The Four Swords: A Parable of Leadership, Video Games, and Dead Dragons (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781662917080)

Four friends meet a mysterious stranger with a robotic voice ... an encounter that will change their lives forever.

Jake and Leo have spent the last two years working on a sequel to a successful shooter / role-playing game at Scrub-Liminal Studios in Austin, Texas, working under industry legend Mickey Whitmore. Meanwhile, their friends Tim and Allison worked on a hugely anticipated new sci-fi space exploration game at Green Gryphon Games on the outskirts of town, under the eccentric leadership of Bentley Bartle.

As the stranger asks them to recount their tale, they tell the story of their epic quest to achieve game development greatness -- a story of teamwork, ambition, struggle, tragedy, office politics, clashing expectations and personalities, extraordinary personal suffering, and a helper who guides them to a profound new understanding of how values drive culture, and how culture drives outcomes.

This book gives a unique and entertaining perspective on game development, an "in the trenches" view of how teams succeed or fail from the point of view of the hard-working developers doing everything they can to help their teams succeed. It shows the critical role of leadership and values, the seemingly trivial mistakes that can snowball into serious problems, and insights into what it takes to change things for the better.