Blood, Sweat, and Pixels : The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games are Made

I have always been a video game enthusiast at heart, as far back as I can remember into my childhood I have fond memories with family and friends centered around playing cooperative games from Bauldor's Gate to the early Dynasty Warriors franchise games. Around the time I entered third grade, I also became a voracious reader of video game magazines during their heyday in the late-1990s—Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, Nintendo Power, and PSM were my favorites. All of this is to say that for the longest time I dreamed about becoming a video game developer or perhaps a video game journalist—thankfully I did not chose the latter career as almost all of the aforementioned magazines are long defunct. Behind this adolescent career dream lay the premise that somehow working within game development would be a fantastic job because you would get an opportunity to spend your days "playing games."

In this book, Jason Schreier takes readers behind the scenes at several popular gaming development studios and in the process destroys the myth (if it even is a widespread one) that video game devs, programmers, artists, and others spend their days blissfully playing video games. At first glance, this seems like a book written strictly for obsessive video game enthusiasts who want to know more background on their favorite games. A sort of junk food for the brain type of book. It is partly that, of course, but it is also much more to the careful reader (or listener, in my case). By shedding light on the processes, work habits, and common problems of video game development across genres and platforms, he actually weaves together portraits of organizational culture within the video game industry at large.

Across the spectrum, game design studios run into a common set of problems that run the gamut from design (what do we want to make?) to budget (who will publish and finance our ideas?) to delivery (how can we finish this by X date and also market a respectable product?). Given that the core mechanics of video games that include its engine, story, and design are essentially works of art many of the individuals engaged in this work encounter the same sort of mental roadblocks common to artists of all stripes. Thus, ALL of the video games that Schreier reports on were the result of serious "crunch." That is, teams ranging from one to one-hundred working obscene hours for months at a time to get their product ready for manufacture and distribution on time. There are also the unexpected problems that studios encounter. His stories of Halo Wars and Star Wars 1313 show how video games projects can collapse entirely or sputter to the finish line because a publisher or holding company pulled funding at the eleventh hour. He also shows how teams bounce back from past failures, as in the cases of Blizzard's Diablo III (2012) and BioWare's Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014).

Schreier also examines how each organization structures its hierarchy of management, how decisions are reached, and how much input low-level associates have in the overall direction of video games. This aspect of the book presents avid readers of business history/organizational culture with the most food for thought. Some of these organizations became veritable families of employees who made decisions collectively in an egalitarian, titles-don't-matter context, while others (such as the erstwhile LucasArts studio) had strict top-down hierarchies that stifled creativity at the lowest rungs. Indeed, some of the most successful games (e.g. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Shovel Knight, Pillars of Eternity, and Uncharted 4) reported in this work were the result of unconventional managerial styles that empowered employees to challenge received wisdom, test novel ideas, and even play with new forms of crowdsourcing for funding. Meanwhile the abject failures—Halo Wars, Destiny and Diablo III at launch, and Star Wars 1313—were hamstrung by obstinate executives and managers who took umbrage at the smallest critique or questioning of their artistic vision.

In the end, Schreier paints a realistic portrait of what it's like to be a video game developer. Creative frustration. 90+ hour work weeks during crunch. Unrealistic time lines set by publishers and corporate executives. The potential to be 'stuck' doing uninspiring projects that promise steady profits and income-streams. At the same time, though, game developers experience immense satisfaction, relief, and joy when what was once the seedling of an idea reaches it fruition in not merely a profitable game, but an unparalleled work of art that engages fans in countless hours of mindless entertainment.

Highly recommended over the likes of books like "Video Game Wars." This book finds a concise way to give you the insider's view of the industry and the cultures/processes responsible for pushing video games from ideas to finished products by using interviews with hundreds of former and current devs, artists, programmers, and directors.