Play Nice
The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment
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Narrated by:
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Ray Chase
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By:
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Jason Schreier
About this listen
From a New York Times bestselling author and investigative journalist comes The Social Network for the video game industry, a riveting examination of Blizzard Entertainment's rise and shocking downfall.
For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection. The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of Warcraft was known to celebrate the joy of gaming over all else. What was once two UCLA students' simple mission—to make games they wanted to play—launched an empire with thousands of employees, millions of fans, and billions of dollars.
But when Blizzard cancelled a buzzy project in 2013, it gave Bobby Kotick, the infamous CEO of corporate parent Activision, the excuse he needed to start cracking down on Blizzard's proud autonomy. Activision began invading Blizzard from the inside. Glitchy products, PR disasters, mass layoffs, and a staggering lawsuit marred the company's reputation and led to its ultimate reckoning.
Based on firsthand interviews with more than 300 current and former employees, Play Nice chronicles the creativity, frustration, beauty, and betrayal across the epic 33-year saga of Blizzard Entertainment, showing us what it really means to "bleed Blizzard blue." Full of colorful personalities and dramatic twists, this is the story of what happens when the ruthless pursuit of profit meets artistic idealism.
©2024 Jason Schreier (P)2024 Grand Central PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Jason Schreier's Play Nice is a riveting chronicle of one of gaming's most iconic companies. With gripping detail and unmatched access, Schreier pulls back the curtain on Blizzard Entertainment's meteoric rise, turbulent history, and struggle to balance uncompromising creativity with corporate America's unyielding pursuit of profit. Play Nice is a must-read exposé of the passion, ambition and dysfunction behind some of the most beloved games of all time."—Bradley Hope, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale
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- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.
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Remember Why You Got Into Computing
- By Dan Collins on 07-01-16
By: Steven Levy
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The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide
- How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job
- By: John Sonmez
- Narrated by: John Sonmez
- Length: 20 hrs and 4 mins
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Technical knowledge alone isn't enough - increase your software development income by leveling up your soft skills Early in his software developer career, John Sonmez discovered that technical knowledge alone isn't enough to break through to the next income level - developers need "soft skills" like the ability to learn new technologies just in time, communicate clearly with management and consulting clients, negotiate a fair hourly rate, and unite teammates and coworkers in working toward a common goal.
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The Complete Bro-grammer's Career Guide
- By Leels on 09-18-19
By: John Sonmez
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Super Pumped
- The Battle for Uber
- By: Mike Isaac
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Isaac
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
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A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic 12-month periods in American corporate history.
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A forced narrative and a bad version of Bad Blood
- By Benji on 09-09-19
By: Mike Isaac
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Prediction Machines
- The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Artificial intelligence does the seemingly impossible - driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
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Not sure what I was expecting, but underwhelmed
- By William J Brown on 09-27-18
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
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The Box
- How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- By: Marc Levinson
- Narrated by: Adam Lofbomm
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.
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Fascinating Topic sometimes lost in minutiae
- By zombie64 on 07-15-14
By: Marc Levinson
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Algorithms of Oppression
- How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
- By: Safiya Umoja Noble
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Run a Google search for “black girls” - what will you find? “Big Booty” and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in “white girls”, the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about “why black women are so sassy” or “why black women are so angry” presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society. In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities.
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Read this book. Tell everyone you know about it.
- By Joshua Daniel-Wariya on 06-06-19
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No Place to Hide
- Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
- By: Glenn Greenwald
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
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In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....
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Best Read in Print Format
- By Alfredo Ramirez on 11-22-14
By: Glenn Greenwald
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Glow Kids
- How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance
- By: Nicholas Kardaras PhD
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
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In Glow Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras will examine how technology - more specifically, age-inappropriate screen tech, with all of its glowing ubiquity - has profoundly affected the brains of an entire generation. Brain imaging research is showing that stimulating glowing screens are as dopaminergic (dopamine activating) to the brain’s pleasure center as sex. And a growing mountain of clinical research correlates screen tech with disorders like ADHD, addiction, anxiety, depression, increased aggression, and even psychosis.
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Fear Mongering - a modern day Mazes and Monsters
- By Veronica on 11-03-20
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Tesla
- Inventor of the Electrical Age
- By: W. Bernard Carlson
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute self-promoter and gifted showman, he cultivated a public image of the eccentric genius.
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A detailed examination of Tesla's work
- By Jean on 02-01-14
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Social Media Marketing Workbook: 2024 Edition - How to Use Social Media for Business
- By: Jason McDonald PhD
- Narrated by: Michael Goodrick
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Learn social media marketing in plain English—step by step! Buy the workbook used at Stanford Continuing Studies to teach social media marketing for business. The 2023 updated edition—all info verified and a new chapter on TikTok, plus revisions on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other major platforms....
