Great Books Games aims to develop gaming franchises centered about rich stories contained in the Great Books. Dante's Inferno, with it's descent through nine levels of Hell and ever-more-sinster demons leading to a three-headed Satan, is the obvious place to start.

By using a combination of Open Source and proprietary philosophies, Great Books Games will marry public domain art, music, stories, and architecture to cutting-edge, proprietary game engines such as Epic's Unreal 3 engine, which will include the Kismet Visual Scripting System that will empower storytellers as game developers.

GBG aims to create a public domain archive for art and architecture to support games based on classic stories, while also developing an Open Source content, collaboration, workflow, and community management system to support virtual game companies.

While EA says tomorrow's games will cost more, GBG believes tomorrow's games will cost less, thanks to new game development paradigms based on technology's inevitable march and Open Source philosophies:

1) Great Books Games will inspire enduring franchises: as the technology advances, the story will stay the same. Dante's Inferno can continue inspiring next-generation games for hundreds of years.
2) GBG games will have great educational value: as long as kids/teens are shooting/flying/racing, why not expose them to classical art and literature?
3) GBG will inspire cool, positive publicity, encouraging parents to purchase the games and schools and libraries to stock them.
4) The games will have long shelf-lives: even an older version of The Odyssey will retain its aesthetic and educational appeal.
5) GBG can take advantage of public domain art, architecture, and music: rich games can be made at a fraction of the cost, and classical content can be modded and integrated by a small team.
6) Various stories/books can be blended in a seamless world, so that a player can meet the famous philosophers and characters, descending into Dante's Inferno and then fighting the Battle of Troy, with Beethoven playing in the background.
7) In multi-player mode, players could enter a giant game world as classical characters, such as Hamlet, Dante, or Juliet, where they could play different levels, corresponding to the classics.
8) As Hollywood and gaming merge, and storytelling becomes more pervasive in games, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces can be manifested time and again within GBG.
9) After Dante's Inferno and The Odyssey, GBG could explore developing gaming worlds for famous historical battles, ranging from The Iliad to the Civil War, or giving tours of the Sistine Chapel or Parthenon.
10) By using a cutting-edge game engine such as Epic's Unreal 3 Engine, a small team could become a first mover in creating a lasting brand.
11) By developing and providing a suite of Open Source community/content/collaboration/workflow tools to modders, artists, and storytellers all around the world, Great Books Games aims to help foster new paradigms in game development.

The first ten Great Books Games will be:

1. Dante's Inferno
2. The Iliad
3. The Odyssey
4. Shakespeare's Hamlet
5. Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
6. The Red Badge of Courage (Civil War)
7. Moby Dick
8. Treasure Island
9. Bible Stories
10. The Aeneid

GBG games could take place in both classical and contemporary settings. For instance, Dante's Inferno could present a classical interpretation of hell exactly as Dante described it, and/or it could be modded to present a contemporary hell, complete with Grand Theft Auto-like characters, corrupt politicians, infamous lawyers, Wall Street hypesters, and other "sinners." An Open Source approach to content built upon a cutting-edge game engine would foster hybrid games.