As is tradition, here is my list of books I read over the past year. Sadly, I didn’t quite hit my self-imposed two books per month “quota”, but I got close (21 total)… All non-fiction, as usual.

Games-related

Leadership

Business/Economics

Self-Help/Culture/Etc

Of the bunch, the Lincoln bio-book, Team of Rivals, was particularly inspiring. It was a whopping 900 pages, but every page was dripping with insight.

In terms of actually doing innovation Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators was surprisingly pragmatic - and I could see it help many traditional game studios that are trying to make the transition to emerging markets and business models. Ditto for Super Crunchers, which was given out as sponsored swag (appropriately by EEDAR) during DICE last year. There were many aha! moments during both of these books.

The bulk of the business/economics books are my attempt to beef up my knowledge as it pertains to my cluster/economic development consulting efforts. Free was an awesome read, and another one that everyone on the biz side of games should read. Ditto for Word of Mouth Marketing, especially given the recent research on WoM’s impact on game sales.

Awake at Work, recommended by Intel’s Scott Crabtree at last year’s IGDA Leadership Forum, was my first foray into Buddhist influenced reading. Was deep and inspiring. Influence was awesome. I need to study it more, mwhouahaha!