Kosta Andreadis, writing for IGN:

In the mid-to-late 1990s, the real-time strategy (RTS) genre was not only popular but ubiquitous. RTS games of various styles and settings were everywhere, and a company named Blizzard Entertainment was at the forefront. The studio had become a household name with gamers thanks – primarily – to three titles: 1994’s Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, 1995’s Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and an action role-playing game released on the final day of 1996 (and developed by Blizzard North), Diablo. These games cemented Blizzard as a company that made high quality cinematic story-driven experiences that were fun, accessible, and infinitely repayable.

With StarCraft, its third real-time strategy game, Blizzard would leave behind the fantasy world of the breakout Warcraft franchise and set its sights on the distant future. It would take players to a science-fiction setting where humans and strange alien races engaged in isometric high-tech warfare. And the studio would go on a journey of its own; in the time between Warcraft II and StarCraft’s launch in 1998 the look and feel of the game would change drastically - alongside its story, characters, vehicles and other player-controlled units. This is the story of that evolution… and the success beyond.

I remember seeing the original StarCraft trailer for the first time. If memory serves, the trailer was included in the WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal expansion set CD-ROM. At the time, the trailer felt like something out of a Ridley Scott film, only grander. Comedic space goons alarmed and destroyed by a large, brooding, mysterious craft. I was bewildered.

Andreadis has put together a tight, well-written retrospective of StarCraft. If you enjoyed the original in the late ‘90s, there are lots of great bits of development insight in here.

The following might be my favorite bit:

Compared to the advances made in digital recording technology available today, to create the sounds and music for StarCraft the team made use of a suite of external synthesizers and outboard hardware, utilising more traditional recording techniques. “Early versions of some of the sounds were pretty cringeworthy,” Glenn admits. “Certain units required more experimentation to get something really unique and special. The first version of the Hydralisk was just plain silly until we figured out how to make them ‘talk’ without words.” This experimentation led to some interesting sources for what many consider to be some of the best sound effects for an RTS of any era.

“Lots of units in the game started with voice as the origin; our voices,” Glenn reveals. “Though most are tweaked beyond recognition. We also used voice for sound effects, such as the Marines’ walkie talkie static. Voice and mouth sounds, like whispers, hisses, and breathing were a big contributor to creating source material to be processed into various strange effects, sweeteners, ambiences and even in the music. One of the chittering Zergling sounds is just me grabbing my cheeks and flapping them open and closed quickly. Processed with pitch and other effects afterwards.”

Unfortunately, no details on the Nintendo 64 port.

Christopher Dring, reporting for GamesIndustry.biz:

It seems a bit negative for the physical market, but these figures do not include hardware. And actually more consoles were sold in 2018 than in 2017. GamesIndustry.biz can reveal over 2.4 million games machines were sold in the UK last year. PS4 was the biggest selling console, with sales flat year-on-year, but Nintendo Switch was the biggest growth area, with Switch console sales up more than 20 percent.

Indeed, physical remains a strong part of the games retail business. According to ERA, the best-selling game of the year was FIFA 19 with 2.5 million units sold… 1.89 million of those sales came physically. That means when it comes to AAA releases, digital sales only account for around 25 per cent of the games sold. However, that percentage is getting bigger. Last year, 20% of FIFA 18’s sales were digital.

I don’t find it terribly surprising that an annual sports title garners the top spot for physical game sales. I can already see the GameStop shelves littered with used copies of FIFA ‘19 this fall.

The trend of the rise in digital also comes as unsurprising when physical games are all met with a barrage of software updates. Sure, one may be able to save a few bucks on a physical copy — and sell it back — but in the world of instant gratification, digital download — albeit a tens-of-gigabytes download — is quicker than a trip to the store plus a tens-of-gigabytes update.

Colin Campbell, Polygon:

These events must lead most observers to the view that game companies have a long way to go before they can truly present themselves as caring about their employees, their customers, or the world that they inhabit. But they are at least now subject to vociferous disapproval when they make their most grotesque mistakes.

