a must read for all gamers and aspiring game devs

I love games! I'm a gamer. I do not want my favourite past time to be at the cost of people's lives, mental health or anxiety. learning about game studios closing and how we got here is a must to enjoy your past time responsibly.

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Very insightful

Great to hear more about the industry and its issues, especially if you're a gamer as I didn't know quite how bad the working conditions are.

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Great audiobook bad sound quality

Content was great, on par with previous book from Jason Schreier. Narration was good but suffered from very low sound quality occasionally.

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Essential reading for anyone looking at working in games

Book 21/21 for 2021.

Finished the 21st book for 2021 reading challenge, and it was a doozy. After reading Blood, Sweat and Pixels earlier this year I was initially excited to read the follow up. In reading some of the samples available it felt like more of the same so I decided to skip it for the time being - that was a mistake!

Press Reset is more an industrial work, following the people who worked at studios and how they’ve dealt with the challenges of working in the industry, with the highest highs and lowest lows, as opposed to focusing on the games themselves as Blood Sweat and Pixels did.

There are triumphant stories of success in this book, and some very sad stories of people leaving the industry - there is for the most part - a chronological thread leading from the first story to the final. Without giving much away - there was plenty of fallout in the aftermath of Bioshock Infinite’s release and Irrational’s subsequent shut down, as about 70% of the books stories relate to it.

I found the narration vibrant and told the story well - sometimes the voices for different people in the stories blended together somewhat, but overall I really liked the audio production and got through the book very quickly.

I do have some minor gripes, the final chapters deal with how the problems endemic to the industry could be solved including decentralisation of companies, streamlined creative teams, outsourcing devs, unionisation etc which I found especially fascinating.

However, this was only one chapter out of 10 - and I feel like it was a bit rushed - Schreier is on record in the book and online as being a strong proponent of game dev unions which is absolutely fine, but I felt as a result the book didn’t engage with that topic on both sides as deeply as I’d have liked. I’d love to see potential studies into this, or surveys etc etc - there is an element of this in the book - but it felt a bit one sided and shallow for my liking.

Another fanboy complaint which doesn’t impact anything, but Schreier has now twice used Super Plumber Adventure as an example in his books, where is the love for Mr Blue Needlemouse, my boy Sonic? Come on Jason, represent!

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super interesting and super-er scary

this has been my walk to work for the last few weeks , I laughed and I shuddered. Jason words and that narration = gold

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Great book, fantasticly told but poor audio?

I loved this, as with Schreier's earlier book. Chase is fantastic again too. However this is let down slightly in odd, small sections where the audio quality seems to dip to a much lower bitrate or quality level. I'm very glad to have listened to it but it's not perfect for that reason alone. I really enjoyed it, don't let it put you off, it's still excellent and timely and we really need to heed the lessons in the book for not only video games but all businesses.

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great book

book is fantastic but the audio is mediocre. it keeps switching between good quality and terrible quality for some strange reason.

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Interesting look at how the game industry is run

Great book and interesting look at how the game industry is run or badly run and what happens after you finish a game or worse get cancelled
how hard it can be to be a game developer and what happens when it's game over

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Fantastic book about game development hell

This book is fantastic and think it was even better than the first book, as it uncovered the uncomfortable truths and ingrained patterns of the gaming industry.

The voice actor, again, is fantastic, though there are some lines which sound like they were recorded incorrectly and sounds a little off. Nothing too bad, but did notice it a few times. Otherwise a fantastic book highly recommended

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Eye opening for a newbie

Great book. As an aspiring designer, to learn so much about the production and publishing proccess of a project is invaluable aswell as the gruesome realities of the industry's business angle .

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