Book Review: Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry

Reviewed by paulml

Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry by Jason Schreier, Grand Central Publishing, 2021, ISBN: 978-1538735497

This book is all about the video game industry as seen from the inside.  It's not pretty.

The job may sound like a dream come true.  The game will sell a million copies in its first weekend.  The lines outside the video game store will be like those when a new iPhone is released.  The game is made for a big-screen movie, a TV series, and many game sequels.

A year or so later, there is an all-hands meeting where everyone is told that the company is closing - today.  Some companies may offer severance policy, but don't count on it.  The employee is forced to move across the country to some other company that has an opening - until they abruptly close.  After several such moves, any luster the video game industry may have had is gone.

The book also talks about crunch time (with Release Day approaching, all employees are expected to put in 80-100 hour weeks to get the game finished).  It also talks about Curt Schilling's 38 Studios in Rhode Island: they were going to create a game that would be more popular than World of Warcraft.  Things did not end well.  This is an eye-opening book about the video game industry - for those of us on the outside.  It is highly recommended.