Perhaps meetings are taking place right now, in which execs are noting the previous damage of their own actions, and making necessary alterations. More realistically, as we enter the new year, the issue of unions is in the air. If and when employees organize themselves into unions, game companies will have more to worry about than bad publicity. In 2019, maybe we’ll see a change for the better. Maybe.

This article is a great retrospective of an industry on the cusp of being held accountable. I don’t say that lightly. These are incidents on record. There’s bound to be many, many more that have not been to light. It’s wonderful to see focus put on these issues by media outlets.

I’ll admit that I remain glued to the video game industry for the fun and surprise of it all. But to see the harsher reality elevated more than ever is refreshing.

In any case, the comments on this article are something else. No one should ever be harassed. No one should ever be expected to work 100 hours per week. No one should be subjected to cheap gambling tactics or unjustified lockout to earn a company an extra penny or two. In 2019, maybe we’ll see a change for empathy and maturity from companies and audiences alike. Maybe.

John Gruber, with guest Jason Snell, on his podcast The Talk Show with John Gruber:

There is a thing to being “Mac-like”. And there was, and it was strong. It’s literally what kept Apple alive.

If Mac-likeness hadn’t been an important thing, there’s no reason everybody wouldn’t have switched to Windows at the time — that there was more to it than, ‘OK, you’ve got a rectangular window and the windows all have “close” buttons and “zoom” buttons, and then there’s a menu bar with an agreed upon set of typical things like “file”, “edit”, “font”. You double-click on an app. There’s a mouse that moves around. You can select text. There’s a scroll bar over on the side you can drag up-and-down to move up-and-down on a document. And there you go — there’s a GUI. If you can use one, you can use any one and that’s all there is to it.’

It is true that that is the description of the modern graphical user interface of a windowing system. But there’s so much more to the Mac-way of doing things and of organizing things. And of feeling at home. It’s such an amazing thing when you feel at home in an app you’ve never used before because it uses all these familiar conventions. Those conventions went so much deeper than just draggable windows with a “close” button and a menu bar.

This is a great discussion of the level of detail and consideration for human interface guidelines. I encourage you to give it a list. It struck me as I closely followed Twitter’s branding guidelines for the redesigned footer of Zero Counts.

I became a Mac convert in 2004 with the iBook G4. Before that, I was put off by the consistency of Mac apps, which is a wild thing to consider. I mistook variety in user interfaces for freedom, and thus, the Mac as a restrictive system. This notion was reinforced by the Mac’s minimal amount of hardware customization. Together, the Mac was but a toy for casual users. I had completely missed the point of the Mac, and apparently had no consideration for elegant design.

The level of consistency displayed in a majority of the most popular Mac apps makes it all the more apparent when something doesn’t quite feel right. Not to mention when something is completely disorienting. The app that jumps out to me most is Pixelmator.

Pixelmator includes loads of floating windows and tools. If I’m not mistaken, this was inspired by the original Photoshop GUI. I’ve been a big fan of Pixelmator, but I’ve always felt lost in it’s GUI.

Now, with the single window design of the new Pixelmator Pro, I feel at home. It’s not to say I’m completely familiar with all of the ins and outs, but I was able to immediately jump in and find my way around.

As the successor to a heavily used app, reworking the entire GUI is incredibly risky. But the ease at which a longtime Pixelmator user can dive into Pixelmator Pro with little effort is a testament to the macOS HIG.

This year, I did a bit of catching up. No thanks to Nintendo and the Switch, 2017 was largely spent scavenging Hyrule and the Mushroom Kingdom. In 2018, I leapt back into books — many of which I’d been meaning to read for a few years.

Needless to say, I quite possibly read more in 2018 than any other year of my life. Honestly, I can’t say any of these reads were horrible (though I’m one to find good in anything). Some certainly better than others. All a bit scattered amongst genre.

Without further adieu, here are my 2018 reads, ordered from most favorite to least.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood

Horribly chilling in light of the US today. The extreme justifications of Law and Government’s Will as God’s own feel too real and terrible. Published in 1985, no less.

My god, what a read.

Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Shortly after we moved to San Francisco, I found a copy of Americanah in our building’s shared laundry room — in the communal stack of books and magazines. I had heard great things on The New York Times Book Review Podcast and swooped it up immediately. (Truthfully, nothing stands between me and a beautifully formatted hardcover.)

A gut-wrenching love story, relatable and not. A story of America, relatable and not. A bare truth of race in this country that’s all so evident, yet can never be reinforced enough — now more than ever. A perspective unlike any other.

“Love was a kind of grief. This was what the novelists meant by suffering.”

Less

Andrew Sean Greer

What is seemingly a 2-star novel warps and wraps itself into a top-shelf, lovely comedic, and heartfelt story by a 5-star genius. So many “I’ve been there” moments and callbacks to “insignificant” details that the heartfelt and hilarious pangs resound with gut-wrenching timbre.

The story of Arthur Less is a comedic one, filled with the kind of silly anxieties, ghosts of the past, self-deprecation, self-destruction, and self-loathing we all find familiar. Best of all, a story of itself and meta and multiple levels. A protagonist no one should feel sorry for and that’s just the point.

We are all more or less Less.

Creative Selection

Ken Kocienda

A superb look inside software development at Apple and what it means to create team culture. Hard to put down.

I came to this book by way of John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. As a manager leading a cross-functional publishing and platform development team, this is a critical peek at what makes Apple quality software.

I’m thankful to have a team staffed with creatives, designers, developers, editors, producers, and writers. Truly the intersection of technology and liberal arts. But success goes beyond the right mix of people. It takes direction and focus. I shared the seven elements Kocienda identifies with my team, asking them which element stood out most to them. Unsurprisingly, we had a healthy mix of craft, taste, inspiration, diligence, and empathy. I’ve since gone on to outfit my team with Kocienda’s book as an artifact of what it takes to get to where Apple is today and to never forget what can be accomplished with a small team.

I advise everyone to read this book.

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

How did I miss this in high school? A chilling premonition of Today from 1932. Truth vs happiness. No sweet without the sour.

God in the safe and Ford on the shelves.

A masterpiece.

Annihilation

Jeff Vandermeer

As dreamlike, entrancing, and lush as Area X. Vibes like Sunshine, LOST, The Abyss, and Dear Esther. Extremely my jam.

The movie is way different, but just as awesome.

The Three-Body Problem

Cixin Liu

How do you even begin to write something this vast, imaginative, complex, and yet entertaining? Such a fun, big read. Awesome first act to a trilogy, but I’m going to need a breather before diving into book two.

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jesmyn Ward

Imaginative. Mystifying. Infuriating. Poetic. Vivid. Captures an uninhibited train of thought perfectly.

A lonesome and dooming dusk.

The Boys in the Boat

Daniel James Brown

Layers upon layers. Part bio, part sports rivalry, part pre-war omen. Paces like a race: quick off the line, measured through the middle, blasts-off at the end. The descriptions of the competitions had me gripped. Maybe could have been 50-100 pages shorter, but likely meant to portray the weight of perseverance.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This book came as a recommendation from my wife. She’d become insistent on me finishing so we could watch the Netflix film.

While fluffy, it’s a fascinating look at the German Occupation in the Channel Islands during WWII — a story not often told, and in the format of letters no less. An easy read full of wonderful characters and whimsy. An easy holiday read.

Deep Work

Cal Newport

I came to this book via The Ezra Klein Show podcast. Cal and Ezra discussed some interesting tips about maximizing productivity during large chunks of the workday. I found the idea of leaving my mornings free and scheduling meetings on the back half of my day compelling. It quickly fell apart as a manager, but the idea is beginning to help some of my employees.

For knowledge workers — engineers, academics, etc — large chunks of uninterrupted time can be critical for working deeply and making large strides in productivity, innovation, and creativity. If you can’t always be out of the shallows, find ways to minimize its impact: use a to-do list to track big items/projects; clear your inbox to remove the nagging distraction of something beckoning you; send clear correspondence with precise action items and expectations. If you have a project, find 1–4 hours to focus on it.

