Rad Magpie Book Club #4 - March 2021
Welcome back to Rad Magpie’s book club! This is the fourth installment of our ongoing series where we let you know what we’re up to, research-wise! Check out the third edition from December here.
Take a look at what the exec team is reading these days:
Megan: All About Love by Bell Hooks
It’s pretty clear with a title like “All About Love,” that this book is about “love”, but love as a concept is extremely broad, so it feels like it’s about a lot more. Hooks talks about a lot of topics surrounding how people treat one another, the consequences of a loveless life, and the benefits of loving relationships (romantic or not).
“But love is really more of an interactive process. It’s about what we do not just what we feel. It’s a verb, not a noun.”
I confess that I picked this book up for research that relates more to my personal life, not Rad Magpie, but I feel like the topics she talks about actually relate well to work environments and social justice spaces, or really any place that people come together and connect on a regular basis. It might feel like a stretch to relate such a ~ romantic ~ topic to game development, but I found myself linking a lot of the ideas she has to my experience on teams.
If you think “Love” can only apply to romantic relationships, Bell Hooks invites you to consider an alternative thought
“Love” shouldn’t be a feeling or action reserved only for romantic partners.
She also invites us to consider that love is a verb, not a noun. I have quickly adopted these notions in tandem and remind myself that ‘love is a verb’ as a mantra to check myself and make sure that I’m walking through this world with loving actions & actively caring for myself and those around me - as a leader, as a coworker, as a pet parent, a partner, and a friend to many.
Hooks also explores how capitalism and other systems of dominant power oftentimes bulldoze our capacity to show up for people in our lives (a very real act of love) and how that affects us and our communities. This is the section I’m on now, and it has given me a lot to think about regarding my experiences in our workplace & other activist groups that I’m a part of.
That being said, this is not a book about workplace dynamics, or capitalism, it’s a book about love! L O V E! So if you’re also just curious about love in general (as I think we all can be at one point or another) you should check it out!
Maggie: Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is an investigative look at the stories behind some of the most famous games in history. Through dozens of interviews, Schreier recounts the production and release timelines of ten video games, from Diablo III to Stardew Valley.
In telling these stories, Schreier presents recurring themes found not only in the games covered but the industry at large: crunch culture and late hours, massive layoffs, payroll challenges, and more. In the introduction, Schreier begs the question, “why is it still so difficult to make video games?”
“People have been making games since the 1970’s, haven’t they? With decades of lessons and experience to draw from, shouldn’t game development have grown more efficient? Maybe it made sense for developers to crunch in the late 1980’s, when gaming was the domain of teens and twentysomethings who gorged on pizza and Diet Coke as they coded all night and slept all day, but decades later, video games fuel a $30 billion industry in the United States alone. Why do game developers still have so many stories about staying at the office until 3:00 a.m.? Why is it still so difficult to make video games?”
Each story in this book serves as a case study as to the challenges of making games — the challenges that any developer will face, no matter their background. These challenges are only magnified for individuals from marginalized communities, an unfortunate truth that is left unaddressed in this book. The author notes something along the lines of “you’ll notice I hardly interviewed any women. That’s because there were no women to interview.” Schreier is correct to point to this as a failure of the industry, but all of the interviews in the book were conducted with the c-suite studio heads, the rockstars and memorable names. I would have loved to hear more from the folks who were laid off in a massive staff cut, not just the high-level producers who were “so sad” to lay people off.
Despite its shortcomings, I think this is definitely a book worth reading, especially if you’re a developer on the younger side. At 25, there is a lot of history in the games industry that I simply haven’t lived through! The stories in this book span the last few decades and really illuminate corners of our culture that I hadn’t been exposed to yet. Plus learning the inside scoop on one of my favorite games (Stardew Valley) gave me some perspective on the ways elements of your production cycle can impact the final product. Each chapter is a rollercoaster of triumphs and pitfalls that hold universal lessons for all developers. If you don’t have a background in development, there are a ton of footnotes and clear explanations throughout the book. The author is not a game developer and does not make any assumptions about the reader — you don’t need to be well versed on game history or development to be entertained by the hidden truths behind some of pop culture’s most well-known games.