The Comic Book Story of Video Games: The Incredible History of the Electronic Gaming Revolution

A single pixel, traveling across the screen, ricocheting back and forth between two simple lines. From that humble idea, we’ve gone on to explore entire sprawling universes, immersive 3D environments that inspire awe, and special effects that rival what we see in movie theaters. How did this happen? How did we leap from those simple pixels to universes like those of Halo, No Man’s Sky, and more?

The Comic Book Story of Video Games does a remarkable job of summarizing that journey, delivering an epic, sprawling history of video games, populated by the ambitious men, the tinkerers, and the dreamers who played a part in the birth and rebirth of the billion-dollar industry we see today.

The book scatters all sorts of tongue-in-cheek references to classic and modern-day icons throughout the nuts and bolts of the story. And yet it still manages to deliver insights into the business and industry of then and now, into how creativity merged with business savvy to breed success, and into the incredible role luck and fate would play in the rise of companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Sega to prominence.

The Comic Book Story of Video Games is the best history of the genre I’ve encountered.