Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made book cover

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

Kindle Edition

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Price
$13.99
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Harper Paperbacks
Publication Date

Description

A lively, informative look at how a video game gets made...The author, who writes for the video-game website Kotaku, is clearly a huge fan of video games, and his enthusiasm is contagious. -- "Booklist" Making video games is one of most transformative, exciting things I've done in my two decades as a freelance writer. Making video games is also an excruciating journey into Hellmouth itself. Jason Schreier's wonderful book captures both the excitement and the hell. Here, at long last, is a gripping, intelligent glimpse behind a thick (and needlessly secretive) creative curtain. -- "Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives and Apostle" My only complaint about Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is that there wasn't more to read. -- "Forbes" --This text refers to the audioCD edition. The creative and technical logistics that go into building today’s hottest games can be more fraught with challenges 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 six hundred 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. Examining some of the bestselling games and most infamous failures, 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 multimillion-dollar franchise; or Bungie employees 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. 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. --This text refers to the paperback edition. Jason Schreier is the news editor at Kotaku , a leading website covering the industry and culture of video games. He has also covered the video-game world for Wired and has contributed to a wide range of outlets including the New York Times , Edge , Paste , Kill Screen , and the Onion News Network . --This text refers to the mp3_cd edition. From the Inside Flap The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more fraught with challenges 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 six hundred 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. Examining some of the bestselling games and most infamous failures, 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 multimillion-dollar franchise; or Bungie employees 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. 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. --GameZone --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • 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.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(2.8K)
★★★★
25%
(1.2K)
★★★
15%
(694)
★★
7%
(324)
★
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Most Helpful Reviews

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interesting but not compelling

most of the stories seem the same. a group is super pumped about an exciting unprecedented game idea. it takes longer than expected. they crunch. they take even longer. they finish.

no real details of personl drama to help you connect. Stardew Valley came closest, but that was a one man show.
36 people found this helpful
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Give this a read before you send that enraged message you typed out for a dev after your latest crash.

I like to think I'm a pretty patient gamer, rather tolerant of lack of polish so long as a game is fun, and have a particular love of some budget RPGs most hate. Even then though, I'll admit that when I get that blue screen crash more than once on my PS4, I've been known to insert some rather snarky (ok, nasty) comments into the error report. I had a basic understanding of what devs go through - enough to tell non-gaming relatives who have "a great idea!!" for a game that, no, it is far from that easy to get started. But now I think I do have a little more sympathy for them as people, yeah we pay our $60 or whatever for the game, but really, bugs can be fixed and most of these folks, at least the ones doing the actual work, appear to be motivated by passion and not the cash. I would think the sheer hate they field alone, aside from pouring their whole life into their project, would scare lesser souls far away. Heck, I remember this author himself getting ripped to ribbons by a section of the fanbase when he was simply the bearer of bad news that No Man's Sky got delayed. I love the game but I have to admit that was a epic example of how crazy things can get on the fan side of things.

Anyways, great read, very interesting info. I was actually on the fence about Pillars of Eternity (guess the whole computer-exclusive thing went out the window!), but this convinced me to maybe give it a shot sooner rather than later.
12 people found this helpful
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If you are in any way interested in video games this is a great book. However

To be upfront, I am both a fan of Jason's work on Kotaku and a lifelong gamer. I was interested in this book as soon as it was announced and fall firmly into target demographics. If you are in any way interested in video games this is a great book. However, where it really excels is that it's a collection of human stories. This isn't about video games, but about the people chasing their dreams.

A breakdown of the chapters:
Diablo 3- How one of the biggest franchises ever shot themselves in the foot and managed to salvage a mess other studios would abandoned.
Destiny- Discusses the challenges of creating something new in the shadow of what your previous works.
The Witcher 3- How a Polish studio with 2 games to their name made one of the greatest RPGs and video games of all time.
Halo Wars- One of the stories I would have never read as I am neither an RTS or Halo fan, this was one of the best stories of the game industry and I am so glad the book contains it.
Uncharted 4- How one of the biggest series changed directors, directions, and stories. This chapter has my dying to finally pop the Nathan Drake collection into my PS4
Shovel Knight- How a handful of developers broke off and created an icon... and also learned the danger of overpromising on Kickstarter.
Star Wars 1313- Alongside Silent Hills this is the game that we will lament the most. Killed due to executive change ups, this chronicles the rocky road and terrible fall of one of the most anticipated games.
Pillars of Eternity- While Kickstarter has left a bad taste in many backer's mouth, this serves as a wonderful reminder of how it also allowed for a resurgence of games that fans had wanted.
Dragon Age Inquisition- The most technical of the chapters which discusses both fan expectation and the issues arising from changing game engines.
Stardew Valley- As heartwarming as the game, this chapter talks the exception to what we would expect with a one man development team.

While not every game was something that I had been interested in personally, I enjoyed every chapter. This book deepened both my understanding and respect for game developers. If you are at all interested, I recommend this book highly.
8 people found this helpful
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Not informative

Heavily biased, cherry-picked facts. I bought this book elsewhere. I'm a game designer and I pick up books related to my industry. the Author is uninformed and hardly appreciative of the history of the art and industry. I can list 100 books that are more in-depth from actual industry professionals in both Game Journalism and Game Development. If I could I would return the book to him and make the author pay me the price and taxes I paid for it. This is not a review bomb.
7 people found this helpful
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I don't know how this book is exhilarating, but it is.

... I mean, I actually pumped my fist in the air and said "YES!" when reading the reactions of those plucky Polish upstarts when they finally got the validation of having their industry-changing, bar raising efforts validated by the rest of the gaming world. C'mon, it's great stuff!

