Stay Awhile and Listen

How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire, Book 1

By: David L. Craddock

Narrated by: Mike Rylander

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 invites listeners to discover the origin of 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.

©2015 David Craddock (P)2015 Audiobooks.com

Fun, informative

People don’t seem to like the narrator but it was totally fine. Only gripe I have is small in that he refers to id software as I-D software, groan.

great narrator

very interesting book with a lot of insight into the of Blizzard. loved the narrator too, he found very distinct voices for each person

So much better than youtube

If you are a gaming history junkie like me, you will really appreciate the quality and journalistic integrity of this writers’ work. I have yet to see anything else with this level of professional journalism in the field. I haven’t even played many Blizzard games, and I loved this book!

Great listen for long time Blizzard fans

The book is really cool and interesting if you're a fan of old blizzard games and I'm looking forward to part 2. The narrator felt borderline insulting with how he represented some of the people's voices, besides that he does a good job.

Narration not the best. But give it a chance.

Narrators take on the source is too silly. Thankfully his stock voices are good, but he gives "side" characters like artists and musicians really stereotyped or over the top personalities.

BUT the book is really good and well researched, and I want to support all the non-fiction (Game Dev) related projects by the author David L. Craddock.

I hope he continues to record more audiobooks and we get part 2 and 3 in this series on audible.

Can't a fella drink in peace...

This was a quite ok look into Blizzards early years. Telling the story from beginning and still focusing on Diablo.

Diablo nostalgia

Fans of Diablo will enjoy this book. It’s a very chronological play-by-play which immerses the listener in the atmosphere of feverish game development, but sometimes it would be nice to zoom out and see the forest and not just the trees. It was especially nice to hear the artist commentary on the music and audio as for me that is one of the most indelible memories of the game.

Unique and interesting

I thoroughly enjoyed the tales of the Blizzard founders in their prime. the Narration at first seemed a bit silly but by the end I discovered I rather enjoyed it's quirkiness.

Really good, but would be better if Rylander hadn’t invented accents for everyone

Great story and such good insight into the making of a gaming empire. The only flaw with the audiobook is the narrator tries to use different accents for the different people you’ll meet along the way. Some are fine, some (the Boston one, the Canadian one) are horrendous.

great story but bad structure

the story is interesting but the whole structure with the side quests and interview like paragraph is really distracting.