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1. Absorbing for entertainment professionals + gamers + a withering portrait of what greed can destroy
   As a lifelong gamer and evangelist for Blizzard that once seriously aspired to work there, I went cover to cover over the first day with this book in my hands.It’s tempting to describe the story in terms of its “heroes” and “villains” (and there certainly are some of the latter) but the overall takeaway is a kind of penetrating sadness about the demise of something that was undeniably special, that started and was tried to be kept aloft by people with their hearts in the right place. Activision’s meddling is well documented and plays a central and devastating role in the turmoil chronicled here, but the overall growing pains of the industry are not ignored either. What happened to Blizzard happened to gaming overall too. There are lessons here for anyone in creative / entertainment careers and particularly for the investor class, but history (and current events) tells us that those people especially will miss or dismiss them.It’s probably unrealistic to expect a return of the intangibles that elevated Blizzard far above its peers. The world and the business has changed. Some of it absolutely necessary, some of it painfully and regrettably.

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2. A blast to read but ends too soon. The “future” part is thin.
   The book offers incredible detail and insight on the rise and fall of Blizzard. I have been texting experts to my gamer group chat for days.The book is also easy to read. The authors writing style has improved a lot compared to his previous book – Press Reset.The only issue for me was that despite the title, there is little analysis of what the future holds for Blizzard. We learn about the present, the recently cancelled games, the plans to support the current ones, and that’s it. Maybe the author meant that Blizzard has no future.

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3. A Stunning and Realistic Insight into a Titan of the Game Industry
   As a former game dev at Blizzard I was cautiously optimistic about hearing insights into a company I had worked at. Having interviewed for the book, it was interesting to see how the things I had witnessed made it in, or didn’t. There were events at Blizzard that were a mystery to me, but thanks to Play Nice I can understand more about the rumors and back room tales that didn’t make much sense to me when I heard them.It’s an enjoyable read, and a fantastic look at the phenomenon I call Corporate Necrosis. The gradual degradation of the established culture that made Blizzard great, slowly falling apart as Kotick and his minions vomit acid onto award winning franchises and suck up the profit juice, leaving gaping holes in their reputation. A poignant cautionary tale to future game development studios considering selling out.

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4. The watch is never over
   I’m not a massive Activision or Blizzard fan outside of Overwatch, so I bought this book primarily for the qualitative analysis this book brings, and I was delighted with all the lore and behind the scenes it includes and find it worth the price to buy alone. I purchased the book new and my copy that arrived was new, so a clean delivery experience as well.

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5. Insight was enlighting
   It is a good quick read. Most of the chapters read like internet news articles. It is well sourced. I would recommend any person in a development job who hoped to step into video games read this.

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6. Excellent read
   I’ve been playing Blizzard games since Warcraft 1 and have been following the news about the company for decades. Not much of the information in this book was new to me. But what was new, is extremely valuable to me. I enjoyed the writing style and the way the author organized the stories and information within. I loved it!

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7. Incredible read
   As someone with a love of business books, software development, and video games, Schreier’s books are wonderful reads.Play Nice especially hits home as I’ve been a huge fan of Blizzard since 1998’s StarCraft. This book is an extremely well researched and paced tale about Blizzard’s trajectory and covers issues around compensation, deadlines, scope creep, burnout, and a public company’s desire for consistent revenue versus a model of infrequent but polished massive hits.I literally couldn’t put this book down and blazed through it. An easy 5 stars.

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8. Interesting read
   It’s slow on the start but picks up nicely by the third act. In my opinion you could have cut the first section which mainly contains backstory and just kept the current and future.

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9. Accurato, ben documentato e ben esposto. Come sempre Schreier si dimostra ancora una volta un giornalista in un settore spesso fatto di recensori e opinionisti, e ci guida in un viaggio piacevole, chiaro e talvolta nostalgico nell’evoluzione di una delle software house più singolari e importanti dell’industria videoludica.Tutto è sempre referenziato con nomi e cognomi: non c’è speculazione; non c’è ipotesi, ma solo riportare i fatti come raccontati dai protagonisti, aggiungendo solo un flare narrativo che aiuta a digerire facilmente quello che è un contenuto sostanzialmente informativo.

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10. Well written, Jason Schreier proves again his interest and knowledge of the games industry, this is not only for enthusiasts but also for anyone who likes a good read!

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11. I am an avid player of Blizzard’s games. It is awesome to join the dots of events and comments of people during the years when things were good and bad. Thank you author.My only quip was – felt like the author even though he had interviewed 350+ former staff of the company, I wished he could have interviewed some of the more recent names eg Jeff Keplan (I assume it isn’t possible eg NDA or whatever) some parts felt more a broad stroke of events and not enough juicy details – I am greedy probably …

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12. Loved the pacing and how easy it was to follow a troubled 30-year history of one of the most important and influential studios of the games industry, and one that I was very unfamiliar with. Schreier did it again! Looking forward to his next book

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13. Just as Jason’s other books this is exceedingly well written and incredibly hard to put down. Anyone with interest in the gaming industry should read this.

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