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S. M. G. Szczepaniak
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The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers: Gold Edition Kindle Edition

by S.M.G Szczepaniak (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 172
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This book reveals more secrets about the history of Japanese games than ever before, with 36 interviewees and exclusive archive photos. Konami's secret games console, the origin of Game Arts and Quintet, unusual events at Telenet, stories on Falcom, politics behind Enix's game programming contests, a tour of the Love-de-Lic and WARP offices (with layout sketches). Every interviewee is asked about unreleased titles. Foreword by GAMESIDE magazine's editor-in-chief, Yusaku Yamamoto. INTERVIEWEES INCLUDE: Hitoshi YONEDA / Tatsuo NOMURA / Katsutoshi EGUCHI / Toru HIDAKA / Roy OZAKI / Kouichi YOTSUI / Masaaki KUKINO / Yoshitaka Murayama / Harry Inaba / Ryukushi07 / Kotaro UCHIKOSHI / ZUN / Yoshiro KIMURA / Kouji YOKOTA / Jun Nagashima / Yuzo KOSHIRO / Masamoto MORITA / Akira TAKIGUCHI / Masakuni MITSUHASHI / Kohei IKEDA / Hiroshi SUZUKI / Tomonori SUGIYAMA / Yutaka ISOKAWA / Yasuhito SAITO / Takaki KOBAYASHI / Keite ABE / Keiji INAFUNE / Makoto GOTO
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  1. Book 1 of 3
    The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers
  2. Print length
    1287 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    November 26, 2014
  6. File size
    9168 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
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  10. See all details
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  4. A Handheld History: A comprehensive celebration of handheld consoles and their iconic games from indie journal publisher Lost
  5. Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life
  6. The Ultimate History of Video Games: from Pong to Pokemon and beyond...the story behind the craze that touched our lives and
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Szczepaniak is a journalist, novelist, and copy editor. He's written for Retro Gamer, GamesTM, Official PlayStation Magazine, Game Developer Magazine, Gamasutra, The Escapist, GameFAN MkII, nRevolution, 360 Magazine, Play UK, X360, Go>Play, Next3, The Gamer's Quarter, Retro Survival, NTSC-uk, Tom's Hardware Guide, Insomnia, GameSetWatch, Shenmue Dojo, Pixel Nation, plus others.

He frequently contributes to Hardcore Gaming 101, where he helped put together The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures book, and was managing editor on the Sega Arcade Classics Volume 1 book.

John has been doing this for over 10 years, and has interviewed over 200 people. He also enjoyed a six month stint as Staff Writer on Retro Gamer and three years as sub-editor at Time Warner. He's licensed by the UK's Royal Yachting Association as a naval skipper, and also holds a Marine Radio Operator's license. MENSA certified, speaks Japanese, programs indie games, and brews wine.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00Q93N29I
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ SMG Szczepaniak (November 26, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 26, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 9168 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 1287 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 172

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S. M. G. Szczepaniak

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
172 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Technically Literate
5.0 out of 5 stars A lot of information to digest, really gives you perspective on the Japanese game industry history.
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2021
Verified Purchase
Rare information, some humor, and some sadness of how each of the people worked and how they answered their interview questions gives a perspective more people need to be aware of. Huge difference between designing for fun and replayability versus strategic mental manipulation triggers for monetization in developing games. Everyone interested in working on board, card, tabletop RPGs, and video games should read this. Looking forward to tracking down more of the related series.
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Kat
5.0 out of 5 stars video games old and new
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2019
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As a kid, I played some handheld games and went to some game arcades. I remembered Nintendo and Sega.
However, only in the last few years when I started to play the Fire Emblem games and found out that some
of the early games never left Japan. Then I came across this book and I loved it. It is interesting to see all
the creators, programmers, artists, and others who made video games in Japan from the1980's to present
day (2013) possible. Even some of the games not sent to America sound awesome. However this book is long.
So be warned, but it is a great read for anyone who loves or loved video games. Buy this book and the second volume too.
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Leo Loikkanen
4.0 out of 5 stars this book is clearly for those that enjoy video games and video game history
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2014
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Have you ever had a book that you thought was SO FASCINATING that you even had trouble falling asleep? This...is one of those books. Giving Western people more detali about game development in Japan during the 80s and 90s, this book is a treasure trove especially concerning issues relating to games published on PC-89 and PC-99. Packed with information and pictures, this book is clearly for those that enjoy video games and video game history. One complain is that i feel like you really need to also own the DVD to fully get everything out of this book
5 people found this helpful
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The Pope Must Diet
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly unique book on video game history.
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2015
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This book is huge and densely packed with interviews. At first, the lack of a table of contents and a useful index was daunting, but as I skipped around and read random interviews I got over it. There's so many great untold tales of game development here. I glad they are documented. An excellent book!
One person found this helpful
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Johnsensei
3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Resource for a Niche Topic, but an Overwhelming Amount of Text and Material.
Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2015
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I’m hardcore into Japanese video games, including retro video games. Or at least I thought I was until I started reading this book. I must admit defeat for Japanese video game fandom, John Szczepaniak, the author of The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers: Volume 1, is much more of a geemu otaku than me (...*hangs head in shame*). Full disclosure: I did NOT contribute to the Kickstarter campaign...I didn’t really know about it.

