country of origin united states headquarters location roseville california publication types books fiction genres video game strategy guides official website www.primagames.com prima games is the largest publishing company of video game strategy guides in the united states . 1 a division of random house it is an imprint of the random house information group based in roseville california . 2 they normally feature in depth walkthroughs to completing the game and the characters . contents 1 notable titles 2 contributors 3 history 4 references 5 external links notable titles edit the company has produced over 1 400 titles and boasts over 90 million strategy guides in print . 1 in 2005 prima introduced electronic distribution of gaming guides . 3 for some guides like half life 2 raising the bar it worked directly with the developers themselves in producing the guide . 4 contributors edit writers of strategy guides for prima games include david s.j. hodgson stephen stratton michael searle catherine browne zach farley stephen gibbons william murray dan herrera history edit prima publishing was a small publisher working out of a residential style home office in roseville california when in 1990 its owner ben dominitz contracted with author rusel demaria to create a video game strategy guide imprint initially called the secrets of the games . at the time demaria was senior editor for pc games magazine and on the staff of gamepro . the initial contract called for five books the first ones being nintendo games secrets sega genesis games secrets turbografx games secrets game boy games secrets and the official lucasfilm games air combat strategies book . notable titles included myst the official strategy guide which sold in excess of 1.25 million copies in all versions the 7th guest the official strategy guide x wing the official strategy guide tie fighter the official strategy guide secret of mana game secrets prince of persia the official strategy guide a special sonic the hedgehog book for sony and two earthworm jim strategy guides . demaria served as the principal author and creative director of secrets of the games between 1990 and 1996 . he also was the editor on several books by other authors . in 2006 prima games undertook an effort to revolutionize the quality of mmorpg strategy guides . historically those had largely consisted of charts of data maps and basic instructions . what they were lacking was expert strategy content . prima engaged the online gaming community known as the syndicate www.llts.org who was very large well known and well connected with developers . 5 that partnership resulted in a shift in how strategy guides were written . they began to be less of a data dump and more of a deep strategy . examples of this can be seen in the lotro pirates of the burning seas 6 vanguard warhammer online and other similar guides from 2006 through 2009 . in 2009 prima games decided to take the expert strategy concept an additional step . first they hired the syndicate its own independent studio in place of a specific author . the guides would be written from the ground up solely by the syndicate . they filled the role of writer author project management and editor . second the scope of the guides they worked on was expanded from just mmos to include fps rts and rpg games . in 2010 prima started selling their strategy guides on steam . in 2013 prima parent company penguin group merged with random house owner of competing strategy guide imprint bradygames to form penguin random house . on june 1 2015 it was announced that the two imprints would merge and continue to operate solely under the prima games brand . 7 references edit a b about prima games . prima games . retrieved 2007 02 19 . prima publishing to be realigned within the crown publishing group pdf . random house . retrieved 2007 02 24 . ign s direct2drive to offer downloadable prima guides . ign . retrieved 2007 02 24 . snider mike december 9 2004 . strategy guides are as hot as video games . usa today . retrieved 30 december 2015 . part of the author team . prima games . retrieved 2009 09 11 . pirates press release . prima games . retrieved 2009 09 11 . two big video game strategy guide makers become one . polygon . retrieved 2 june 2015 . external links edit official prima games website v t e penguin random house random house usa crown crown broadway harmony hogarth three rivers ten speed watson guptill knopf doubleday knopf doubleday everyman s library us pantheon schocken vintage random house ballantine bantam dell del rey dial modern library spectra villard children s beginner books golden information books on tape fodor s living language the princeton review prima games uk cornerstone hutchinson random house william heinemann ebury bbc books ebury del rey fodor s rider virgin books 90 % transworld bantam doubleday vintage publishing the bodley head chatto & windus harvill secker jonathan cape vintage canada mcclelland & stewart douglas gibson books tundra books new canadian library other companhia das letras 45 % penguin random house grupo editorial alfaguara penguin group uk dorling kindersley hamish hamilton ladybird penguin penguin classics puffin rough guides viking warne us alpha author solutions authorhouse iuniverse trafford xlibris dutton penguin putnam riverhead sentinel tarcher viking berkley publishing group ace berkley new american library jove plume roc children s dial young readers dutton children s firebird g. p. putnam s sons grosset & dunlap philomel price stern sloan puffin warne parents bertelsmann pearson plc retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title prima games & oldid 742582587 categories publishing companies established in the 1990scompanies based in roseville californiabook publishing companies based in californiapenguin random housevideo game journalism navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read 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