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Great SM Reference
- By Anne on 12-31-18
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SQL QuickStart Guide
- The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Managing, Analyzing, and Manipulating Data With SQL
- By: Walter Shields
- Narrated by: Russell Newton
- Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Structured query language, or SQL (pronounced "sequel" by many), is the most widely used programming language in database management and is the standard language for relational database management systems (RDBMS). SQL programming allows users to return, analyze, create, manage, and delete data within a database - all within a few commands.
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Learn SQL
- By Nicole MommaKauk on 02-16-16
By: Walter Shields
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This Is Not a Game with Marc Fennell
- By: Marc Fennell
- Narrated by: Marc Fennell
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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This Is Not a Game is the extraordinary untold story of the internet’s first conspiracy theory, the legend of Ong’s Hat. Marc Fennell will dive deep into a previously unexplored world of tech hippies, eccentric web subcultures and simmering paranoia, uncovering how this tongue-in-cheek artistic experiment backfired on its creator and went on to influence much of what’s wrong with the internet today.
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WOW!
- By pondo on 05-09-24
By: Marc Fennell
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Awesome
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Gamedev
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The bible of modern game development.
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Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings
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Sierra On-Line was one of the very first computer game companies and at one time dominated the industry. The author, Ken Williams, founded Sierra On-Line with his wife Roberta who went on to create many of the company's best-selling games. Sierra grew from just Ken and Roberta to over 1,000 employees and a fan base that still exists today, despite the fact that the company was torn apart by criminal activities, scandal, and corruption that resulted in jail sentences and the collapse of Sierra.
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a fitting ending to Sierra
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Prepare to Meet Thy Doom
- And More True Gaming Stories
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From Masters of Doom author David Kushner comes Prepare to Meet Thy Doom, a compilation of true gaming stories covering many facets of America's biggest entertainment business: the video game industry. In addition to more than a dozen fascinating tales of game creation, play, business, and controversy, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom follows up on Kushner's previous best seller, Masters of Doom, with a long-awaited update.
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An interesting and unsorted collection
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What listeners say about Play Nice
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Self conscious NPC
- 10-26-24
Fantastic write up on a legendary company
I loved every second of the dive into Blizzards history. I wish there was more on the topic of the law suits, and “insider” stories
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- Anonymous User
- 11-01-24
Another fantastic book
Jason Schrier kills it again with an exceptionally researched piece on Blizzard entertainment. The focus on one studios entire history keeps this book from feeling entirely as exciting as Jason’s previous works, but it’s still a fantastic book nonetheless.
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- Doug C
- 10-29-24
Great insight. Worth a read for any gamer.
A great example of how corporate greed flows into a company and sucks the life out of it until it is ruined. Apply this same formula to any company and you can almost predict how bad a company will get.
Great book. Great reporting.
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- Chris Long
- 11-20-24
Fascinating
Incredible insight into the history of one of the most influential game companies. The things you may think you know are given new context. Jason did it again, and I’m so very thankful for that
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- Tom Duval
- 10-10-24
Excellent reporting
Jason makes another excellent edition to his stable of books. As a long time Blizzard fan, I especially enjoyed the inside baseball presented in this book. So many great quotes and stories put together from all the Blizzard people over the years. I love his reporting and how he presented everything.
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- Jesse Gabriel
- 10-23-24
Great book
I wish the story was a bit more concise. There is a lot of disjointed moments
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- Arsen Nazaryan
- 11-07-24
The history of Blizzard with important context from interviews
I expected it to be more sensationalist than it ended up being, and that’s a good thing. I think it tells the story of Blizzard with journalistic integrity and respect for the truth and the unknowns, and I appreciated that. An easy and interesting listen, read well by Ray Chase.
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- Paul Warren
- 11-11-24
More excellent documentation of the industry
I wish it had been longer, but trust that Jason Schreier included everything worth reporting and clearly he had some good sources.
The book does rely on pretty strong knowledge of the games industry to contextualize HOW MUCH of a impact Blizzard had on the genre so I guess I also would have liked more of where developers went after Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft, etc. or how other developers adjusted to their best in class games up until the free to play era where things seemed to lose shape for them.
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- JP
- 10-30-24
Pure Blast of Nostalgia
Was a big Blizzard pc gamer growing up. Very cool to learn the methods and madness that went into creating those games. Last part was business heavy, but overall a good story.
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- Gavin O.
- 10-14-24
A Revealing Inside Look Into a Renowned Entertainment Juggernaut
This was a great, all-encompassing synopsis of a sometimes mysterious corporation with new revelations and previously unknown facts that will fascinate anyone who has ever speculated about the inner workings of one of the biggest names in gaming.
Throughout the listen I was surprised by Jason's ability to weave a coherent narrative out of various sources, projects, and insidious rumors of corporate politics.
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