Reddit reviews Stay Awhile and Listen: Book I Legendary Edition: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire

There's a nice book detailing the early years of Blizzard, Stay Awhile and Listen

Almost definitely not

Back in the day game development almost never paid royalties, it was usually an up-front and milestone payments, or a lump sum upon completion. Many game devs were using the payment from the publisher for their last game to pay salaries to develop their next game

If you're interested, "Stay Awhile and Listen" is a pretty great book covering the origins of Blizzard North, including their history of developing shovelware on contract to afford to develop later games

Yes, for their physical items. Try adding a digital Kindle book to the cart, and it won't let you: https://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Legendary-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474

https://i.imgur.com/f5LA5hq.png

Or a digital movie: https://i.imgur.com/T3u4HAT.png

Digitals play by different rules. Guess which one EGS sells? Even iTunes and Google Play will do the same

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G8UL474/?tag=codofhon-20

Also Patrick Wyatt's blog is a good read too -

https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/

If you are interested in learning more about the development of Diablo I highly recommend the book Stay Awhile and Listen. Lots of great interviews and gets really in depth on how a games was made back then.

There's a lot of history on Diablo and the developers behind it in David Craddock's book "Stay A While and Listen" and the turn base origins are mentioned there too. He's interviewed much of the staff across the whole Blizzard North company. I worked at Blizzard North for a few years on what became Diablo 3 up until it was shut down in 2005 and the project was taken over by Blizzard in Irvine.

http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Blizzards-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474

You can get this book electronically as well.

I second everyone's Masters of Doom recommendation and wanted to add "Stay a While and Listen" about the formation of Blizzard. A great mix of story and technical detail.

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https://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Legendary-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474

In the book Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire , one of the chapters mentions how with Warcraft 1, they made the game, and then they worked on the story (both with Warcraft & Diablo). And with Warcraft at least, there was a section where it said they just threw one of the employees into a recording booth and told him to make up the story on the spot, which would later be used for the cut scenes. In my opinion, even the greatest authors would need to take a bit of time to make sure it was a coherent story. By improvising it, you're just asking for the need to retcon later on.

Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire

> Two companies. Two opposing cultures. One multi-billion-dollar video-game empire.

> Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I invites readers to discover the origin of the two Blizzards—Blizzard North, a studio built by gamers, for gamers, and Blizzard Entertainment, a convergence of designers driven to rule their industry.

> Composed from exhaustive research and hundreds of personal interviews, the Stay Awhile and Listen series divulges the fated meeting that brought the two Blizzards together, the clashes that tore them apart, and their transformation from grassroots democracy to corporate empire.

> At the center of it all—Diablo, a hack-and-slash adventure through the darkest recesses of Hell that changed online gaming forever.

> Stay Awhile and Listen - Book I also explores...

> * How Diablo evolved from a turn-based, solo adventure to a lightning-fast online sensation

its on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Blizzards-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

You may also like...

Stay a While and Listen.

A book that details the early days of Blizzard Entertainment and how the world's biggest game company came to start up.

If you'd like to buy the book:

• Kindle - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G8UL474
  
• iBooks - https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/stay-awhile-and-listen-book-1/id705710946?mt=11

I think /u/dcrypter is referring to Torchlight, by Runic Games, founded by Max and Eric Schaefer, co-founders of Blizzard North.

Stay Awhile and Listen is a good read if you're interested in their early days!

/u/knightangel12 was nice enough to inform us that there is actually a book about the creation of Diablo: [Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I]
(http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Blizzards-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458522951&sr=8-1&keywords=stay+awhile+and+listen)

I hope these are what you're looking for.

If I find any additional stuff, I'll edit the post - also if anyone else finds stuff similar to what I linked, feel free to drop info, i'd love to read more of this stuff!

Obligatory Subreddit Plug

/r/TheMakingOfGames - A subreddit featuring a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

Books

Masters of Doom is a book that follows the lives of John Carmack and John Romero, the creation of what became iD Software, and some of the most memorable games of our generation. (Daikatana's failure, Doom, The super mario clone that eventually became Commander Keen, Quake, etc.)

Jacked is a book that follows the creation of what became a memorable game studio (Rockstar Games) and one of the most memorable franchises of our lifetimes. (Grand Theft Auto)

Stay Awhile and Listen is a book that tells the story of the company known as Blizzard and the difficulty of creating Warcraft as well as the fight to create Diablo.

[Hourences] (http://www.hourences.com/product/the-hows-and-whys-of-the-games-industry/) is a book written by someone who's worked freelance / contract for quite some time now. The basic questions this book will attempt to answer are: Why would one want to work in the games industry? Or why not? And, if the decision has already been made, then: What would one look for or expect? How can one pick a good mod (modification) team or a development studio that will fit one’s personality and meet one’s expectations?

Minecraft: The Story of Notch A story about Notch before, during, and after the rise of Minecraft - talks about his family, his life, etc.

Rise of the Dungeon Master the story of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most influential games ever made. Like the game itself, the narrative casts the reader into the adventure from a first person point of view, taking on the roles of the different characters in the story.

Documentaries / Movies

Double Fine Adventure - A game following the conception and delivery of what would become "Broken Age"

Indie Game: The Movie - Follows the trials and tribulations of indie developers trying to "make it big" and/or "continue to succeed".

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang - Follows how Minecraft was formed, Notch, and the impact the game has made on generations.

Amneisa Fortnight 2012 A documentary that follows various groups doing a "game jam" that eventually became published games.

[Amneisa Fornight 2014] (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd7Y5qXNqV1wDPtdNPjZ-tw0) Same as the 2012, just a documentary following the game jam.

GDC Post Mortems A good variety of games, the ups and downs, from indie to AAA.

You want his blood type info and dick size while I am at it? Geez... Sorry to rain on your Wyatt Trump rant. The best answers to your question could possibly be found in this book https://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Legendary-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474

" On August 1, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of Blizzard North. A key reason for the closure was Blizzard North's poor development of what was to be Diablo III which did not meet the expectations of Vivendi. Former Blizzard North staffers including Joseph Lawrence, Wyatt Cheng and Matt Uelmen subsequently appeared in the credits of Blizzard's next retail release, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The work of former Blizzard North artist Phroilan Gardner was also featured in editions of World of Warcraft: The Trading Card Game around the same time. "

https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Blizzard_North