NATIONAL BESTSELLER “The stories in this book make for a fascinating and remarkably complete pantheon of just about every common despair and every joy related to game development.” — Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer and developer of Nuclear Throne Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous. Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart. Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.

From the bestselling author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels comes the next definitive, behind-the-scenes account of the video game industry: how some of the past decade's most renowned studios fell apart—and the stories, both triumphant and tragic, of what happened next. Jason Schreier's groundbreaking reporting has earned him a place among the preeminent investigative journalists covering the world of video games. In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry and the resilience of the people who work in it. The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games—Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more—on to the shocking closures of the studios that made them, Press Reset tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns, and how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely. Schreier's insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama, bounced checks, and that one time the Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it's become so hard to make a stable living making video games—and whether the business of making games can change before it's too late.

"An award-winning videogame writer offers a rare behind-the-scenes look inside the gaming industry, and expands on how games are transformed from mere toys into meaningful, artistic experiences"--

In movies, defining a 'classic' means judging the quality of a director, the acting of the actors or the value of a script. But when it comes to video games, which are inextricably linked to technological evolution, it is not so easy to predict which games will age well and stand the test of time. Uncharted has the feel of a classic grand adventure, with thrilling action and great dialogue. One thing is certain: few video game series have earned that label. Mixing a form inherited from the Hollywood pulp classics with great writing made the saga instantly enjoyable, thrilling and exciting. In addition to discovering the secrets of the creation of each title in the saga, you'll also be able to immerse yourself in its universe and discover its historical inspirations. A way to create your own adventure.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made, by Jason Schreier, is a behind-the-scenes look at the development process of video games. The first step in creating a video game is to secure funding… Purchase this in-depth summary to learn more.

Many of today's most commercially successful videogames, from Call of Duty to Company of Heroes, are war-themed titles that play out in what are framed as authentic real-world settings inspired by recent news headlines or drawn from history. While such games are marketed as authentic representations of war, they often provide a selective form of realism that eschews problematic, yet salient aspects of war. In addition, changes in the way Western states wage and frame actual wars makes contemporary conflicts increasingly resemble videogames when perceived from the vantage point of Western audiences. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from games studies, media and cultural studies, politics and international relations, and related fields to examine the complex relationships between military-themed videogames and real-world conflict, and to consider how videogames might deal with history, memory, and conflict in alternative ways. It asks: What is the role of videogames in the formation and negotiation of cultural memory of past wars? How do game narratives and designs position the gaming subject in relation to history, war and militarism? And how far do critical, anti-war/peace games offer an alternative or challenge to mainstream commercial titles?

An essential guide for marketers and execs wishing to integrate their brands with modern games and esports In Get in the Game: How to Level Up Your Business with Gaming, Esports, and Emerging Technologies, decorated gaming and social media research and marketing executive Jonathan Stringfield delivers a roadmap to understanding and navigating marketing and business integrations into the gaming ecosystem: who plays games (and why), how modern games are created and oriented around the world of esports, and where brands can get involved with modern games. This book explains the breadth and depth of the gaming audience, describing the rapidly changing demographics of modern games and the various motivations gamers have for playing games. It also unpacks the history of gaming and how it has impacted the creative processes and output from the industry. Finally, it offers a practical guide for brands wishing to integrate themselves into new gaming environments, with an emphasis on maximizing success for marketers, developers, content creators, and fans. Get in the Game provides: A thorough introduction to why marketers and executives must pay closer attention to gaming, as well as existing roadblocks to understanding the gaming industry Comprehensive explorations of the psychology and motivations of gaming, and implications towards messaging and brand safety. Practical discussions of gaming as a competitive platform or streaming viewing experience. In-depth examinations of gaming ad placements, deep marketing integrations between companies and games, and future directions for the industry and how it relates to the emergence of the metaverse. Perfect for marketing strategists, brand managers, and Chief Marketing Officers, Get in the Game will also earn a place in the libraries of executives seeking to connect with the misunderstood yet largest segment in consumer entertainment.

Video games have captivated us for over 50 years, giving us entire worlds to explore, new ways to connect with friends, thought-provoking stories, or just a fun way to pass the time. Creating games is a dream for many, but making great games is challenging. The Game Designer's Playbook is about meeting that challenge. More specifically, it's a book about game interaction design; in other words, shaping what players can do and how they do it to make a game satisfying and memorable. Our time with a game is built on interaction, from basic things like pushing buttons on a controller, to making complicated strategic decisions and engaging with the narrative. If you've ever felt the adrenaline rush from beating a perfectly tuned boss fight or been delighted by the fanfare of picking up that last collectible, you've experienced good interaction design firsthand. The Game Designer's Playbook is about learning what makes for great (or terrible!) interaction design in games, exploring things like controls, feedback, story, and tutorial design by analyzing existing games. It also looks at how newer and still-developing tech like VR and streaming are changing the ways we play, and how you can bring great interaction design to your own games.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before. "Delightful and absorbing." —The New York Times • "Utterly brilliant." —John Green One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TIME, GoodReads, Oprah Daily From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

The first installment in Jeffery Deaver’s Colter Shaw series—the inspiration for the CBS original series TRACKER starring Justin Hartley! The son of a survivalist family, Colter Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a “reward seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and locate missing persons for private citizens. “You’ve been abandoned. Escape if you can. Or die with dignity.” Hired by the father of a young woman who has gone missing in Silicon Valley, Shaw's search takes him into the dark heart of America’s cutthroat billion-dollar video-game industry. When another person goes missing, Shaw must ask: Is a madman bringing a twisted video game to life? Encountering eccentric designers, trigger-happy gamers, and ruthless tech titans, Shaw soon learns that he isn't the only one on the hunt: someone is on his trail and closing fast.... Named a Crime Novel of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Never Game proves once more why “Deaver is a genius when it comes to manipulation and deception” (Associated Press).