So for the most part, I have great respect for what this book accomplishes. It was an important contribution to the world of video game studies for these untold stories of Japanese game developers to finally be told. There is valuable information here for hardcore fans and scholars of Japanese video games alike.

However, I believe you have to cherry pick the information you’re looking for. The book is almost entirely interviews with only a little commentary, explanation, or analysis. If you don’t know what a “PC-88” is, you’re probably going to have a hard time getting through most of the text found herein. I don’t recommend this book for a straight read-through. I tried it, and as much as I love Japanese video games, I couldn’t do it, my interest just wasn’t maintained enough to read the entire thing.

One of the reasons for this is the interview questions are essentially the same for each interview: What was the first game you played? There was a rumor about [Project Blank] at the company you worked for. What can you tell us about it? (To which, the developer always answers that [Project Blank] was in another division of the company, that he didn’t work on it, and/or he can’t comment on it.) Now, I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing that the interview format and questions are generally the same. It would help maintain consistency and automate the interview process. The problem comes in that the developers’ answers just really aren’t all that interesting. Personally, I didn’t find the first games they played or how their offices were arranged to be of much significance. And most of the developers can’t comment about many of the secretive racy topics that the author always tries to bring up and which you’ll see in the product description, like “Konami’s secret games console.” If you want to read this book for insider info on “Konami’s secret games console” I’ll save you some time with this spoiler: there’s nothing in this book about it from the game developers themselves.

I got the most from the Masaaki Kukino interview (worked on Castlevania arcade), the Suikoden Chapter, the section on Visual Novels and doujin games as a cultural study, but especially the Keiji Inafune interview. I believe Keiji Inafune to be one of the most brilliant minds the Japanese game industry has ever known, and that brilliance shines forth in this interview. So in the end, the price of the Kindle version has been worth it to have this resource in my collection.

However to be frank, about all I learned from the other interviews I read is this: Some Japanese game developer I’ve never heard of worked on some video game that I’ve never heard of for an old Japanese computer system I never had access to in my life. Now if you’re the biggest fan in the world of that particular game, you’ll get a lot out of the interview. I just didn’t get much value from most of the interviews so I must not be as hardcore into Japanese games as I thought.

