stages to start with a strong baseline of understanding the best practices that drive thriving games. It has never been easier to get a jump start on building games in sustainable ways – we just have to connect developers with the materials (and a bit more money.) If you’re interested in learning more about the Thriving in Games Group, I’m honored to have co-founder Carlos Figueiredo on as my guest in Enduring Play Episode 2, which will debut on August 26, 2025, and I know he’s very excited for folks to hear our discussion.
And finally, where can our readers follow your work, learn more about the book, and stay up to date with everything you’ve got going on?
BOOK - The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Video Games that Thrive
for supporting materials, purchasing links, and updates
Pre-orders at Rosenfeld Media.com (Ships Sep 16, 2025)
PODCAST - Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast
for more information and shownotes
Direct links: RSS, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, YouTube
Launches August 19, 2025
IDEAPLATZ – A Design Education Company
PERSONAL SOCIAL MEDIA – Cheryl Platz
Bluesky: funnygodmother
TikTok: theCherylPlatz
Twitch: funnygodmother (most Sundays 10AM PT)
Thanks for your time, Cheryl!
🙏 And THANK YOU for Reading
That’s a wrap for this week’s deep dive into all things video game literature. I hope you discovered something new, surprising, or just plain fun.
As always, your feedback helps shape this project - so don’t be shy! Drop a comment below, join the conversation on Discord, or just reply to this newsletter and share your thoughts.
And if you’re enjoying these weekly roundups, please consider supporting The Video Game Library with a paid subscription or forwarding this to a fellow fan. Every little bit helps us keep preserving and celebrating these incredible works - and the passionate people behind them.
Until next week — happy reading,
Dean (Founder, The Video Game Library)