The one I’m working on: sign-off by 5:30 and stop thinking about work!

You’ll Grow Out of It

Jessi Klein

I’d heard about this book from (once again) The New York Times Book Review Podcast. They deemed it something like the better Amy Schumer biography.

With only a blip of a mention of Schumer, I get it. An honest, humbling, and humiliatingly hilarious look into the female experience — womanhood, comedy, writing, aging, and sexuality.

Klein shows that it’s truly impossible to empathize with everything everyone goes through. As a male, I’ll never understand the twists and turns of womanhood, no matter how many women I have in my life. On the other hand, there’s a shocking amount of humiliating and shitty situations we all share.

A light, fun, funny read that will shine a light on experiences you have had, may have, and never will have.

S. / Ship of Theseus

J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

If not entirely satisfying, a wholly original work and impressive feat. Glad to have given it a go.

I learned about this book while posting an Event at the Apple Store to the iTunes Store during my time on Apple Podcasts — an interview with J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. I couldn’t resist the complexity and mystery of the book. My inner-LOST nerd needed it. It only took me five years to get to it.

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

“It was only a smile, nothing more… but I’ll take it.”

A gauntlet and another solid recommendation from my sister, Megan Starr.

A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L’Engle

Alice in Wonderland meets The Little Prince. A wild, snappy adventure filled with witches, aliens, and — of course — space and time travel.

Wonderland

Steven Johnson

I came across this book from its companion (and clever marketing vehicle) podcast Wonderland.

We are all wired with natural instincts: hunger, thirst, sex. (Hypothalamus keeping us right!) Yet, we crave and are fascinated by surprise. “When the world surprises us with something, our brains are wired to pay attention.” Even without any seemingly productive ends, we explore and yearn for new experiences. We play. “The pleasure of play is understandable. The productivity of play is harder to explain.” Play propels our creativity and innovation.

“You will find the future wherever people are having the most fun.” Humans are funny space creatures. If only we would all just play a little more.

Underground Airlines

Ben H. Winters

Gripping, thrilling, tight. Cinematic and easy to envision. A take on the reality of fending for oneself in the direst of situations. Sympathy for an antihero. Ego vs Id. Battle of conscience. Complexities unraveling themselves hours after finishing.

Power-Up

Chris Kohler

Great historical reference and a fun look back on video game history. Made even better by reading during a trip to Tokyo! Ended a bit misty-eyed at the Iwata remembrance. Thanks to Pavan Rajam for the recommendation.

Play Anything

Ian Bogost

I picked this up after reading a triple-review of Death by Video Game (ultra fav!), The Tetris Effect (fascinating), and Play Anything. I tweeted a photo of the review — proud I had read two of three books in an NYT Book Review. With permission, Mr. Bogost used the photo for his own tweet. Photo credit would have been cool, but it was still a neat moment.

Play Anything reads like an academic paper on how we define “fun”. There are plenty of choice quotes and great insights. However, they are mired in thick sets of highbrow, like diamonds in tons of rough of proof and reference. As much as Bogost preaches the ability to find fun in challenge, I couldn’t find much fun here. Bogost would call this “hardship”. At the very least, amongst bits of beautiful insight, Bogost’s writing has a musical quality. It’s easy to wade around in it, even if you’re not taking it all in.

Maybe my expectations were initially misaligned by a NYT review of books about games. I’d also argue Bogost’s title doesn’t help. Rather than “Play Anything”, this should have been titled “The Paradox of Fun”, “Fun Theory”, “The Power of Limits”, or simply “Read David Foster Wallace”.

Bogost proves to be an incredibly smart philosopher, but his philosophy of fun may be better as a longform feature rather than an entire book.

Hillbilly Elegy

J.D. Vance

I’m a firm believer of education, but nothing benefits like a happy home. The Rust Belt is under a microscope, but these problems affect California, too.

Into the Water

Paula Hawkins

Fun first 2/3. Tedious final act. Illuminating epilogue. Unlikeable characters. Can’t say I’d recommend it, but suffices as a page-turner.