There are tons of books about writing every aspect of a videogame, about how designing the next great hit, about how to model and animate characters, but this is indeed the first book about how to make a videogame. In other words by reading this book you’ll get some insights at how to plan and manage a successful videogame project. Although project managers should be mainly concerned about the matter of this book, I think it is a must read for team leaders and a worth reading for everyone involved in a videogame project.
I recommend this book not only for those involved in professional videogame production but for anyone who has a project (even at hobbyist level) about videogame production.
The author presents his own experience as the owner of Taldren studio and producer of several games. The book focus mainly on Fixed Budget/Fixed Time kind of games, which are actually the most difficult to complete withing the constraints.
Topics range from how to use UML to sketch the project requirements to how to propose the project to a publisher for funding, to which parts of the project to outsource, to how to find a job in the industry.
The author is proposing his own experience presenting what worked and what not. Considering the maturity level of this industry I think that it is a very good approach, instead of ruling do’s and dont’s, he collects best practices with a critical approach.