Jason Schreier

Jason Schreier was born on May 10, 1987.{{cite web |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/04/16/jason-schreier-is-leaving-kotaku-citing-go-media-reason/ |title=Jason Schreier is leaving Kotaku, citing G/O Media as reason |first=Gene |last=Park |date=April 16, 2020 |accessdate=April 20, 2020 |work=The Washington Post |publisher=Nash Holdings |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417111920/https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/04/16/jason-schreier-is-leaving-kotaku-citing-go-media-reason/ |archive-date=April 17, 2020 |url-status=live}}{{cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/retailer-screwups-trigger-uncharted-4-panic-1773173717 |title=Retailer Screwups Trigger Uncharted 4 Panic |first=Jason |last=Schreier |date=April 26, 2016 |accessdate=April 20, 2020 |work=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media |quote=Last month, Naughty Dog announced another two-week delay, bumping it to May 10 (my birthday!).}} He attended the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University (NYU), graduating with a degree in writing in 2009.{{cite web |last1=Agency |first1=InkWell Management Literary |title=Jason Schreier |url=https://inkwellmanagement.com/client/jason-schreier |website=InkWell Management Literary Agency |language=en}}

Schreier initially worked as a freelance journalist covering local news stories. He worked for Wired from 2010 to 2012, covering video games and related technology.{{cite web |url=https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-04-20-the-uncertain-unflinching-future-of-games-media |title=The uncertain, unflinching future of games media |first=Rebekah |last=Valentine |date=April 20, 2020 |accessdate=April 20, 2020 |work=GamesIndustry.biz |publisher=Gamer Network}} Other freelance work included a weekly column at Joystiq on Japanese role-playing games, and works published at Kill Screen, Edge, Eurogamer, G4TV, GamesRadar, and Paste.{{cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/meet-the-newest-members-of-the-kotaku-team-5881624 |title=Meet The Newest Members of the Kotaku Team |first=Stephen |last=Tolito |date=February 2, 2012 |accessdate=April 20, 2020 |work=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200327014838/https://kotaku.com/meet-the-newest-members-of-the-kotaku-team-5881624 |archive-date=March 27, 2020 |url-status=live}}

Around 2011, Schreier was contacted by Stephen Totilo, the editor-in-chief for the website Kotaku, offering him a position as a full-time news reporter. Kotaku had been founded in 2004 as the video game front under Gawker Media. Schreier accepted the position, which he started around the same time. He was promoted to news editor for the site prior to his departure.

Besides standard reporting on video game news, Schreier gained an early reputation at Kotaku for getting stories from developers about their inside processes for various titles. Schreier found common stories of excessive use of "crunch time" by some developers and the use of excessive overtime over multiple weeks and months to make sure a video game was completed by a target date.{{cite web | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/video-games/ps-5-release-games-features/ | title = A feel for the game | first = Mikhail | last = Klimentov | date = November 3, 2020 | accessdate = November 3, 2020 | work = The Washington Post }} While crunch time had been identified before in larger firms from other sources, such as at Rockstar Games, Schreier's reporting identified crunch also tended to persist at smaller studios.

In 2017, Schreier wrote a book about the video game creation process titled Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made.{{cite book |title=Blood, Sweat, And Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made |publisher=Harper |year=2017 |first=Jason |last=Schreier |isbn=978-0062651235}}{{cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/547367445/-blood-sweat-and-pixels-review |title='Blood, Sweat, And Pixels': For Designers Of Video Games, It's Always Crunch Time |first=Glen |last=Weldon |date=September 5, 2017 |accessdate=April 20, 2020 |work=NPR |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601143224/https://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/547367445/-blood-sweat-and-pixels-review |archive-date=June 1, 2019 |url-status=live}}

In addition to working conditions, Schreier wrote stories on the development histories of troubled or canceled video games, typically through reporting from anonymized workers. His articles included the stumbling blocks that Bungie overcame for Destiny,{{cite web |author=Jason Schreier |url=https://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731 |title=The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny |website=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media |date=September 9, 2014 |accessdate=October 7, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200416174925/https://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731 |archive-date=April 16, 2020 |url-status=live}} for the planned Star Wars game Project Ragtag at Visceral Games that eventually led to the studio's closure,{{cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/the-collapse-of-viscerals-ambitious-star-wars-game-1819916152 |title=The Collapse Of Visceral's Ambitious Star Wars Game |first=Jason |last=Schreier |date=October 27, 2017 |accessdate=October 28, 2017 |work=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200418025424/https://kotaku.com/the-collapse-of-viscerals-ambitious-star-wars-game-1819916152 |archive-date=April 18, 2020 |url-status=live}} and the difficulties behind Electronic Arts's and BioWare's Anthem.{{cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964 |title=How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong |first=Jason |last=Schreier |date=April 2, 2019 |accessdate=April 2, 2019 |work=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417111925/https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964 |archive-date=April 17, 2020 |url-status=live}}

