Over the years, my job gave me the priviledge of meeting amazing people. People who had a deep impact on my career, on my knowledge, on my personalty, and on what I am as a whole.

That must be why I am so fond of stories about game development that focus on people. The technology keeps changing, but the motivation that drives it remains. The people who shaped one way or another what our industry looks like today are for me an endless source of inspiration and motivation.

So I decided to share with you a few books I recently read, both have the same focus on the people behind the technology rather than on the technology itself.

iPad Magazine Stand

If I were to compile a list of frequently asked questions people send me, the first would be, “Hey, I have this awesome idea. WRITE AN ARTICLE ABOUT IT!” The answer to this question is, “Uh, okay. I’ll put it on the list. Stop yelling.”

Since its inception in 1983, Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For has become a countercultural institution. The strip is syndicated in dozens of newspapers, translated into several languages and collected in a series of award-winning books. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as “one of the greatest hits of the twentieth century.” And Comics Journal says, “Bechdel’s art distills the pleasures of Friends and The Nation; we recognize our world in it, with its sorrows and ironies.”

Next-Gen has compiled a list of the 50 books from which everyone in the game industry could learn something. Our list covers game design theory to histories of games companies to sociological texts to novels. Compiled by game designer and author Ernest Adams...