eggmama 's review for:

Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry by Jason Schreier

3.0

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This book doesn't really have a thesis, and I wish it did. It's like, "The video game industry sucks." We already know that! While some of the stories are interesting in a way, we don't need to keep reading about them. We need solutions. The "solutions" part of the book is 20 pages long. It says, maybe unions? What about remote work as the solution? Remote work is not going to solve unrealistic deadlines and crunch. I think many of us know remote work actually makes work and personal life harder because of that lack of boundary. What I wish Schreier explored were more potential solutions - asking people not about the horrible experiences but what they want from the future, and then piecing that future together. Also, many struggles are specific to game development but corporate greed is not. This is all tied in to larger systemic, capitalist issues, and I wish Schreier had honed in on that. Game developers need unions!!! So does pretty much everyone.