It’s an interesting thing, watching video games seep slowly into general culture, like the water that erodes and shatters the cliff. Bethesda’s hit game Skyrim is one example of this unstoppable osmosis. People who wouldn’t give a second thought to video games are discovering the thrill and lure of virtual worlds through Skyrim. People who write for a living are also discovering that Skyrim is full of books. Lots of books. What do they think about the tales and legends and novels scattered through this RPG? PopMatters has the story.
Hi, I’m a professional writer, and when I see those books in Skyrim, my thoughts are of hope and sadness. Hope, because that’s a lot of writing and a lot of world-building. That’s what I do in action. In demand. The sadness comes in when I realize most players are just going to pop open a book, wait for the skill bonus, then chuck the thing at the nearest vendor.
Kind of like real life, really.
I had a few of my novels translated into books in SecondLife. Unfortunately, books in video games suffer from horrible UI problems — often the game itself fails to provide a display mechanism that actually makes reading reasonable (even Warcraft has this problem). Most people are not inclined to read every line of quest text in the first place; but when coupled with pages and pages of cumbersome walls-of-text, poor reformatting options, and lack of ease of controlling how to view it…
The list goes on.
Fortunately, someone has already dumped the literature out into an app to read on tablets; this is how I see interacting virtual worlds and the real world. The screen is for broad scale virtual interactions and then when something needs a personal touch, push it to the mobile device like a tablet so the person can sit down with the text in hand.
Well I do read them all, afterall, Olav Millen, Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold Master of Destruction Olav Millen, is a very intellectual sorcerer, I read every book, and collect them as well, I put them all into my library in Markath.
That’s the fun about Skyrim, if you’re playing a stupid warrior, why would you read any book at all? The character doesn’t even is supposed to know how to read. On the other hand, if you’re the intellectual type, such as a mage or a smart bard, than why not?
Also, I can’t wait for a writing books mod come out in a few months maybe, and then Master Olav will be able to spread his own geniality across Skyrim =D (smilly face)