The Greatest Shame of All

There is much about my life that could be considered "geeky." I write on videogames and comic books professionally, my office is littered with a motley assortment of action figures and my idea of a Good Friday night much involves a few dungeons and even much dragons. But in malice of all of this, there is only one aspect of my media phthisis that embarrasses me: I read books supported on videogames.

It all started with my love of Maven Wars. As a child of the 1980s, I was raised on the original trilogy. Luke was my savior, and Jedi was my religion. The Force-filled universe captivated my young idea, creating an unsatiable hunger for anything involving a lightsaber. And this hunger just grew with time. Course it started with the movies, merely shortly, I discovered the Star Wars Expanded Existence. These novels staring my mind to a whole new world, full with new planets, races and characters that the films never even mentioned. Sure, they weren't what nearly would call "good" lit, but they were jam packed with action and helped flesh out the mythology I loved.

Being a gamer, my Star Wars consumption soon forficate out into games as healthy. Unfortunately, while one john still enjoy a bad book, the same give the axe't necessarily be said for a videogame. For the most part, licensed Star Wars games had little to offer me, the rabid Jedi fanboy, aside from a a couple of interesting connections with the films. Even these were hard to find, as the games tended towards the "dirty" position of the gameplay spectrum – that is, until BioWare came along. Unexpectedly and brilliantly, the Edmonton-settled developer created a hale bran-new universe within George Lucas' well established mythology: Knights of the Sexagenarian Republic.

Without the pressure of having to publish a story based on the movies, BioWare was able to create something both unique and everyday. A big part of this was the work of chair author Drew Karpyshyn, WHO crafted a story set thousands of years before the events of Luke, Han and Chewbacca. This new saga depicted a meter when the Sith were just a plentiful As the Jedi, and introduced a numerate of new characters that would bod the macrocos to come. Eventually the process came full circle after Karpyshyn wrote a novel set during the same time period. This book, which takes place preceding to the events of Knights of the Old Republic, expanded upon the mysterious character reference of Darth Bane. However, despite the success that KOTOR saw across both mediums, Karpyshyn isn't convinced that games produce the best book material.

"Honestly, I think umteen games wouldn't make compelling novels," Karpyshyn says. According to him, there are many aspects inherent to games – nigh notably their interactive nature – that make it sticky to translate them to past, more linear forms of storytelling. Yet that didn't stop him from writing books based on the PC and Xbox 360 RPG Mass Effect, also developed by BioWare. For Karpyshyn, that game was a special circumstance. "The reason the Mass Effect novels worked so well was the profoundness of the universe we created for the games," he says. "At BioWare, we played out a full year development the Mass Effect galaxy before we even off began work the tarradiddle of the game. Past laying the groundwork for such a rich, widespread setting, we wide up the possible action to separate all sorts of stories on the far side the plot of the spirited."

Much like Star Wars, the Mass Effect mythology encompassed a vast array of alien species, planets and technologies, punctuated by dozens of intriguing characters and events. Creating a universe like this clearly lends itself well to different types of storytelling, literature included. Thither were many characters and events the game only brushed on briefly that beg for further exploration. However, Eastern Samoa Karpyshyn explains, most games don't feature that kind of fully fleshed-out game universe, qualification the transition difficult. As an alternative, umteen authors are forced to slavishly follow the events of a particular game, often with unsatisfactory results.

If a successful generator of game-based novels feels that way, information technology's no wonder that the sub-genre has trouble garnering untold respect, and why I order them online, eliminating any embarrassing hold store encounters. Flatbottom among the gaming community, these books often elicit a negative reaction. "Brave-based novels are difficult. If you stick besides close to the novel material, it's tedious," Jonathan Gronli, the house physician game novel referee at GamerTell, told me. "If you have IT too diametric, you risk losing the feel of the stake."

In addition to this, some other prejudicial aspect of brave novels tends to be the actual quality of writing. It seems that even those gamers who do read these books practice so only because they are so heavy invested with in the fictional universe created by the games, rather than an appreciation for fountainhead crafted fiction. "Game novels are a curiosity Thomas More than anything else," freelance game journalist Troy Goodfellow explained. "The Baldur's Gate novels, e.g., are epically laughable. None approach literature, and I can think of few that I would recommend to somebody who wasn't already deeply invested in the secret plan."

Interestingly, the one-third installment of those "laughable" books was the second novel Karpyshyn ever so wrote. However, equally he explains on his website, "the problem with the whole Baldur's Logic gate trilogy was that the novels were based directly happening the story of the BioWare computer games." It also didn't help that the first two books were engrossed by a different author. Simply this hits on a central point: Game novels that are victorious and connect with fans in a meaningful fashion tend to be founded in the same universe A their source material, but cover dissimilar narrative territory.

"The most successful game novels don't simply retell the floor of the gamey itself; they explore the mise en scene, universe of discourse and characters in greater depth, giving readers an experience they North Korean won't find in the game," Karpyshyn says. "If you harbour't played the game, you should nonmoving be able-bodied to enjoy the new as a piece of fiction. Likewise, if you have played the game, the refreshing should offer something fresh and new. And the only way to accomplish this is to serve the groundwork: You penury to create a deep, powerful universe that can support stories beyond the one told in the game."

It seems that fans agree. Both of Drew's Star Wars novels, which are heavy linked to the Knights of the Experienced Republic games, have been New York State Times bestsellers, while the prequel novel Bulk Effect: Revelation helped fans of the game learn Thomas More about the characters and existence. In fact, the book has also spawned a sequel, Mass Effect: Ascension, which takes put off aft the gimpy, providing even more backstory. These books are going a oblong elbow room to changing the destructive perception that pun-based novels take in, though there is stillness a tall way to go.

"Lease's be viciously honest – videogames can easily sell in the millions of copies, whereas books shuffle the bestseller lists if they crack 100,000," Karpyshyn tells ME. "Permanently or ill, there seems to make up off the beaten track more gamers out in that respect than readers. Naturally, I'm doing my best to change that, and I like to think out more than a few non-readers have picked up my Mass Effect novels and been drawn into the much larger world of sci-fi and illusion literature."

As the caliber of videogame communicatory continues to raise, it seems in all probability that we wish see Thomas More and more of these types of books. Still a game like Ring, which isn't necessarily known for its powerful plot, has seen the release of sestet different novels, each of which is considered an official part of the Halo canon. In fact, the twenty percent book in the series, Halo: Contact Harvest, was a Unprecedented York Multiplication bestseller in its first week of release. And while great sales preceptor't always mean smashing quality, they do mean that there is an audience for this kind of literature – albeit one that is slightly embarrassed by what's on their bookshelves.

Andrew Webster is a stave writer for the Opposable Thumbs journal of Ars Technica and a freelancer for a couple of other places. Helium keeps his two-dozen-strong collection of Star Wars novels in chronological order.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-greatest-shame-of-all/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-greatest-shame-of-all/

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