Over the last seven or eight years – time has lost all meaning to me – I’ve written for the DICE Awards for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Along with Devon Coleman, a fellow writer from Mystery Science Theater 3000, we worked with the producers and the hosts to craft jokes and introductions and whatnot. If you’ve seen an awards show, you know how they go. And if you’re interested in the process of writing an awards show, all you need to do is put a lot of sentences in a Google doc and then have someone leave comments saying, “This is really funny” or “This is really funny, but we’d all like to have jobs in the future.” This applies to almost every awards show I’ve written for, video games and otherwise.
Of course, DICE is more than just an awards show. It’s also a summit in which some of the greatest minds in gaming come together to discuss the issues facing today. With the industry in the state that it’s in, you can understand why there were a lot of serious talks and a lot of panels focused on making games. You can also understand why I, an idiot, was not invited to these panels. I’m allowed to go! I had a pass and everything, mom! I just don’t really have a lot to contribute to the problems of the industry outside of, “Stop it” and “Come on, you guys” and “Seriously, now, cut it out.” So, instead, I spent my time in Las Vegas going to Retro City Games and I found something even stupider than last year: The 2006 Gamer’s Tome of Ultimate Wisdom: An Almanac of Pimps, Orcs, and Lightsabers. Their title, not mine!
I Have No Idea Who This Is For, Except Me
I love some weird, bizarre video game ephemera, and this was not a book that anybody on planet Earth was going to buy. Except for me. I’m the one person – of billions – in 2025 who decided to buy a 2006 guide to the world of video games. And I’m so glad I did, because it is hilarious and fascinating in equal measure. It’s a text from an ancient time before culture wars turned every RPG’s character creator into a battlefield of woke chins or whatever stupid ass thing people are mad about right now. Don’t get me wrong, this book isn’t from a better time in gaming, just from a weirdly different one.
My best guess is this is more of a book for parents trying to keep up? But it’s aimed at fans of all types? It’s hard to say who this is really for other than me, 20 years after it came out. It includes tips and tricks, but not many. It includes game descriptions, but kind of just overviews. It’s the type of book you’d check out of the library as a kid if your parents wouldn’t let you go online, maybe? Also, each month has its own title page that’s supposed to summarize what’s inside and give you a list of “flops of the month.” The February title page, however, is almost cartoonishly blank. Not a lot to throw in there.
I also have to comment on the structure of this book from 19 years ago that I bought for $5. It’s called the 2006 guide, but it was published in December of 2005 and mostly just reviews the past twelve months of gaming while adding some commentary. Other parts talk about the big, exciting upcoming games that are sure to blow our minds. Which is hilarious when you get to StarCraft: Ghost, because the book is pretty sure that it’s coming out soon. It did not come out soon. Or ever, really. I did an old-timey 1800s guffaw when the book marveled that StarCraft: Ghost was announced all the way back in 2002.
Gaming Has Changed A Lot
You kind of forget that long video game delays used to be unusual. Remember Duke Nukem Forever? Hoo boy. Now game development cycles take years, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and screw over their staff at the last second whether it makes money or not. Back then, the idea of a game taking three years to come out was mind boggling. We were so innocent. We hadn’t even reached Elder Scrolls: Oblivion horse armor yet. And, again, this is a book covering a year in gaming. I can’t imagine someone doing that today because… why? Even back then people had high-speed internet. This feels like an artifact from back when this would still feel like an artifact.
It’s also interesting to read this and see what people were mad about back then. There’s a section on esports that basically starts with the author implying that they aren’t actual sports. I know that’s a conversation some people still have, but nobody really cares about that anymore. It’s such an old, early ‘00s argument to have that it’s almost refreshing to see it compared to today’s battles over the stupidest junk imaginable. Again, this isn’t a more innocent time – we just heard about fewer of the abuses – but it’s still mindblowing to remember when every stupid argument wasn’t over what skin color is allowed to exist in a medieval setting.
It’s almost relaxing to read this big, stupid book. It’s not a well-made nostalgic guide to the past like you’d see from Limited Run Games or Bitmap Books. Also, full disclosure, I wrote the absolute dumbest book in the Limited Run Games library, but that was neither nostalgic nor really a guide to the past. My point being, it’s so weird to read an old book about games that’s so confident and buoyant and often wrong. It’s almost like if Marty McFly’s sports almanac kept getting things slightly wrong by just a bit. It’s entertaining and refreshing and so, so stupid.
Obviously, these books used to be common. In fact, I’m gonna be real honest, it’s not the only stupid book I bought: I also purchased an early edition of the King’s Quest Companion that’s so old it doesn’t cover any of the series that came out after the 1980s. Why? Because I can and there is nothing else going on in my life.
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