Jason Schreier

Thoroughly enjoyed, though it's unsurprising since I really enjoy Jason Schreier's work and followed him for years.

I pushed for our company book club to read this book and it feels very relevant, since we're a games studio and I can't help but get a twinge of fear, anger and optimism when I read about various industry folk succeeding, failing and picking up the pieces to move on and keep pursuing their career.

I also enjoyed how Schreier came up with tangible ideas at the end of the book on show more how to resolve the tumultuous nature of the video games industry, really interesting stuff. You can tell he did his homework, every chapter is littered with primary sources and interesting history of companies, how they formed and executive decisions. Heartbreaking, funny and surprising.

I knew a lot of the stories already, but it was refreshing to hear the full story and the people behind it. Excellent, and am very keen to try Blood, Sweat and Pixels next. show less

This is an easy book to like. Schreier is a good writer and his access to key figures in the industry is exciting for a behind the scenes on big moments in gaming. Indeed, the first couple chapters he covers are interesting as broad surveys into the perils of game development such as scope creep, marketing and the crunch.

But the longer you go on, the more you get the sense that his attempts to cover the crunch and similar dysfunctions of project and business management in the industry are show more more an apologia for insiders with survivor bias than a critique of toxic work environments.

In that respect, I found myself getting more irritated as the case studies went on, since every developer's inevitable deadline push and 100hr work week just felt banal and awful rather than a triumph of creative passion. I'm not in game development (thank goodness!) and it's largely because the norms that go relatively unchallenged in this book work really well for select game devs with credibility and power, whereas the common employee is treated like garbage and told that this is for the great good. I doubt this was Schreier's intent, but the sum total of the book reads more like an attempt to spin complete management dysfunction as normal operating parameters. show less

Honestly, Schreier is too kind. Any professional developer looking at his case studies sees the sort of epic failure of management that would render even a genius into pariah in most competent industries. Game dev culture is built on a house of cards where the incompetence of leaders normalizes the inevitable crunch that results. Such a waste.

Made my blood boil. The author takes everything managers tell him uncritically. This is an extremely sympathetic (sycophantic) account of game development. It paints this ridiculous picture of people doing what they love and killing themselves and ruining their lives for the players. What a load of bollocks. Uncharted isn't some labour of love, it's a number in a spreadsheet and the developers aren't heros, they are expenses. And they don't do unpaid overtime because they love it, they do it show more because there is an infinite supply of idiots who are eager to take their place and the studio will not hesitate for a second to replace them. Welcome to the world of game development. show less