Did you see this article in the New Yorker about Random House’s video-game division?
Though I’ve long complained that my generation has failed some enormous life test by not leaving behind its video games in childhood, that’s always been the nervous argument of a crank. Instead of squeezing out other art forms (like books) video games might simply be another venue for telling stories. And their wide audience and increasing complexity are good things for the people who tell those stories.
I heard about this yesterday, still not quite sure what to make of it. From what I understand, RH is putting together a team of about 15 people in-house that will be involved in this. I haven’t seen anything yet that suggests what kind of gaming/writing background these employees have, but it sounds like they’re involved with games on several different levels — they’re shopping around a few projects of their own, and also offering editorial services to companies with existing games.
I’m very much hoping that the people they choose are fellow gamers, not just people trying to market to gamers. The division will be under their Del Rey/Spectra imprint, so that’s encouraging to me.
A couple of further links on it from Gamasutra and Kotaku. (I don’t have a subscription to WSJ online, so I’m not sure how much is repeated from that article. Apologies if they don’t shed new light.)
Huh. I dunno how I missed that at Gamasutra, Lauren. Thanks for the link!
I think the most encouraging thing about this is that a respected literary publisher has realised that games can benefit from great writing as much as print does.
As I think Crouch implies, the underestimation of the medium of games stems from the assumption that writing is tangential or superfluous to the primary purpose of a game. While for many games this is true, for others the same maxim smacks of blind idiocy.
In my ignorance of the world of publishing beyond the books I’ve read, I’m not sure if this venture is a first. If it is, and it delivers on its innate promise, I think we could see a lot more publishers capitalising on their core business – finding exceptional writing talent.
Ultimately when you buy a book, its not the pages that you’re paying for. You pay for engagement, entertainment and a world to immerse yourself within. I hope RH are only the first of many to cotton on to this.
Random House’s venture smells to me a lot like the Hollywood agencies that have started up new media divisions. They know that there’s money in it (or, at least people have told them that there is), and so they’re trying to bring their existing edifices of money-mining to bear, but without any particular understanding of the new thing they’re trying to mine.
It seems to lead, generally, to clueless dinosaur flailing. They’ll get a bit of traction because they do, in fact, have a huge edifice optimized for money-mining, but that edifice generally has massive overhead that smarter, more agile mammals lack.
My money’s on the mammals.