This is one of those books where I hesitated in buying it because, being a fairly connected person who stays up to date with the games industry, I already know that the industry is dramatic.
I bought the book and started reading it with one question in mind:
Would this book be a Jude-the-Obscure kind of drama, where people get fired left and right and lose their legacies in a heartbeat, and it’s all very grisly?
Or, would this book be more staid in it’s approach? Would it have actual solutions to the massive problems in the game industry?
Turns out, I was in luck, and the latter question turns out to be the question where the answer is ‘yes’.
The subtitle of the book “Ruin and Recovery In the Video Game Industry” turns out to be very accurate. Yes, there is discussion of the Ruin, yet there is also discussion of the Recovery side of things. I found this to be very hopeful.
I enjoyed this book very much as it was not as negative as I thought it would be, and the anecdotes were very focused on strategy. From the very first chapter, the book talks about real situations happening in real boardrooms. The interview style and writing doesn’t feel like gossip, it feels more like watching an interview documentary.
Selfishly, it was nice to read about many of the conflicts in this book. Anyone who has gone into the office and yelled about the color of a button or felt like throwing something after a creative argument with a product manager/designer/executive or if you’ve BEEN that designer getting something winged at you, this book will probably be highly relatable to you. Most of all, what is strangely comforting is that, in some of the situations in the book, even in the best possible outcomes, people can still get laid off. We could be the most perfect designer on the planet, our product could sell millions of copies and be beloved by years, and at the end of the day, there’s still a possibility of losing one’s role at companies like this.
Schreier does address the burnout that can emerge from this kind of life on the edge. It’s hard to read a few hundred pages about people who move their families, buy new houses, and lose their roles within a year, yet the silver lining for Schreier arrives in the form of an unlikely savior: The popularity of remote work after the coronavirus crisis. That, and the formation of smaller studios working on contract basis, and the risks of going into games are reduced quite a bit.
While I’m not a person who works in the game industry, I saw many parallels in this book with the game industry and where I have spent my career: the tech and software sector. I think this book would be useful to read for others like me - if you’ve been in tech and ever seen the wild ups and downs that come with the territory, this book will give you a sense of camaraderie.
Another kind of reader that I think would appreciate this book is someone who is thinking about getting into games as a career. There are countless anecdotes that are good to keep in mind, both in terms of situations to avoid, and also solutions to difficult problems that have been inherent in the industry for a while.
Ultimately I say this book is a ‘yes’ - if you’re interested, get it for sure!