This is a bit of an odd story: according to paidContent (http://paidcontent.org/2013/03/15/google-is-launching-an-ebook-line-based-on-its-augmented-reality-game-ingress/) – and as first reported by to PublishersLunch (http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2013/03/google-unit-to-launch-ebooks-that-tie-in-to-their-hot-game-ingress/) – Google's Niantic Labs, the somewhat mysterious division of Google that is home to Field Trip (http://www.fieldtripper.com/), the Niantic Project (http://www.nianticproject.com/) and Ingress (http://www.ingress.com/), will soon start co-publishing a series of eBooks based on Ingress, its popular augmented reality game. A Google spokesperson confirmed to us that this report is indeed correct.
The series, which, according to PublishersLunch, will be called ALIGNMENT and written and co-published with the help of Thomas Greanias (http://www.thomasgreanias.com/); the first installment (ALIGNMENT: Ingress) will be published in April. The books are supposedly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Greanias) designed as prequels to Greanias' Raising Atlantis series.
It looks like Greanias has long been interested (http://thomasgreanias.com/resistance-forces-free-secret-map-of-ingress-island-from-lantis-media-tower/) in the Ingress story, and the overall theme of the game seems to fit in well with his earlier books. For Google, though, this – just like Ingress and most everything else that has come out of Niantic Labs – is a bit of a departure. The company isn't exactly known for launching games. And to then turn the game into a series of books is obviously new territory for Google, though Niantic Labs does seem to operate pretty independently (http://www.businessinsider.com/google-niantic-labs-2013-1) from the rest of the company.
Via: TechCrunch