
Play Nice
The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment
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Narrated by:
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Ray Chase
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By:
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Jason Schreier
About this listen
From a New York Times bestselling author and investigative journalist comes The Social Network for the video game industry, a riveting examination of Blizzard Entertainment's rise and shocking downfall.
For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection. The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of Warcraft was known to celebrate the joy of gaming over all else. What was once two UCLA students' simple mission—to make games they wanted to play—launched an empire with thousands of employees, millions of fans, and billions of dollars.
But when Blizzard cancelled a buzzy project in 2013, it gave Bobby Kotick, the infamous CEO of corporate parent Activision, the excuse he needed to start cracking down on Blizzard's proud autonomy. Activision began invading Blizzard from the inside. Glitchy products, PR disasters, mass layoffs, and a staggering lawsuit marred the company's reputation and led to its ultimate reckoning.
Based on firsthand interviews with more than 300 current and former employees, Play Nice chronicles the creativity, frustration, beauty, and betrayal across the epic 33-year saga of Blizzard Entertainment, showing us what it really means to "bleed Blizzard blue." Full of colorful personalities and dramatic twists, this is the story of what happens when the ruthless pursuit of profit meets artistic idealism.
©2024 Jason Schreier (P)2024 Grand Central PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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"Jason Schreier's Play Nice is a riveting chronicle of one of gaming's most iconic companies. With gripping detail and unmatched access, Schreier pulls back the curtain on Blizzard Entertainment's meteoric rise, turbulent history, and struggle to balance uncompromising creativity with corporate America's unyielding pursuit of profit. Play Nice is a must-read exposé of the passion, ambition and dysfunction behind some of the most beloved games of all time."—Bradley Hope, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale
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With all the whiz, bang, pop, and shimmer of a glowing arcade, volume 1 of The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. Starting in arcades then moving to televisions and handheld devices, the video game invasion has entranced kids and the young at heart for nearly fifty years. And gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.
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Misleading title for an otherwise excellent book
- By CJ on 09-26-23
By: Steven L. Kent
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Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings
- The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line
- By: Ken Williams
- Narrated by: Josh Horowitz
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Sierra On-Line was one of the very first computer game companies and at one time dominated the industry. The author, Ken Williams, founded Sierra On-Line with his wife Roberta who went on to create many of the company's best-selling games. Sierra grew from just Ken and Roberta to over 1,000 employees and a fan base that still exists today, despite the fact that the company was torn apart by criminal activities, scandal, and corruption that resulted in jail sentences and the collapse of Sierra.
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a fitting ending to Sierra
- By Darrell on 05-10-21
By: Ken Williams
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Video Game Storytelling
- What Every Developer Needs to Know About Narrative Techniques
- By: Evan Skolnick
- Narrated by: D.G. Chichester
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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With increasingly sophisticated video games being consumed by an enthusiastic and expanding audience, the pressure is on game developers like never before to deliver exciting stories and engaging characters. With Video Game Storytelling, game writer and producer Evan Skolnick provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide to storytelling basics and how they can be applied at every stage of the development process - by all members of the team.
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Nice but shallow
- By Amazon Customer on 01-14-22
By: Evan Skolnick
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Console Wars
- Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation
- By: Blake J. Harris
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 20 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video-game industry. In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video-game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles.
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Was hoping for so much more...
- By Rob G. on 11-17-14
By: Blake J. Harris
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Abominations
- Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Novelist, cultural observer, and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken us.
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Fearless thinker
- By Irene E Nunn on 12-03-22
By: Lionel Shriver
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Once upon Atari
- How I Made History by Killing an Industry
- By: Howard Scott Warshaw
- Narrated by: Howard Scott Warshaw
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Once upon Atari is an intimate view into the dramatic rise and fall of the early video game industry, and how it shaped the life of one of its key players. This book offers eye-opening details and insights delivered in a creative style that mirrors the industry it reveals. An innovative work from one of the industry’s original innovators.
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Awesome
- By Aaron Valdes on 07-22-23
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Think Like a Game Designer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential
- By: Justin Gary
- Narrated by: Justin Gary
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Do you love gaming? Do you have ideas for games of your own and want to learn how to produce them professionally? Longtime game designer Justin Gary has the answers you seek. After 20 years in the gaming industry, creating such games as Solforge, Ascension, and the World of Warcraft Miniatures Game, Justin is now sharing all his secrets in Think Like a Game Designer. Best of all, Justin’s secrets are really simple, practical, and common sense steps you can take yourself.
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Do you like quotes?
- By Reaver on 04-05-24
By: Justin Gary
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All Your Base Are Belong to Us
- How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture
- By: Harold Goldberg
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Through the stories of gaming's greatest innovations and most-beloved creations, journalist Harold Goldberg captures the creativity, controversy - and passion - behind the videogame's meteoric rise to the top of the pop-culture pantheon. Over the last 50 years, video games have grown from curiosities to fads to trends to one of the world's most popular forms of mass entertainment.
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A History of Game Developers, Not Games
- By Brandon on 05-06-16
By: Harold Goldberg
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Replay
- The History of Video Games
- By: Tristan Donovan, Richard Garriott
- Narrated by: Gary Furlong
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting account of the birth and remarkable evolution of the most important development in entertainment since television, Replay is the ultimate history of video games. From its origins in the research labs of the 1940s to the groundbreaking success of the Wii, Replay sheds new light on gaming's past.
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Excellent Book
- By Devin on 01-17-18
By: Tristan Donovan, and others
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Masters of Doom
- How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history - Doom and Quake - until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry.
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How it was
- By Ryan on 08-27-13
By: David Kushner
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A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves
- One Family and Migration in the 21st Century
- By: Jason DeParle
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age - the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism", DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class.
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Excellent and Important
- By Booklover on 03-22-20
By: Jason DeParle
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How To
- Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
- By: Randall Munroe
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
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Bad Ideas So BAD They Are NEARLY Irresistable! 🤓
- By C. White on 09-03-19
By: Randall Munroe
Throughout the listen I was surprised by Jason's ability to weave a coherent narrative out of various sources, projects, and insidious rumors of corporate politics.
A Revealing Inside Look Into a Renowned Entertainment Juggernaut
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Pure Blast of Nostalgia
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Excellent details give color to what you already know.
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The book itself is kind of a hoot. The author finds the narrative threads and keeps it interesting. I found myself vocalizing IRL many times in shock at something that he revealed. I’m not a certified elite gamer, but the book is definitely enhanced by some surface level knowledge of video games. For example, I’ve never played a Diablo, but when the book mentions they started working on Diablo 3 all the way back in 2000, I was like…oh no lol.
I think this book could become a future classic, too. Compare Blizzard to companies like Boeing or Blackberry - there are obvious lessons to be learned, despite the fact that we seem to keep not learning them. This book is a great reference of how and why the video game industry goes sour, but the pattern echoes across all engineering and technology companies.
Fantastic Narrator
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For Anyone Interested in the Industry
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Interesting
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Schreier with another home run
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Great book
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The history of Blizzard with important context from interviews
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Fascinating
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