This is a timely book about video game development. It’s also a meditation on the relationship of art, commerce, and morality in gaming. 
The writer, Walt Williams, is a veteran of the video game industry. He has been involved with several major franchises and games, such as Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, and Star Wars Battlefront. The acclaim and popularity of those titles gives Williams’ book a certain amount of credibility and weight, although he is quick to disclaim that he is “not a hero so much as I am a collection of insecurities and paranoid delusions molded into the shape of a pudgy doughboy.”
Williams uses his own life and experiences with gaming to shed light on the industry and its impact. Williams was kind of an outcast as a kid, and would make stuff up about video games to gain attention. He credits that experience as part of what got him into writing. Games also helped him explore who he was as a person:
When I played these games, I didn’t have to be Walt with the big ears and Coke-bottle glasses. I could be strong, capable, and most of all, important. That was the real fantasy, I think—not power or heroism but relevancy. In those games, I mattered.
You do everything so that one day, if you rise to the top, you understand how it all works. Sure, you shovel a lot of sh*t, but that’s because there’s a lot of sh*t that needs shoveling, and the people above you are too busy to do it themselves. It’s called paying your dues. Come out the other end and you’ll be hardened enough to handle the pressures of the real job. Crumble under the weight of menial tasks and you’ll be gone in no time, your expulsion a mercy killing. If you can’t handle the sh*t at the bottom, you’re not cut out for the job at any level.
Wililams spends significant time on the Crunch – the hectic and life-owning time in the development cycle in which all hands are on deck at all times to get a game out. In the last few years, there’s been a lot of controversy about the hours and energy that game makers must put into games. Red Dead Redemption II, for example, has amazing reviews and also bad press for all of the hours developers put in. The author is a little less critical of the Crunch than some because he finds solace and stability in work. (“This isn’t an endorsement, by the way. It’s the confession of an addict.”) He also takes a realist’s approach to the problem: “Careers are not magical wish fulfillment where you are paid a constant living wage for only doing what you want to do, when you want to do it.”
In addition to being part biography, expose, and philosophy, there’s a little bit of writing advice in the book, as well. (“Writing does not happen in outlines or summaries or group discussions. It happens when you sit your *ss in a chair and put letters in order. That’s where the real decisions are made. You can’t know if a story is worth telling until you start telling it.”)
If you enjoy games and are interested in the industry, this one is worth a read.
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