LitRPG

I wasn’t sure whether this piece in The Economist of May 23rd rated a comment until towards the end when they assured me that one of the writers of LitRPG (literary role-playing games) “with the cryptic pen name Zogarth, makes nearly $90,000 every month from subscribers on Patreon”. Clearly a lot of people like stories based on games. As a non-games-player I’m finding it hard to see past the idea of a biography of that top-hatted guy on the Monopoly board — but obviously there’s more excitement available than that. Wikipedia tells us that the term LitRPG was first used in 2013 in Russia. And apparently Russian writers played a major role in getting this literary genre going. LitRPG tales are not just stories set in the environment of the game: “Typically, the main character in a LitRPG novel is consciously interacting with the game or game-like world and attempting to progress within it.” If you are interested in following up, Goodreads provides a list of the Best LitRPG books (all…