Blood, Sweat, and Pixels The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made

The creative and technical logistics that go into building today’s hottest games can be more fraught with challenges and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of six hundred overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong–sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it’s nothing short of miraculous.

Examining some of the bestselling games and most infamous failures, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it’s RPG studio BioWare’s challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone’s single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man’s vision into a multimillion-dollar franchise; or Bungie employees spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand-new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.

You’ve got your dream job--making video games. You have a great project, great designs, and clever controls. One morning, you get a call from your producer. Turns out that wall-jumping trick won’t work because the artists don’t have time to design a separate animation just for the plumber to move that way. Also, your lead designer keeps micromanaging the programmers, which is driving them crazy. Your E3 demo is due in two weeks, and you know there’s no way you can get it done in less than four. You’ll have to cut out some of the game’s biggest features just to hit your deadlines. And suddenly the investor is asking if maybe you can slash that $10 million budget down to $8 million, even if you have to fire a few people to make it happen?

Welcome to video game development.

In his years covering the industry, Jason Schreier has often heard developers say that any game actually released is a miracle. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Schreier takes you behind the scenes of some of the biggest recent games to share never-before-told stories of the struggles and failures the development teams faced along the way. His reputation for great storytelling and fly-on-the-wall detail will provide readers with the clearest picture yet of what actually goes on behind the scenes.

Each chapter will cover a different game, from major studios with nine-figure budgets to indie games with half a dozen people on their teams. The chapters will also focus on a variety of subjects in the process, from building the basics to adjusting for fan reaction post-launch. The planned games include:

Pillars of Eternity

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Stardew Valley

Diablo 3

The Witcher 3

Uncharted 4

Destiny

Shovel Knight

Star Wars 1313

Halo Wars

Wheather you’re interested in how the industry really works, or just want to know why your favorite advertized feature didn’t make it into the final game, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels will give readers an unparallelled inside look at one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world.