Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry

Written by Jason Schreier

Narrated by Ray Chase

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: May 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781549130625

Jason Schreier

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. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is his first book.

Reviews for Press Reset

[kavinay-677830 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Honestly, Schreier is too kind. Any professional developer looking at his case studies sees the sort of epic failure of management that would render even a genius into pariah in most competent industries. Game dev culture is built on a house of cards where the incompetence of leaders normalizes the inevitable crunch that results. Such a waste.

[hskey-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thoroughly enjoyed, though it's unsurprising since I really enjoy Jason Schreier's work and followed him for years.

I pushed for our company book club to read this book and it feels very relevant, since we're a games studio and I can't help but get a twinge of fear, anger and optimism when I read about various industry folk succeeding, failing and picking up the pieces to move on and keep pursuing their career.

I also enjoyed how Schreier came up with tangible ideas at the end of the book on how to resolve the tumultuous nature of the video games industry, really interesting stuff. You can tell he did his homework, every chapter is littered with primary sources and interesting history of companies, how they formed and executive decisions. Heartbreaking, funny and surprising.

I knew a lot of the stories already, but it was refreshing to hear the full story and the people behind it. Excellent, and am very keen to try Blood, Sweat and Pixels next.