Postmortems from Game Developer: Insights from the Developers of Unreal Tournament, Black and White, Age of Empires, and Other Top-Selling Games (Paperback)

by Austin Grossman (Author, Editor), Austin Grossman (Author) "This is the story of a young and inexperienced company that was given the chance to develop the sequel to one of the top ten..." (more)
Key Phrases: independent game development, multiplayer experience, multiplayer support, Looking Glass, Star Trek, Studio Max (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Wow! What a fantastic book! "Postmortems" provides simply a wonderful survey of the pains and joys of game development." -- Grady Booch, Chief Scientist, Rational Software Corporation (now a new division of IBM)

Product Description
Release your game complete—and on time—to ensure success. The realization of any good idea, or the brilliant and dedicated work of any development team, is in the execution. That is what makes project management as important to game production as the art, programming, and design.

Manage your projects with the expertise of a seasoned pro. The Game Developer postmortems are an industry institution because they deliver real-world knowledge of vital project management skills. Written by game developers and producers alike, the postmortems follow projects from start to finish with candid, thorough, and specific accounts of the good and bad decisions made along the way. You learn how each game was made, what kind of company and project team was involved, what tools were used, as well as major milestones. Most importantly, you get an honest account of What Went Right—contributing to the project’s success—and What Went Wrong, a list of misjudgments, failures, or missed opportunities.

The solutions are here. Whatever your role in the endeavor, you will find insight and practical guidelines to serve you. The book is organized into five sections relevant to game production: Startups, Sequels and Sophomore Outings, Managing Innovation, Building on a License, and The Online Frontier. Each section is preceded by an overview of the lessons that you can employ in bringing your dream to market.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: CMP Books; 1st edition (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578202140
• ISBN-13: 978-1578202140
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #498,584 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #5 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Games & Strategy Guides > Strategy Guides > Age of Empires
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Experience, distilled, in a bottle., August 20, 2007

By	S. Maher - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Love this book. Each postmortem is full of advice about designing, producing, and shipping a video game - advice from the developers themselves - allowing YOU to learn from THEIR mistakes. Techincal gaffes, hiring snafus, political missteps, project management mistakes; anything that can go wrong in a software project HAS gone wrong in one of these stories.

When you get to the end of this book, you'll feel like a battle-hardened veteran that can take anything a project throws at you; and most of minefields mapped out are surpisingly appicable to ALL software development, not just video games.

Beware: this book may have you rummaging through discount bins to find the games mentioned- good or bad, you feel affection for a game once you've shared the trials and tribs of the creators.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A look at the real nuts and bolts..., September 19, 2007

By	Zachary Yates (Winchester, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've read several game design books, including Mike McShaffry's Game Coding Complete. While reading architecture and design is good and many of the books reflect the author's experience on several projects, Game Developer Postmortems provides the actual triumphs and stumbling blocks each game project went through.

A quick read and the best way to get insight into these projects without actually having worked on the teams, it's a book I'd recommend to anyone looking to understand game design projects.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book. Learn other peoples hard lessons... Informative war stories, March 25, 2008

By	William J. Stevenson "3-d pro looking for bet... (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Both my partner and I treasure the wealth of information available between the covers of this book. We are making the difficult shift from TV production to game production and it is fascinating to see where other teams and their leaders got things wrong and right. With great examples from a wide variety of games (Some that we personally love playing) there is a well rounded selection.

I hate to use the term "must have" but... this book is a must have for anybody in or wanting to be in the game industry.