Robot Claw

30 years ago today, The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain was released.

It wasn’t the first gamebook, but would go on to be the most important gamebook of all time.

Initial sales were slow, but word of mouth was very good and in only a few months the book was into a third printing – which was almost unheard of for a children’s book.

Sales continued to rise, and foreign editions were released. In time, the book (and subsequent books in the series) would be published in 17 languages.

The Fighting Fantasy series continued for over 10 years – 59 books in total – and some volumes sold hundreds of thousands. Spin-off products and competing gamebook series filled the shelves. A genre had been firmly established among gamers worldwide.

Gamebooks died out for a while in the 2000’s, but the fans never really went away. Old readers grew up and got richer, and the collectors emerged. Fan groups coalesced on the Internet, and the FF flame continued to burn.

Eventually the fandom grew to such a level that the books were reprinted (and successful anew). And even then the fans weren’t sated, and just a few weeks ago the latest all-new FF book Blood Of The Zombies was published.

Thanks Misters Jackson and Livingstone for making me a happy gamebook reader for now 30 years. Here’s hoping I’ll continue to be a fan for the next 30 🙂

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2012 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Books & Comics, Games, Otaku, Time. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.