Schreier's reporting on Bethesda Softworks, such his 2013 story on the cancellation of Prey 2 that relayed internal communications he had been provided, is believed to have led Bethesda to "blacklist" Kotaku, denying the site any pre-release copies of their games or interviews at trade events since 2015.{{cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-journalism-1743526293 |title=A Price Of Games Journalism |first=Stephen |last=Totilo |date=November 19, 2015 |accessdate=April 27, 2017 |work=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425004748/http://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-journalism-1743526293 |archive-date=April 25, 2017 |url-status=live}}{{cite web |url=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/11/analysis-kotaku-blacklisting-and-the-independence-of-the-gaming-press/ |title=Analysis: Kotaku, blacklisting, and the independence of the gaming press |first=Kyle |last=Orland |date=November 10, 2015 |website=Ars Technica |publisher=Condé Nast |accessdate=April 27, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214102413/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/11/analysis-kotaku-blacklisting-and-the-independence-of-the-gaming-press/ |archive-date=February 14, 2017 |url-status=live}} Schreier and Hello Games founder Sean Murray received death threats after Schreier reported on inside news that the highly anticipated No Man's Sky from Hello Games would be delayed by a few months.{{cite web |last=Orland |first=Kyle |title=No Man's Anger: A peaceful game's delay sparks online hate |url=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/no-mans-anger-a-peaceful-games-delay-sparks-online-hate/ |accessdate=June 2, 2016 |work=Ars Technica |publisher=Condé Nast |date=May 31, 2016 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602030612/http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/no-mans-anger-a-peaceful-games-delay-sparks-online-hate/ |archivedate=June 2, 2016}}

As a result of the Bollea v. Gawker lawsuit, the Gawker Network including Kotaku underwent a series of ownership changes after 2016, eventually falling under the G/O Media family in 2019. The new G/O management was more demanding of what content the sites carried, which resulted in a major incident at Deadspin, the network's sports-oriented site, in October 2019 leading to the firing of its editor in chief and subsequent quitting of most of the remaining editorial staff. This propagated across the other former Gawker sites, including Kotaku. Schreier left Kotaku in April 2020, specifically identifying issues with G/O Media management and the October 2019 Deadspin issue as his reasons for leaving. Schreier said of his reason for departure, "I’ve been through a lot of cataclysmic shifts because it always felt like, through it all, we were guided by people who always cared about journalism, and unfortunately, I'm not sure that’s the case anymore."

Shortly after leaving Kotaku, Schreier took a position as reporter at Bloomberg News in April 2020. There, he continued to cover the video game industry and game development.

While at Bloomberg, Schreier wrote his second book, Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, related to the volatility of the video game industry, which was released in May 2021.{{cite web | url = https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/8/22412497/press-reset-jason-schreier-video-game-studio-shutdown-book-interview | title = Why Even The Studios Behind Bestselling Games Shut Down | first = Adi | last = Robertson | date = May 8, 2021 | accessdate = May 8, 2021 | work = The Verge }} The book was a New York Times bestseller for non-fiction during the week of May 30.{{cite web |title=New York Times Bestseller List - May 30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2021/05/30/paperback-nonfiction/ |website=The New York Times}} Play Nice, his third book, documenting the history of Blizzard Entertainment, was released in October 2024.{{Cite web |last=Park |first=Gene |date=October 7, 2024 |title=‘Play Nice’ chronicles the rise and fall of an entertainment empire |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/10/07/play-nice-blizzard-entertainment-schreier/ |access-date=December 8, 2024 |website=Washington Post}}

Schreier is one of the co-hosts of the podcast Triple Click with former Kotaku co-workers Kirk Hamilton and Maddy Myers. It is hosted on the Maximum Fun network.{{cite web |title=Triple Click |url=https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/triple-click/ |website=Maximum Fun |date=2020-04-16}}

Schreier lives in the New York City area. He is Jewish.{{cite web |url=https://kotaku.com/a-more-interesting-way-to-talk-about-jews-in-video-game-1510840238 |title=About Jewish Stereotypes And Video Games... |first=Jason |last=Schreier |date=January 28, 2014 |website=Kotaku |publisher=G/O Media}} On June 24, 2018, Schreier married Amanda Coleman, a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, whom he had met at NYU.{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/fashion/weddings/amanda-coleman-jason-schreier.html |title=Amanda Coleman, Jason Schreier |date=June 24, 2018 |website=The New York Times |access-date=March 10, 2021}}

• {{cite book | first = Jason | last = Schreier | title = Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made | publisher = Harper | isbn = 9780062651235 | year = 2017 }}
• {{cite book | first = Jason | last = Schreier | title = Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry | publisher = Grand Central Publishing | isbn = 9781538735480 | year = 2021 }}
• {{cite book |last=Schreier |first=Jason |title=Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment |date=October 8, 2024 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |isbn=978-1538725429}}

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• [https://jasonschreier.com/ Personal home page]
• {{Twitter|jasonschreier}}

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Category:1987 births

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:American critics

Category:American male journalists

Category:Jewish American journalists

Category:Living people

Category:New York University alumni

Category:Video game critics

Category:Bloomberg L.P. people