PC World Business

The subtitle to Dungeons and Dreamers, ‘The rise of computer game culture’, is clear but doesn’t wholly spell out what the authors of this book are attempting. King and Borland are primarily interested in how gaming has created communities during its history — from school nerds and developer startups to clans of online gamers.

If you’re looking for a nuts and bolts background to gaming, Dungeons and Dreamers is not the title to buy. This book, instead of focusing on the technical details, concentrates on the people behind the games and their stories.

The first characters to star in Dungeons and Dreamers, aptly, are the minds behind Dungeons and Dragons, which the authors believe inspired the subsequent first gaming generation. Other important sections feature John Carmack and John Romero, co-creators of Doom.

Smaller stories are interspersed with these big names of gaming. One story I found interesting was that of Will Wright, creator of Sim City. Writing a shoot-’em-up, Wright became increasingly fascinated by the models of the worlds he created for the game. There’s more to it, of course, and this little section is one of the nuggets of the book.

Running through all these narratives is the story of Richard Garriott, the man behind the Ultima games. The authors follow Garriott from his days writing a game inspired by Dungeons and Dragons for a school assignment to running his own company, dealing with mergers, taking games online and beyond.

If you like the Wired style (one of the authors was a correspondent), with its recreations and big picture perspective, you’ll appreciate the approach taken in Dungeons and Dreamers. The book makes for interesting reading, although it sometimes comes a little unstuck trying to cram so much in and tying it all back to the community theme.