The best book about video games is Masters of Doom, David Kushner’s story of the two Johns who made Doom, followed by Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Jason Schreier’s Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. The rest of the list runs from criticism and memoir to a 2026 history of Nintendo, a psychologist’s look at why we play, and the strangest corners of gaming obsession, with two novels for anyone who wants their games in fiction.
We ranked the books on three things: their standing (bestseller lists, awards and how often people in games point newcomers to them), how well they hold up today, and how well they fit a list about games and the people who play them. Studio business histories and design textbooks are left for lists of their own. Every book here is on sale new from its publisher, in print, as an ebook or as an audiobook.
10. Reality Is Broken
Author: Jane McGonigal (Penguin Books, 2011). Best for: readers who want the case that games can make life better, not just pass the time.
Jane McGonigal is a game designer, and Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World is her argument that the energy people pour into games could be aimed at real problems, from depression and obesity to poverty and climate change. Penguin’s description has her introducing games that were already at work in business, education and nonprofits, and the book is written for people who play and people who never have. It sits at #10 because it is a manifesto more than a story, and its early-2010s hopes for turning everyday life into a game are a product of their moment. It is still the book to hand anyone who thinks games are a waste of time.
9. Death by Video Game
Author: Simon Parkin (Serpent’s Tail, 2015). Best for: readers drawn to the extremes of play, from world record chasers to players who cannot stop.
Simon Parkin’s book starts from a hard question: what does it mean when games start killing us? A spate of deaths at gaming cafés in Taiwan opens it, and from there Parkin, an award-winning journalist who covers games, goes to meet the people at the edges of play. They include a New York surgeon going for the Donkey Kong world record, a Minecraft player three years into a journey toward the edge of the game’s world, and the German hacker who risked prison to uncover the secrets behind Half-Life 2. Its subtitle, Tales of Obsession from the Virtual Frontline, sums up what it is: a set of human stories rather than a survey. That narrower scope is why it ranks here, and it is the pick for anyone who wants the people behind the headlines about gaming obsession.
8. Good Game, No Rematch
Author: Mike Drucker (Hanover Square Press, 2025). Best for: anyone who grew up with a controller in hand and wants a funny memoir about it.
Mike Drucker is an Emmy-nominated TV writer and stand-up comedian who also worked as a writer at Nintendo, where, his publisher says, he named an iconic character in the Legend of Zelda series. Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games tells his life through the games he played, starting with the NES he got at age three. Final Fantasy VII helps him through an early crush, Dance Dance Revolution teaches him to almost move to music, and an internship at Saturday Night Live comes with Wii Sports sessions alongside the cast and crew. Along the way he gets to NBA Jam, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, King’s Quest, The Sims and the Zelda games. It is the newest memoir on this list, and Drucker reads the audiobook himself.
7. Lost in a Good Game
Author: Pete Etchells (Icon Books, 2019). Best for: readers who want the science of what games do to us, told through a personal story.
When Pete Etchells was 14, his father died from motor neurone disease, and he coped by immersing himself in a virtual world, first to escape and later to understand what had happened. He grew up to research the behavioral effects of video games, and Lost in a Good Game: Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do for Us puts the two halves together. It is a memoir of grief and a tour of gaming’s history, from Turing’s chess machine to online worlds like World of Warcraft, with the science on why we play along the way. Etchells also co-authored a paper arguing that the World Health Organization’s plan to classify “game addiction” as a danger to public health rested on bad science, which makes this the best book here on the addiction debate. It ranks above the newer memoir because it does two jobs at once.
6. Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline (Ballantine Books, 2011). Best for: readers who want a fast, reference-packed adventure set inside a virtual world.
In 2045 the real world is an ugly place, and almost everyone escapes into the OASIS, a vast virtual world. When its eccentric creator dies, he leaves behind a contest of fiendish puzzles built on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past, and whoever solves them first inherits his fortune and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade Watts cracks the first clue, and rivals who will kill for the prize come after him. Ready Player One was a #1 New York Times bestseller and the basis for Steven Spielberg’s film. We rank it below Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow because it is built for speed and nostalgia more than for character, but as a quest story it is the most fun novel here. Wil Wheaton reads the audiobook.
5. Super Nintendo
Author: Keza MacDonald (Knopf in the US, Guardian Faber in the UK, 2026). Best for: anyone who grew up on Mario, Zelda or Pokemon and wants the story behind them.
Keza MacDonald, the video games editor at the Guardian, tells how an unassuming playing card company became one of the great cultural forces of the 21st century in Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play (in the UK, Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun). Its UK publisher, Faber, lists chapters on Donkey Kong, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Wii Sports, Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros and Splatoon, mixing company history with her conversations with the people who make the games. It came out in February 2026, the newest book on this list, and its publisher’s page carries praise from two authors further up: Jason Schreier calls it “a vivid picture of the most important company in video games,” and Tom Bissell says it “ranks high among the best things ever written about Nintendo.” That is why a book this new already makes our top five.
4. Extra Lives
Author: Tom Bissell (Vintage, 2010). Best for: readers who want to think hard about what games are and what they do to the people who love them.
