If My Kid Wanted to Be a Game Developer I Would Tell Her Not To - Interview with Jason Schreier
Press Reset is Jason Schreier's second book, in which he shows what a game developer's dream job really is. It's also a great opportunity to ask him whether he will add the missing chapter about Cyberpunk to the book.
Reading the new book by perhaps the world's most recognizable gaming journalist, Jason Schreier, might give you some extremely ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, the author tells a lot of interesting and often amusing anecdotes and tidbits from the mysterious world of gamedev inaccessible to ordinary mortals; on the other, he shows how the creation of these amazing and beautiful works of art, of the games we all love, is often based on exploitation, violence and regular meanness. Some of these difficult and sad stories have resulted in such titles as BioShock, BioShock Infinite, Enter the Gungeon, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Dead Space or Dungeon Keeper (2013). Some of these productions were hugely successful, others we would rather forget – but all of them were made by creative and passionate people, whom the industry abused in the end.
Jason Schreier's first book, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made.
Sometimes, it wasn't just about money (though most of the time it was exactly about it). Sometimes, it was about the incompetence of managers and executives that created miserable conditions in their studios. For many, working in gamedev seems a dream job – we imagine creating monumental games played by people around the world. Meanwhile, Schreier exposes the other, much darker side of gamedev – the instability of employment, the constant risk of being fired (even if you're one of the top pros in the business), being forced to move from city to city, or country to country, crunch, and finally the silent killer of the 21st century – stress. Press Reset is a book that you just have to read if you plan on working in gamedev.
The publication of the book was the perfect opportunity to talk to the author about the issues of modern gamedev. So, I arranged an interview and asked the man himself a few questions – including whether he ever wore a bulletproof vest and whether he had ever faced threats, and above all, whether he would add the missing chapter on Cyberpunk 2077 to his book after the game's unfortunate launch.
Matthias Pawlikowski: After reading your book, it's kinda easy to feel guilty about playing video games. I don't know if after learning the history of Irrational Games, I will ever be able to enjoy BioShock again. I would definitely perceive this game a little differently. Why is it that so many of these fantastic experiences that AAA games bring us are so often built on foundations of exploitative tribulation? And even more importantly, why aren't players usually aware of this?
I mean it's a good question. I don't know, I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why. I think the number one reason is that making games is really hard. People always think it's going to take less time. People are always super ambitious. They want to do all these crazy things. Planning is really hard and there are all sort of complicated factors. I think people have gotten a little bit more educated on how games are made and how stressful the process is. One of my favorite things about my first book Blood, Seat, and Pixels one of my favorite reactions that I saw in people after was that they were like: "Wow, now I'll never call a game developer lazy again.” Which is good to hear. It's important for game developers to speak about their experiences and for journalists to help clarify for readers, gamers, and fans exactly why it takes to do this sort of things.
Your book is about people who have been abused by the gaming industry. Sure, there's plenty of humor and interesting anecdotes, but at the same time, there's so much stuff that's just dark and heavy, there's tragedies of real people that actually got me wound up a few times when reading. I empathized with them and I wished I could help them somehow, but to tell you the truth, I don't know how. How can we influence these stories as players and consumers?
Yeah, I don't think there's a lot that the average gamer can do. Because this is ultimately like a workplace issue, a labor issue and that can only really be solved by employees, employers, and the law. I do think, however, that just speaking out and being supportive in public can be helpful. And really – just not being a jerk. There's so many people out there on the internet; so many video game fans that are just constantly being assholes to everybody: to game developers, to other gamers, to journalists. And I think if you simply are not being one of those people, you're already doing something. But yeah, fundamentally this is an issue that I discussed in Press Reset about volatility and people just losing their jobs almost arbitrary. And that's an issue that I think is something the workers have to deal with themselves. And it's going to be up to those people to proactively figure out the best way to solve some of their problems.
