The sequel to the popular gaming book Blood, Sweat and Pixels, whose author, the notorious journalist Jason Schreier, this time pays attention not to games from an online game developer Friv2Online, but to the people who develop them, and to the reasons for the "churn" in the gaming industry.

I was lucky to get acquainted with the electronic Russian-language copy of the book "Press Reset", the physical version of which will go on sale in Russia on September 28, 2021. I tell you about the translation this time, what topic fell under the scope of a journalist, and why Schreier can now be called a writer.

WHO IS JASON SCHREIER AND WHY GAMERS VALUE HIM
But first, a small digression. Jason Schreier is a detective from the world of the gaming industry. This nine-year-old journalist on the Kotaku blog often uses his connections to publish major investigations into the culture of crisis in the industry, exposing the unpleasant, “downsides” of game development: hellish crunches (reworks), mass layoffs, charming deception at exhibitions like E3, technological difficulties and many others.

His work is especially relevant now, when AAA projects, which not only gamers from all over the world rely on, come out far from the same as they were shown publicly, but the endless number of bugs that studios have been getting rid of for years aggravates the situation. You don't have to look far for examples: Fallout 76, Anthem, No Man's Sky, Warcraft 3 : Reforged, Cyberpunk 2077. Even an inexperienced user of these projects can understand that in the gaming industry, everything is far from cloudless.

These investigations are really interesting even for the average user, read: about Cyberpunk 2077, about Anthem, about Ubisoft.

But the fact is that Schreier writes about difficult things clearly, conveying all the pain of his topic to readers far from the industry. It was not without professional terminology (crunch, asset), but the author chews these words. This led to the first book, Blood, Sweat and Pixels, which is essentially a collection of loosely connected stories about the development of a particular game. The second, "Press Reset", tells about the fate of people who create entertainment for us.

ON THE DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSLATION
A little about the translation, which at first turned out to be, to put it mildly, disgusting in the first book.

Blood, Sweat and Pixels was taken up by people who knew little about the gaming industry, which caused the righteous anger of readers. But in the end, everything ended well - the publishing house hired another translator (Alexandra "Alfina" Golubeva), the second edition of the book came out, and everyone was satisfied.

Blood, sweat and pixelsThe first part of the author's book series - Blood, sweat and pixels
With “Press Reset”, the publishing house itself did not want to repeat the story, having formed a team of people involved in the topic. The translator was Mikhail Bocharov, known for the "Lords of DOOM" (a book about the creation of a cult shooter), and among his assistants was the very Alfina who saved the first book.

And indeed, now everything is in order with the translation - at least I did not experience discomfort when reading. All the terms and explanatory footnotes are in place, and the eye does not stumble over the "wild time pressure" and "strap on the head." On the other hand, there is less professional terminology - the same crunch occurs ten times less than in the previous book.

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
Like the first part, "Press Reset" belongs to the genre of "non-fiction", in the common people - documentary prose, which is characterized by building a story on real events. If you skimmed through Schreier's investigations, the links to which I cited above, then you can roughly imagine his work, mainly consisting of numerous first-hand interviews.

Most of the gaming industry employees (past and present) he addresses willingly talk about the ins and outs of their work. This is a titanic work - the preparation of the book stretches for several years.

Contents of "Press Reset"Contents of "Press Reset"
Compared to the same Blood, Sweat and Pixels, Jason's growth as an author is visible - if his first book consisted of ten unrelated stories, between which I willingly jumped, then the second turned out to be more holistic, narrative. The titles of the chapters are no longer the headings of the friv games - they carry a hidden meaning, which the reader learns about only while reading.

As I mentioned, this book is about people and turnover in the gaming industry. In the first chapter, "The Drifter", we learn the story of Warren Spector, who created the legendary Deus Ex and was involved in the development of System Shock, Thief: The Dark Project and Ultima Underworld. We trace this genius's life as he is forced to move from one studio to another, and how he signs a contract with Disney itself with apprehension. But even with the House of Mouse, he failed to find stability in his profession.

Epic MickeyEpic Mickey - detailed in the first chapter
The thread of the first chapter stretches into the second - there we learn the story of the legendary Bioshock series, which is inspired by the works of Warren Spector. And in the third - about a bunch of people from Irrational, disbanded after the release of Bioshock Infinite (we will also learn why this happened in the book), who decided to try their luck in indie development.

Schreier masterfully guides us through the connected plots, while revealing interesting details about various games in parallel. Moreover, in the first half, you can trace the history of the emergence of immersive sim - a genre that was essentially founded by Warren Spector. It is very pleasant to see familiar names throughout the book, to trace how one event is reflected in another.

Bioshock InfiniteDid you know Bioshock Infinite was the end for Irrational Games?
Using real examples, the author shows that work in the gaming industry is full of difficulties and surprises. The law of logic “did it badly, then you were fired” does not work here. For example, the Irrational studio was dissolved immediately after the release of the masterpiece BioShock Infinite, and 38 Studios and Visceral were led to the grave by their own top managers.

Developers, designers and other team members are forced to "sit on suitcases" - for example, one of the employees told Schreier that he tries to keep personal items as small as possible on the desktop - so that they can easily fit in a box. And the algorithm of actions in case the studio was closed (or resources were distributed, in a simple way - reduction), he has long been worked out.