Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry

Jason Schreier

May 2021 · Hachette Audio · Narrated by Ray Chase

About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Overall not a bad book but have several big problems. It's very USA centric, almost all stories in books are about USA, one studio in Australia is excpetion, Canada is mention. Problems are shown in big companies bad practices in smaller studios or indie are almost not mention at all, which can give very false impression. Contractors and issues connected with that are mentioned only briefly.

I really enjoyed this audiobook as much as I enjoyed the first one. can't wait to buy whatever the next one is going to be. gives you a more deep understanding on the culture and processes of how videogames are made.

Great gaming background from an interesting writer.

About the author

Jason Schreier is the author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels and a reporter at Bloomberg News, where he covers the video game industry. Previously, he spent eight years at Kotaku, one of the biggest video game websites in the world. He has also covered games 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. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.