Three titles I haven’t laid on hands yet, but definitely will: Half-Life 2: Raising the bar, The making of Doom II, and Masters of Doom: How two guys created an empire and transformed pop culture. When I was a kid I was tremendously thrilled by the Star-Wars movies (and still am today, I confess). This also is the root of a string of associations of mine which culminate in this research-project. With putting Star-Wars related items on sale, George Lucas started what today is well known as ‘merchandising’. I never bought a Skywalker-puppet or the like, but I went lengths for those making-of books and portfolios, sporting the beautiful production and concept paintings and drawings [check out the christmas cards!] by Ralph McQuarrie — like this early concept-sketch of Darth Vader you can see on the left.
    Of course merchandising is nothing new to computergames, but with those three books it enters the Lucas-league.