Schreier is one of the few - what I would consider - "true" journalists covering video games today, in the sense that he actually investigates and corroborates his stories among multiple sources. Taking that into consideration and coupling it with the skill to deliver those stories so well is a solid part of why this book is so good. I've got a few years of game development in my past at studios both gargantuan and tiny, and that gave me enough background to be able to connect to these stories in a meaningful, touching, and even a little bit nostalgic, way. I don't expect the book to have the same impact on everyone as it did me, but I can assure you that each chapter rings true, and comes across as authentic. There's no hyperbole here in the descriptions of just how grueling crunch can be.

Jason does a good job of relating the varied stories clearly, without interjecting his own views or opinions. He realizes these stories aren't his to share through his own lens, but instead that they belong to the developers who experienced them. As such, he keeps his views largely out of the way, serving simply as the conduit through which the devs' experiences can be delivered directly to us. And he manages to do so in a highly readable style.

I still haven't decided if ending the book with the last two chapters in the order that he did is a master stroke, or a bastard stroke though. Reading about the heights of triumph for CD Projekt RED, only to tumble down through the tragedy of LucasArts as a finisher truly is a rollercoaster. It sucks to have ended on such a note, but it elicits an emotional response that, I suppose, goes to show just how deep the book's hooks were in me. It's left me feeling like there needs to be some reconciliation, some sense of completion, like a melody ending halfway through its last measure, as opposed to ending on a high, uplifting note. But that's the nature of game development - it doesn't always have a happy ending. Still though, I guess that means he better get started on the next collection of stories sooner rather than later. Heaven knows there's certainly plenty more game dev successes and tragedies to be told.

I stopped pre-ordering games a long time ago, but is it too early to pre-order Schreier's next book?
6 people found this helpful
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... often happens behind the scenes of some of our favorite games. The torturous

Jason Schreier's treatise on the crazy world of game development pulls back the curtains on what often happens behind the scenes of some of our favorite games. The torturous, complicated, and turbulent world of making a video game is put on display, as we get an insider's glimpse of the politics, the people, and the industry. Most people are unaware of how difficult it is to actually bring a game to market successfully, let alone realizing that doing so usually requires many weeks, if not months, of 80- to 120-hour workweeks for entire teams of people. After finishing the book, the tagline for ABC's iconic Wide World of Sports from the 70's seemed to fit perfectly for the developers, engineers, artists, designers and product leads that gave so much - "the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat."

Jason Schreier is news editor for the gaming website Kotaku, and has also provided articles related to video games to major media outlets, such as Wired, the New York Times, and the Onion. As such, he is able to provide a knowledgeable take on the subject, deftly walking the line between explaining concepts and situations for the uninitiated that most gamers would already know, and still being fascinating and interesting to both. His writing is solid, and easy to follow.

Schreier's book consists of the in-depth story behind the making of 10 popular video games. Often the stories read like fiction, with heroes and villains, twists and turns, sacrifices of unbelievable proportions, and evil empires, er, corporations. Sometimes they end good, sometimes not. And sometimes your not sure. You'll have to decide if the price paid by all involved is worth the final product. Because the price is often more than you realize when you boot up your favorite game for a few minutes of escapism.

Even though I've given the book a 3 rating, please don't take this as meaning it is a bad book. Quite the contrary. On my scale this means it is still very much worth your time. But at the end of the day, it reads like 10 very good separate, but thinly related, articles, as opposed to a strong and deep book.

---------------
I noticed Amazon and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to Amazon's scale, but allows me to be consistent between the two sites.

5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 25 in a lifetime.
4 - Very good.
3 - Worth your time.
2 - Not very good.
1 - Atrocious
5 people found this helpful
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absolute traah

Schreier pretends to care for the history of this medium but his professionl career is littered with comments that retro games are worthless
4 people found this helpful
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Well written, but shallow.

There's no question that Schreier is a good writer. His style is clear, succinct, and often even elegant. He's also well connected, as evidenced by the number of people willing to talk for the book priding itself on a look behind the curtain of games development.

But more often than not Schreier seems far too bedazzled by the whole affair, like he's covering a PR-affair for friends. Some of the chapters read often like fluff pieces - or worse, recruitment ads for the companies. Industry hot topics like overtime crunch are mentioned and flirted with, but then handwaved away with stock answers like "it's good for the game" or "everyone [at this company] is such a perfectionist that they want this." There's also multiple mentions of the lack of gender diversity in the industry, but next to nothing is made of industry treatment of veterans like Amy Hennig or Jade Raymond. Again, canned answers about how well things turned out in the end are in place of a more thorough investigation. There's also a bizarre, even smug, disclaimer at the beginning of the book where Schreier makes fun of the transparency regarding his interviews, which comes off as tone deaf, considering how little information or transparency there is with how much PR and journalism overlap in this field at the present.

It doesn't particularly make this a bad book, though. Just a disappointingly shallow one. The games industry, despite being a multi-billion dollar industry, is still very much uncovered by really deep journalism or history books. We have a few, here and there, but nothing as comprehensive as film has had. It's a shame that a writer as talented as Schreier seems unwilling to rock the boat even a tad - most of the stories here all sound like there's a lot left unspoken. Maybe it still needs a few more years before such topics can properly come out, and hopefully, when they do, we'll have more equally good writers to cover them.

Until then, this is still a good read.
2 people found this helpful
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This was interesting from a software dev perspective. Makes ...

This was interesting from a software dev perspective. Makes you wonder how anything gets done. It was less interesting for games that I had no experience with or had never even heard of.
2 people found this helpful
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An amazing journey within the industry.

Great book with a simple and plain language. If you are interested in video games and what is really happening on the background, this book is for you. The length of the chapters has been adjusted cleverly. They do not bore you and they become more fun as you read them. Highly suggested!
2 people found this helpful

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