GameDev Stories: Interviews About Game Development and Culture

GameDev Stories #1

by David L. Craddock

Programmer. Artist. Musician. Designer. Producer. Editor. Collector.

Video games comprise a multibillion-dollar industry thanks to the people who make and play them. From designers and producers to collectors, community managers, editors, and hardware manufacturers, each plays a role in maintaining and advancing the medium of interactive entertainment.

Each has a story to tell.

Collected from the author's archives, GameDev Stories: Interviews About Game Development and Culture gathers conversations with individuals from all corners of the industry: Who they are, the paths they paved, and their contributions to our hobby.

• John Romero, co-founder of id Software
• Jennell Jaquays, writer and designer
• Scott Miller, founder of Apogee Software and shareware pioneer
• Kyoko Higo, former associate marketer at Square U. S.
• S. D. Perry, novelist
• David Brevik, co-creator of Diablo and Diablo 2
• "The Immortal" John Hancock, collector
• Meagan Marie, writer and community manager
• And More

Genres: Video Games, Nonfiction, Games

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2018

About the author

David L. Craddock lives with his wife in Ohio. He is the bestselling author of Stay Awhile and Listen : How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I, and Heritage : Book One of the Gairden Chronicles, an epic fantasy series for young adults. Please follow along with him on his website/blog at DavidLCraddock.com .

Reviews

[Kalin]

Random notes:

~ A tidbit from S. D. Perry:

Craddock: Without getting into specific numbers, how well did tie-in novels pay when you wrote the Resident Evil and Aliens books? Does that market still pay about the same, or has it gotten better or worse?
 
SDP: I wrote all those books for a flat up-front fee and occasionally a percent of a percent of royalties; that's usually how it is when you're writing in someone else's universe. I was offered between $8,000 and $12,000 per book. So I got paid to write them, and if they did well, I sometimes saw a few hundred dollars here or there later on. The RE books definitely had the best royalties, but they dried up years ago. When the series was reissued a few years back—by a different company, which had leased the publishing rights—no one even told me.
 
I have no idea what the market pays now. For writers in my bracket, $8k-$12k is still pretty good, I think. That's about what I got on my last big project, a year ago.

No comment. What can I say anyway?

~ American McGee sounds like a nice guy. After watching his *hee-hee* Alice, I thought he'd be zanier.