I will add this book to my Game Studies List on my website and aStore as it is a good resource for a very niche topic. But I do recommend reading a sample or checking out at the library before a full purchase to make sure this resource will be helpful to you or not. Volume 2 is already out, but I’ve got other books on my “To Read List” right now, so I’m not in a rush to jump into the second volume just yet. Maybe someday.
12 people found this helpful
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Bluefish
5.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT!
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2017
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Absolutely fantastic and detailed. So in-depth I can't even figure out what to say. This is a massive book (in size and goodness). I can't believe this exists.
2 people found this helpful
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William T C Isted
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating interviews
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2019
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I really enjoyed reading these fascinating interviews of the programmers, musicians and artists that have made some of the games I enjoyed in my youth (and not so youth).
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Roderick E Haxton
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book. I love the insights of how other ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2016
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Very good book. I love the insights of how other developers came to their ideas and implementations. I wish there were more interviews w/ actual game programmers but I guess they are in the future volumes.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Pedro M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Tal como Descrito
Reviewed in Spain on November 18, 2023
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Tenho familiaridade com os trabalhos do John Szczepaniak e devo dizer que este livro, que basicamente compila todos os anteriores em que ele trabalhou sobre a história dos devs de gaming japoneses é de longe a versão definitiva de todo o trabalho dele até à presente data. Recomendado!
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Luca Esposito
5.0 out of 5 stars Oro per gli appassionati del videogioco e non solo dei videogiochi
Reviewed in Italy on March 23, 2019
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Primo libro di una serie scritta (e non tradotta, ma in un inglese tutt'altro che ostico) da John Szczepaniak, giornalista che ha all'attivo collaborazioni con numerose testate videoludiche, tra cui Hardcore Gaming 101, Gamasutra, The Escapit, Tom's Hardware Guide ecc., presenta numerose interviste (36 nel primo volume, 30 nel secondo e 35 nell'ultimo) a personaggi chiave della allora nascente industria videoludica giapponese. Cover artist, illustratori, programmatori, scrittori, musicisti, editori e altre figure che hanno gettato le basi di quella cultura videoludica che oggi sentiamo forse più lontana, essendo ormai sopraffatti da megaproduzioni occidentali in grado di monopolizzare l'attenzione di buona parte del pubblico e, spiace dirlo, da un pregiudizio anche culturale, sdoganato prima subdolamente e poi in maniera sfacciata dal buio politico di questi tempi.

Tale discorso potrà sembrare assurdo, ma basterebbe dare un'occhiata, anche sfuggevole, a forum e newsgroup per rendersi conto dell'aria di sufficienza, nel migliore dei casi, con cui si trattano le produzioni orientali.

L'incapacità, oggi di moda, di concepire il diverso, qualsiasi cosa che viaggi su binari diversi dai nostri.

Tornando ai contenuti, ci toviamo di fronte a interviste approfondite e non banali, ricche di aneddoti di un'epoca di pionieri, di pesanti limitazioni tecnologiche, di coesistenza o transizione dai personal computer giapponesi (la famiglia MSX, i Nec PC-xxxx e altri sistemi praticamente mai usciti dal loro territorio) alle console e alle schede arcade, in un'epoca naïf caratterizzata da una concezione del copyright piuttosto vaga.
Giusto un esempio: dall'intervista ad Akira Takiguchi emerge la figura del "naicon", nai computer, ovvero colui che, non potendo permettersi un computer, era costretto a far pratica... sulle postazioni esposte nei centri commerciali e nei negozi specializzati! Ovviamente, nell'impossibilità di salvare, a ogni sessione c'era da ricominciare...
Successivamente, lo stesso Takiguchi potè addirittura permettersi una calcolatrice programmabile Texas Instruments TI-58 e una macchina da scrivere Olivetti per fare pratica con la tastiera. Altri tempi.

Il costo delle edizioni cartacee sembra elevato: per gli appassionati, comunque, è oro, proprio come parrebbe suggerire il titolo. Molto più abbordabili le versioni ebook, disponibili attualmente per i primi due volumi, presenti anche nel catalogo Kindle Unlimited.

Si tratta di pubblicazioni non rivolte a un pubblico generalista, in ogni caso: non siamo in un territorio destinato ai soli addetti ai lavori, ma bisogna essere a parte di certe meccaniche produttive, tecnologie, mentalità. Una lettura abbastanza da nerd, però quelli veri.
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シャロン
5.0 out of 5 stars 無事に届きました
Reviewed in Japan on July 22, 2020
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無事に届きました
ありがとうございました
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JM
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth every penny, great product
Reviewed in Canada on December 18, 2015
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Amazing gaming history, ok after reading it and getting it for free, I can see that the product is a great piece of gaming history that is worth the price. Any gamer or non-gamer should read this to know not only the history of gaming, but the story and culture of Japan is must read.
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Fred
5.0 out of 5 stars Content content
Reviewed in France on August 10, 2015
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Bonjour.

Très content du livre, j'ai commandé le dvd a part après.
Pour les fans ou nostalgiques.
Plein d'histoire et d'anectodes sur d'anciens jeux vidéo et leurs studios d'époque.
Version anglaise.
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