Grand Central Publishing
Video games trade journalist Jason Schreier has left his mark through the years by digging up behind-the-scenes filth at websites like Kotaku and Bloomberg, however he could also be greatest recognized for Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. This 2017 ebook broke down like a Schreier’s “biggest hits” assortment: Each chapter adopted a selected sport and its lead studio via a wild “triple-A” interval within the late ’00s and early ’10s.
In the event you’ve learn BSP or any of Schreier’s different investigative tales, you may possible discover frequent threads at fashionable sport studios, irrespective of which style or particular firm is concerned. The primary good stroke of his latest ebook, Press Reset: Break and Restoration within the Recreation Business, is to take that idea a step additional. Particular person video games and studios get an occasional highlight, however this time, Schreier usually follows particular person developer résumés to reply a number of big trade questions.
Press Reset: Break and Restoration within the Video Recreation Business
What are the common woes faced by game developers big and small? Why is the industry so fickle? And what hope is there for developers caught up in a job market so clearly marked by tumult and layoffs?
How close we came to Epic Scrooge
Press Reset has less in the way of tantalizing news nuggets than you might expect from an average Schreier production, though if you’re simply looking for a mix of gaming history and secrets, you’ll find those gems along the way.
But in a media world where a single headline can be plucked, shared, and misconstrued without anyone reading the source material, Schreier makes the wise decision to focus on arguably more humdrum stories of individuals whose experiences routinely get lost. To be fair, “humdrum” means these aren’t necessarily shocking stories about abuse and harassment. Rather, this book showcases the anger and mourning that individuals experience when confronted with an all-too-common game-industry issue: layoffs.
Press Reset begins with a surprisingly frank dive into Warren Spector’s history as a game developer, fueled largely by his own quotes and insights. This opening section may lull you into expecting Schreier’s reporting-as-usual approach for the rest of the book. And the chapter does include its fair share of private boardroom moments. One of the book’s brand-new tidbits confirms how the Epic Mickey game series began: Disney pitched its megaton mouse to Spector as an available license—minutes after Spector suggested he was more interested in making a new Scrooge McDuck game. In another anecdote, Spector admits that he spent “a few months” in the mid-’00s working with Valve and Gabe Newell on a Half-Life 2 episode before that project was canceled.
You go public, you survive for decades, you get acquired, or you go out of business.
Yet the chapter sneakily sets a tone for the rest of the book by making clear that Spector—who’s among the most idolized industry innovators thanks to his work on System Shock and Deus Ex—has never been immune from the game industry’s capriciousness. Again and again, Spector would receive funding from a new publisher or business partner, only to see money dry up in ways that forced his hand. His story emphasizes Spector’s unpleasant decisions along the way. Usually, he had to decide whether to keep projects going at any cost or contend with publishers’ whims.
“The reality of the games business is, there are four endgames,” Spector says to Schreier in the book. “You go public, which nobody does. You survive for decades, like Valve. You get acquired. Or, you go out of business.”