Wii Love It reviewer Jose Cardoso interviewed me about the challenges of entrepreneurship, the value of franchises, and the role of luck in building successful businesses.

Ramsay: Startups rise and fall at the flip of a coin in the volatile business of video games. Gamers at Work shares the stories of the entrepreneurs who have managed to achieve what many have found impossible. Why did they succeed? What made them so different? What can we learn from these founders that we can apply to our own ventures? I hope that anyone who reads this book asks these questions, and joins the conversation about how we can address the vicious cycle so that we don't lose any more great companies, great jobs, or great games to avoidable failures.

Read his in-depth review of Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play. You can order the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and other booksellers around the world.

On the heels of the most critical take on my book, Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play, comes an excerpt published by Gamasutra and a review by Jose Cardoso at Wii Love It. I want to specially thank Jose for his review, which comes closest to articulating how I feel about the anthology.

Gamasutra — Positive Video Game Press Through Viral "Opinion Leadersihp"

Ensemble cofounder Tony Goodman explains in a new feature interview how he laid the groundwork for the massive success of Age of Empires by seeding the press with positive ideas about the game. What put him onto this idea? "Magazines like to report massive blockbusters or colossal failures. Everything in between is not news."

Gamasutra — Ensemble Studios: From Beginning to End, An Excerpt From Gamers at Work

In this extract from Morgan Ramsay's Gamers at Work, which explores the challenges of starting and building developers and publishers of video games with 18 of the industry's most successful entrepreneurs, Gamasutra presents a conversation with Tony Goodman about the history of Ensemble Studios, creators of the Age of Empires series for Microsoft. The book also includes discussions with Warren Spector, Jason Rubin, and more.

Jose Cardoso's review for Wii Love It:

You could argue that some of the probing questions asked by the author help to arrive at these answers, as some of the questions are actually atypical of what would be asked in a standard Q&A for a publication. Just as an example of this, Ramsay actually points out that a particular company seemed to be "hemorrhaging" employees, which in itself is quite a statement to make.

You can purchase Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and many other booksellers around the world.

Three more reviews of my book, Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play. Many thanks to reviewers Will Anderson, Jason Holton, and even Lucy Black.

Will Anderson's review for Wanderson75:

Ramsay does a good job of not only getting industry leaders to talk about their struggles in the days before the videogame market really became an industry, but also getting them to talk about the failures as well as the accomplishments. Hawkins' take on the failure of the 3DO, for example, was quite insightful and brought a new perspective to how the market worked, and what really caused the product's demise. It's the ability to get these industry greats to let their guards down and answer the tough questions that makes Gamers at Work such an enjoyable read.

Jason Holton's review for Epic Slash:

Ramsay has gone out of his way to present a book that is lean on filler. Like an overzealous workout junkie, Gamers at Work gives no indication that it even understands the concept of filler. This is as content-driven and streamlined as it gets. [...] Through these interviews, we are given a primer on the very foundations of the gaming [sic] industry. At this point, you could say that the market is saturated with speculation as to where the gaming [sic] industry will be going but how many gamers know where it came from?

Lucy Black's review for I Programmer:

I started out trying my best to read every word in each interview, but I have to admit that the quality of what was being said was so tedious that I rebelled. I eventually found myself skipping sentences and then paragraphs. It was tedious at the level of shopping lists. [...] What the book succeeds in is showing that interviewing is a rare talent.

You can purchase Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and many other booksellers around the world.

...and two more reviews of my book, Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play. Many thanks to reviewers James Sullivan and Emmanuel Brown.

James Sullivan's review for GameAspect:

No one interview describes the process completely, such as licensing IPs, approaching publishers with their own IPs, and general marketing and hiring strategies. But when the combined message of the book is taken in, there is a lot of information for the uninitiated to absorb. [...] Little morsels of the companies' internal workings are littered throughout the book—some humorous and others showing how desperate situations evolved for some companies. I would highly recommend picking up this book for anyone who has any interest in the way games are made, period.

Emmanuel Brown's review for 7outof10:

[T]he theme amongst all of the interviewees is one of entrepreneurial spirit and taking startup companies from rags to riches. [...] Gamers at Work is nevertheless a unique take on an industry that’s already covered by a million copycat retrospective tomes. If you’ve ever wondered about video game entrepreneurs, their business decisions and exactly how those companies that you love were founded and built, then it’s definitely worth a read.

You can purchase Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and many other booksellers around the world.