The best Entertainment Industry books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

This book has a chapter about Eric and the struggles he went through to get it developed. It's a great read!

IIRC the real hero of the story was his girlfriend who totally supported them both the entire period of several years while he obsessively tweaked and added new features with no clear end in sight. She worked two jobs to keep them afloat while he stayed in the house working on the game day in day out with no other steady income. It sounds like they're still together so I'm sure she's thrilled that she trusted him to pull it off now that all that hard, obsessive work has made him worth $34 million.

There is quite more to it, starting with George Lucas wanting the entire story completely swapped with Boba Fett causing the studio to have to scrap most of the original story and completely rethink how the game plays from the e3 and back. Then when Disney bought Lucas and gave EA video game rights the team tried to sell the game to them, but EA just said they wanted to hire some of them for a new Star Wars RPG game.

Source: Jason Schreier an editor Kotaku made a book after going around interviewing people in the game development world called Blood, Sweat, and Pixels (Amazon Link)

I recommend checking out his book from a couple.years ago, Blood, Sweat, & Pixels.

Details a lot of the development of Diablo 3, Destiny, Uncharted 4, Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, and more. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062651234/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6rw-Cb9RDZERF

Going to piggyback on this comment just to throw out a general recommendation for Masters of Doom by David Kushner. It's a fantastic in-depth look at the creation of Id, the history of its two lead developers (Carmack and Romero), and how much of a massive impact their games had on the industry.

I imagine you're already aware of it given your interest, but in case you (or others) aren't Jason Schreier's book Blood, Sweat and Pixels has a whole chapter on Destiny's pre- and post-launch troubles. Schreier's the guy who broke the story on Anthem's awkward development just this week.

One of the biggest things I learned from Jason Schreier's Blood, Sweat and Pixels is that E3 "playable demos" are almost always tailor-built for the show. Sometimes they're one of the few things actually up and running at all. They're not demoing a working build; they're running a program that shows how they hope the final product will run someday... maybe.

If you's havent heard about it, i recommend picking up the book by Kotaku journalist /u/jasonschreier - 'BLOOD, SWEAT AND PIXELS', its available online and has a section all about the origins of Stardew Valley and lots of interesting insight (Such as how Barone learned to fake lighting in his video game due to his lack of knowledge around it)

Hiring an experienced manager seems like the right move. Aside from that, anyone in the biz should read this:

All You Need to Know About the Music Business: 10th Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501122185/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_034Q77JFYTJ4NN3AMZ3H

If you enjoyed this you should read Masters of Doom, or listen to Wil Wheaton's very good reading of it (that's what I did).

It's a very interesting and entertaining book.

You still get a free audiobook when signing up to Audible, right?

not really, this is really more of a contract guidance thing for different types of deals, such as labels, publishers, merch, live shows etc. most people in the biz agree that it's incredibly important to understand all of these things. look at the chapter titles to see what's inside https://www.amazon.com/Need-Know-About-Music-Business/dp/1501122185/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0/136-9916319-3929358?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1501122185&pd_rd_r=09d51abe-1a60-4255-a3c0-c4380e1ebaed&pd_rd_w=QKuBP&pd_rd_wg=XzSZ1&pf_rd_p=5cfcf...

Masters of Doom is an amazing book, and I've been yearning for it to get a good Hollywood treatment for years.

The thing that concerns me here is that James Franco is practically the age of John Carmack now.. 40something. He's way too old to star in a series about the early days of id in the 80s/early 90s when all those guys were in their 20s.

A quick trip to IMDB and I don't see him listed as a producer on anything that he isn't starring in.

Also.. I'd much rather see this as a proper movie, or a mini-series at most..

Check out Blood, Sweat and Pixels for a bit of in depth info about the creation of The Witcher 3 and the seriously humble beginnings of CD Projekt. It has several other stories of games being made in a crunch period as well, it's a great read.

What's interesting is that he likely couldn't make this kind of splash without having accumulated the following he did via quality content.

This kind of in-and-out joke content (which is funny... but absolutely incompatible with thoughtful content like dunkviews or the TLOU2 vid) would burn out a huge chunk of his audience eventually. Still, you're right: his point would stand. He make more money getting *half* the views of the quality stuff if he chugged out stuff like this everyday.

For anyone interested, <em>Creativity Inc</em> is a solid book that spends a fair amount of time ruminating on this trade-off (from Pixar's former lead, who talks about the logistical balance they had to create between $$$$ sequel movies and the artistic and less financially rewarding films)

There's a whole chapter here about how much trouble DAI went through because of that janky engine.

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Pixels-Triumphant-Turbulent/dp/0062651234

Frostbite is a cancer. I'm hoping Jedi Fallen Order sells like hotcakes so that EA's forced to reckon that (a) single player games are relevant and (b) that non-Frostbite games are easier to develop.

Very cool, I hope you like it! Some of the chapters are a little uneven because they're about more big-budget games from major studios but overall it was a fascinating look at the game dev process from multiple perspectives.

A couple more good books like this:

Masters of Doom - about iD Software and how Doom was created - great insight to what made the original iD team tick. "mmm" - John Carmack

Console Wars - About Nintendo vs. Sega in the 90s - interesting but written in a bizarre faux-fiction style with made-up dialog attributed to the real people behind the scenes

It is interesting to read about Ensemble Studios' experience as a Microsoft Developer in Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, I reccomend it if you are interested in the topic.

Actually, thank you sir, this is that exact type of feedback I was looking for! Thanks for really reading carefully and walking through the book.