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter is a tour of the art and meaning of video games by a literary writer who has played them all his life, and its publisher describes it as a blend of memoir, criticism and reportage. Its chapters are named for the games at their center, among them Fallout, Mass Effect, Far Cry and Grand Theft Auto. The New York Times Book Review called it “the finest account yet of what it feels like to be a video game player,” and that standing is why it ranks above the newer criticism and memoir on this list. More than fifteen years on, it remains our pick for anyone who wants to make the case that games deserve serious criticism, and Bissell reads the audiobook himself.
3. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
Author: Jason Schreier (Harper Paperbacks, 2017). Best for: players who want to know why the games they love take so long, and why some launch broken.
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made follows games you have probably played through their development: Naughty Dog rebooting Uncharted 4, BioWare battling technical nightmares on Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bungie struggling to launch Destiny, a Kickstarter for Pillars of Eternity saving Obsidian from the brink, and Eric Barone spending five years making Stardew Valley by himself. It also covers the rough launches and later reinventions of Diablo III and The Witcher 3. For someone who plays games rather than makes them, it is the book that explains the crunch, the delays and the day-one patches behind the box art, with no programming knowledge needed. It was a national bestseller, and Ray Chase reads the audiobook.
2. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin (Knopf, 2022). Best for: anyone who wants a great novel about the people who make games, gamer or not.
Sam Masur and Sadie Green, friends since childhood, run into each other again on a subway platform during Sam’s junior year at Harvard, and before either has graduated they make a blockbuster game called Ichigo. Over the next thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, their partnership brings them fame, money, tragedy and betrayal. It is a love story, though not the usual kind, and a novel about identity, disability, failure and the redemptive possibilities of play. It was a New York Times bestseller, and the Times later named it one of its 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, which is more critical standing than any other book here has and why a novel sits at #2. Jennifer Kim and Julian Cihi read the audiobook.
1. Masters of Doom
Author: David Kushner (Random House, 2003). Best for: anyone who wants one book about video games, and the story of id Software and the birth of the first-person shooter.
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture is the true story of John Carmack and John Romero, the pair Random House calls “the Lennon and McCartney of video games.” Kushner follows them from the broken homes of their youth to id Software, where they co-created two of the most famous series in gaming, Doom and Quake, until the games they made tore them apart. Along the way the book takes on why their games were so violent, why their fantasy worlds gave them comfort, and how their work shaped a culture, in the publisher’s words “from MTV to the Internet to Columbine.”
It is #1 because it works for every reader this list is for. A player gets the origin story of Doom, Quake and the first-person shooter, someone curious about making games watches two rebellious young entrepreneurs build a studio from nothing, and someone who has never played Doom gets what Random House calls a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry. More than twenty years after it came out, it is still the first book we recommend to anyone who asks where to start. It is in print as a paperback and an ebook.
Best Novels About Video Games
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the best novel about video games, and Ready Player One is the most fun. For younger readers, two more are worth knowing. Warcross by Marie Lu (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 2017) is a young adult thriller about Emika Chen, a teenage hacker and bounty hunter who hacks into the championship of a game that has taken the world by storm and accidentally glitches herself into the action. Minecraft: The Island (Random House Worlds, 2017), by World War Z author Max Brooks, is the first official Minecraft novel: a castaway washes up in the blocky world and has to survive zombies, creepers and lava with a cow for advice. Penguin Random House lists it for ages 10 and up, and Jack Black reads the audiobook.
How We Chose
We started from the books that people in games most often recommend, then kept only the ones on sale new from their publishers today, in print, as an ebook or as an audiobook, and checked what each one covers against its publisher’s description. Standing and how well a book holds up decided the order, so older books can outrank newer ones. Business histories of studios, publishers and console wars, and textbooks on game design, were left out because each deserves a list of its own; Masters of Doom and Blood, Sweat, and Pixels are here because they are as much about the games as the business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best book about video games? Masters of Doom by David Kushner, the story of John Carmack, John Romero and the making of Doom. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Blood, Sweat, and Pixels are the next best.
What are the best fiction books about video games? Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is the best novel about video games, and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the most fun. Warcross by Marie Lu is a good pick for teenagers.
What are the best books about video game history? Masters of Doom covers id Software and the rise of the first-person shooter, and Super Nintendo tells the history of Nintendo from playing cards to Splatoon. Lost in a Good Game also walks through gaming’s history, from Turing’s chess machine to World of Warcraft.
Are there good books about video game addiction? Lost in a Good Game is the best one: its author researches the effects of games and co-wrote a paper arguing that the World Health Organization’s plan to classify game addiction rested on bad science. Death by Video Game tells the stories of players who could not stop, starting with deaths at gaming cafés in Taiwan.
What are good books about video games for kids? Minecraft: The Island by Max Brooks, the first official Minecraft novel, is listed for ages 10 and up. Warcross by Marie Lu is a young adult novel for teenagers.
What are the best video game books on audiobook? Ready Player One is read by Wil Wheaton and Minecraft: The Island by Jack Black. Tom Bissell reads Extra Lives and Mike Drucker reads Good Game, No Rematch themselves, Ray Chase reads Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, and Jennifer Kim and Julian Cihi read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
What is the best new book about video games? Super Nintendo by Keza MacDonald, published in February 2026, is the best new one, and it is already in our top five. Good Game, No Rematch by Mike Drucker, from 2025, is the best recent memoir.