And there are some solutions in works. Some answers that I explored in the book are already happening. Even now – I wrote in the book about how COVID was changing the industry because remote work is really going to help people in a number of ways. For example, one of the awful things about getting laid off from Irrational Games was that you were stuck in Boston, all the way in the East Coast, without too many other game companies there, certainly not many triple-A game ones, while there's a lot of big, triple-A game companies on the West Coast, 3000 miles away from Boston. So I think one of the worst things about getting laid off there is not that you were worried about finding another job. Many of those people were able to find other jobs pretty quickly. The problem was to move 3000 miles away for the job, and I think if the remote was an option back then, it really would change things for a lot of people because they wouldn’t have to pool their kids out of school. So, that alone is helping things for the better.
Yes, you write about it in your book. I imagine being in a relationship with a game producer – being their partners or spouses can't be easy. You always have to be ready to move out to another city, even to another country. How did listening to these difficult stories made you feel?
It was tough but right. I don't know but, if my kid wanted to be a game developer I would probably tell her not to because the game industry doesn’t treat people all that well. Like you said – for partners it can be really tough, and they really need to have a lot of patience. But again – things can always get better and I think they are getting better, so gradually, every year people are talking about labor issues and crunch, and I think that there’s a reason to be optimistic for sure.
In your new book, you repeatedly describe the situations that take place in studios belonging to the largest publishers in the world – EA, 2K or THQ. I wonder whether any of these companies reached out to you to discuss or comment on your findings, or where they completely silent? Maybe they were trying to make life and work more difficult for you?
No – they were all completely silent. Take Two, EA, well THQ doesn't exist anymore... None of them would talk about it and wouldn’t comment at all.
Big, bad corporations are not the only problem of gamedev. Sometimes projects don't work out because the wrong people are behind them. 38 Studios... Wow, this really is an amazing story about a famous baseball player who, while he admittedly didn't deliver a video game, left behind a trail of political scandals, lawsuits, and hundreds of fired people... This shows that good intentions are sometimes not enough. Has this story influenced the perception of the gaming industry as a reliable, stable environment for investment in America?
Curt Schilling is a former Boston Red Sox baseball star. After retiring from sports, this gentleman became the hero of one of gaming's biggest scandals. He founded 38 Studios and began working on the "World of Warcraft killer", the MMO called Copernicus. Along the way, he acquired Big Huge Games (with which he actually managed to release a pretty solid game – Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) and took a huge loan of $75 million (sic!)... Which he did not pay back. Eventually, all employees (several hundred people) were laid off via e-mails. For more, read Jason Schreier's Press reset.
Hmm... I don't know how investors felt about it overall. Obviously if you lived in the State of Rhode Island you would probably still have strong feelings about it. I think people there are still bitter about what happened because, like you said, it was a big scandal.
Even though you mentioned big, bad publishers, I actually don't really think there are heroes and villains here. I don't really see life as being about heroes and villains, even though some people in gaming try hard as they can to appear like cartoon villains. But I think it's just a bunch of people with different ideas of the right things to do. Fundamentally, just the quest for money and having a lot of them can really warp people's ideas of what reality is, how people should be treated, and stuff like that. I mean, the Curt Schilling story is a perfect example of how there's a lot of shades of gray, but no heroes and villains.
I think Curt Schilling is a fascinating character. Today he's gone off the deep end a little bit, some things he says are pretty wild, but back then – even though he was the guy who was having a lot of issues running the company and there was a lot of mismanagement – people loved him as a leader; he's charismatic and he really seems to treat people well – there're a lot of perks for employees, they really like working there, there's a lot of things that people appreciate about Curt Schilling. And now people feel differently towards him for a bunch of reasons, not only because what he did in the 38 Studios, but also because of his behavior and his acting-out since. But it's interesting – one of the things that surprised me while having conversations with people who worked for 38 was how much nuance there was, how they saw him as a person, and I found that really fascinating.
It was sad to read, though, about fired employees of 38 Studios taking equipment, TVs, monitors, etc. from the office only to get at least some semblance of compensation for the salaries they couldn't receive...
Actually, just very recently – a couple months ago – I wrote a story on Bloomberg about how a bunch of 38’s employees got like a fraction of their final checks as part of the bankruptcy settlement, so even today there's still drama happening.