As for to the critic, it's quite straightforward, but I don't see any rudeness.

Clearly the book is more like a pure idea now, there is a long way to go (and I'm clearly settled to walk the walk). I always keep in mind the Pixar movies that are absolute crap at the beginning (according to https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012) and have to walk through multiple sometimes painful transformations until they finally become the masterpieces they are.

I also have to say, that I need to keep my audience in mind. If I wanted to be pedantic I could just as well print out the :help manual. What I want instead is to create something pragmatic and practical, lite and simple, something people outside of the Vim community could grasp and be productive.

The idea is get more people familiar with Vim, so that they can then go deeper after that, maybe join the /r/vim/ and learn from people like you ;)

Anyway, thanks again for the fantastic feedback!

I loved it too! I highly recommend checking out the book John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood. Available on Kindle for free.

The author basically does a week by week analysis of the film's marketing campaign up to the release date to try and analyze/understand what went wrong to make this movie such a colossal flop. Super interesting!

Guys, if you're interested in the making of Destiny, or stories like this in general, i encourage you to read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. It is really good.

There's a great chapter on Dragon Age Inquisition in "Blood, Sweat and Pixels" that covers this a bit. Probably sources from what you're talking about.

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812972155/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_BisuCbWTTJ6X5

I don’t read much physical paper books but I read this over the course of 2 days.

If you have any interest in these guys or Doom or computer games from that era I highly recommend this book.

Heck, if you've ever seen a movie by a company called Pixar, like Toy Story, you've seen seen Ed Catmull's work. ;)

His book is a good read too: https://smile.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012?sa-no-redirect=1

The Jim Clark credited here also co-founded Netscape, which popularized the World Wide Web we know today.

So many pioneering advances, one after another.

I suppose Gumby was a natural choice for this matter, since the original clay stop-motion slides around. And years later, they could convincingly simulate the impections of organic media in the digital domain. How far we've come.

That engine (Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3) was mostly written by John Carmack. A huge amount of games were based on that engine, or used pieces of that engine (Half-Life, Hexen, early CoD games etc).

If you want a really good perspective of the id Software guys while making these games check out "Masters of Doom" which is an excellent book chronicling the development of those id Software games.

Note: Carmack was really really good at coming up with creative solutions to hardware limitations without sacrificing what they wanted the gameplay to be like.

This is all incorrect.

You own the Copyright as soon as you write the song down or record it.

Uploading a track to a service like SoundCloud does nothing to protect your copyright as this is not admissible evidence in a U.S. Court. Same with the old school "mail yourself a copy" trick.

Registering a Copyright takes about 10 minutes at Copyright.gov.

Copyright registration has value to you because it is the ONLY way you can prove ownership if someone steals your song.

Most labels do not accept unsolicited materials specifically so they cannot be sued for copyright infringement. If someone at a label did steal a song a Cease and Desist letter sent to their Business Affairs Dept. with proof of your Copyright registration will shut them down pretty quickly.

If you'd like to learn more about protecting both your songs and your audio recordings (there are 2 Copyrights in music) you might read Don Passman's book.

Source: I own a label and a publishing company.

God do I despise the mods of this subreddit. The reproduced below apparently is a duplicate post that is not permitted, presumably because it could be placed here instead:

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BioWare what's your mailing address? I'd like to donate ten copies of Creativity Inc.

Link here to the amazon page for this book. Written by Ed Catmull, the head of Pixar from before it was even Pixar, Creativity Inc. is essentially a story about Pixar's history and how Ed and the other leaders of Pixar tried to first make a successful animated movie, and then maintain that success. It talks about how one movie they made required a lot of crunch and burned people out, and they resolved to never do it again, and haven't. It talks about growing a company where two different projects are worked on by different teams, and ensuring nobody feels like there is an A team or B team. It talks about making sure the driving force of a movie is the experience, not the technology or pleasing some shitty executive. It talks about giving responsibility and accountability to a single person who owns the project and makes decisions.

It basically talks about how Pixar tried to navigate every god damn pothole BioWare tripped on, and maybe if you read it when it came out in 2014 we wouldn't have this dumpster fire of a game.

Honestly, I really can't stress this enough, reading Masters of Doom encapsulates the birth of id up to Daikatana (covering The Ultimate Doom and DOOM II into QUAKE 1) can describe it way better than I can.

The general gist is: Romero was a jock, Carmack was a nerd, Romero wanted to go big, Carmack wanted to go realistic, Carmack is a coding WIZARD, Romero is a slacker, Carmack is kinda an autist, Romero is kinda a douchebag (up till Daikatana kicked him in the balls).

It's a pretty good read, and heck, I don't like reading purely text books and I read it when I was very young.

iTunes (movies and tv shows). Amazon's video/kindle store.

As an example: a e-book that you can't add to cart. Only one click buy.

He has written a book about game development, and it is a damn good book: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Pixels-Triumphant-Turbulent-ebook/dp/B01NAKSWW1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1VIU92YP70RVK&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=blood+tear+and+pixels&amp;qid=1610889119&amp;sprefix=blood+tears+pi%2Caps%2C243&amp;sr=8-1

Start with this thread: reddit thread

You can find the book here: Amazon: Book Blood-Sweat-Pixels

I can help you out a little bit if you're okay with reading instead of watching. Masters of Doom tells the story of how DOOM and Quake were inspired by a D&D campaign run by John Cormack. Dungeons &amp; Dreamers includes the story of how D&D inspired Richard Garriott to create Ultima. It might also have the stories about DOOM and Quake, but I'm not sure.