-
Stay Awhile and Listen
- How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire, Book 1
- Narrated by: Mike Rylander
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Heaven, Hell, and Secret Cow Levels
- Stay Awhile and Listen, Book 2
- By: David L. Craddock
- Narrated by: David Giltinan
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orcs and humans. Angels and devils. North and south. Harmony and discord. Threatened by competition in the space they popularized, Blizzard Entertainment looks to the stars to build a new franchise and evolve into a well-oiled machine. No longer the underdog, Blizzard North takes Diablo out of murky dungeons and across deserts, jungles, and snowy mountaintops.
-
-
Just as fun as the first
- By Benjamin L. Belcher on 09-28-21
-
Masters of Doom
- How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history - Doom and Quake - until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry.
-
-
How it was
- By Ryan on 08-27-13
By: David Kushner
-
Press Reset
- Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry
- By: Jason Schreier
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Schreier's groundbreaking reporting has earned him a place among the preeminent investigative journalists covering the world of video games. In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry and the resilience of the people who work in it.
-
-
Audio Quality is Inconsistent
- By Amazon Customer on 09-14-21
By: Jason Schreier
-
Sid Meier's Memoir!
- A Life in Computer Games
- By: Sid Meier, Jennifer Lee Noonan - contributor
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world's most popular video games, including Sid Meier's Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier's Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry.
-
-
Great!
- By Dylan Kelly on 03-30-21
By: Sid Meier, and others
-
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
- The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made
- By: Jason Schreier
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes listeners on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius.
-
-
Behind the Scenes
- By SAMA on 11-27-17
By: Jason Schreier
-
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings
- The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line
- By: Ken Williams
- Narrated by: Josh Horowitz
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sierra On-Line was one of the very first computer game companies and at one time dominated the industry. The author, Ken Williams, founded Sierra On-Line with his wife Roberta who went on to create many of the company's best-selling games. Sierra grew from just Ken and Roberta to over 1,000 employees and a fan base that still exists today, despite the fact that the company was torn apart by criminal activities, scandal, and corruption that resulted in jail sentences and the collapse of Sierra.
-
-
a fitting ending to Sierra
- By Darrell on 05-10-21
By: Ken Williams
-
Heaven, Hell, and Secret Cow Levels
- Stay Awhile and Listen, Book 2
- By: David L. Craddock
- Narrated by: David Giltinan
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orcs and humans. Angels and devils. North and south. Harmony and discord. Threatened by competition in the space they popularized, Blizzard Entertainment looks to the stars to build a new franchise and evolve into a well-oiled machine. No longer the underdog, Blizzard North takes Diablo out of murky dungeons and across deserts, jungles, and snowy mountaintops.
-
-
Just as fun as the first
- By Benjamin L. Belcher on 09-28-21
-
Masters of Doom
- How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history - Doom and Quake - until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry.
-
-
How it was
- By Ryan on 08-27-13
By: David Kushner
-
Press Reset
- Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry
- By: Jason Schreier
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Schreier's groundbreaking reporting has earned him a place among the preeminent investigative journalists covering the world of video games. In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry and the resilience of the people who work in it.
-
-
Audio Quality is Inconsistent
- By Amazon Customer on 09-14-21
By: Jason Schreier
-
Sid Meier's Memoir!
- A Life in Computer Games
- By: Sid Meier, Jennifer Lee Noonan - contributor
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world's most popular video games, including Sid Meier's Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier's Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry.
-
-
Great!
- By Dylan Kelly on 03-30-21
By: Sid Meier, and others
-
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels
- The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made
- By: Jason Schreier
- Narrated by: Ray Chase
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes listeners on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius.
-
-
Behind the Scenes
- By SAMA on 11-27-17
By: Jason Schreier
-
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings
- The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line
- By: Ken Williams
- Narrated by: Josh Horowitz
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sierra On-Line was one of the very first computer game companies and at one time dominated the industry. The author, Ken Williams, founded Sierra On-Line with his wife Roberta who went on to create many of the company's best-selling games. Sierra grew from just Ken and Roberta to over 1,000 employees and a fan base that still exists today, despite the fact that the company was torn apart by criminal activities, scandal, and corruption that resulted in jail sentences and the collapse of Sierra.
-
-
a fitting ending to Sierra
- By Darrell on 05-10-21
By: Ken Williams
-
Dungeon Hacks
- How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games
- By: David L. Craddock
- Narrated by: Mike Rylander
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980, computers were instruments of science and mathematics, military secrets and academia. Stern administrators lorded over sterile university laboratories and stressed one point to the wide-eyed students privileged enough to set foot within them: Computers were not toys. Defying authority, hackers seized control of monolithic mainframes to create a new breed of computer game: the roguelike, cryptic, and tough-as-nails adventures drawn from text-based symbols instead of state-of-the-art 3-D graphics.
-
-
awesome!
- By E H on 10-28-16
-
Prepare to Meet Thy Doom
- And More True Gaming Stories
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Masters of Doom author David Kushner comes Prepare to Meet Thy Doom, a compilation of true gaming stories covering many facets of America's biggest entertainment business: the video game industry. In addition to more than a dozen fascinating tales of game creation, play, business, and controversy, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom follows up on Kushner's previous best seller, Masters of Doom, with a long-awaited update.
-
-
A mixtape of essays
- By Scarlet Spark on 03-18-17
By: David Kushner
-
Gamedev
- 10 Steps to Making Your First Game Successful
- By: Wlad Marhulets
- Narrated by: Yong Yea
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The book guides you through a step-by-step process of making a commercial game. It teaches you how to learn all the necessary skills and covers various aspects of game development: mindset, preproduction, funding, business, law, development, marketing, PR, publishing, distribution, as well as pre-launch, launch, and post-launch strategies.
-
-
The bible of modern game development.
- By Jason Parks on 11-12-20
By: Wlad Marhulets
-
Console Wars
- Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation
- By: Blake J. Harris
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 20 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video-game industry. In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video-game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles.
-
-
My Childhood: Explained
- By Shane Snyder on 07-22-14
By: Blake J. Harris
-
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Steven Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.
-
-
Remember Why You Got Into Computing
- By Dan Collins on 07-01-16
By: Steven Levy
-
The History of the Future
- Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality
- By: Blake J. Harris
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But outside of a few research labs and military training facilities, this tantalizing vision of the future was nothing but science fiction. Until 2012, when Oculus founder Palmer Luckey - then just a rebellious teenage dreamer living alone in a camper trailer - invents a device that has the potential to change everything.
-
-
Fantastic book
- By Rodney on 04-01-19
By: Blake J. Harris
-
Replay
- The History of Video Games
- By: Tristan Donovan, Richard Garriott
- Narrated by: Gary Furlong
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting account of the birth and remarkable evolution of the most important development in entertainment since television, Replay is the ultimate history of video games. From its origins in the research labs of the 1940s to the groundbreaking success of the Wii, Replay sheds new light on gaming's past.
-
-
Excellent Book
- By Devin on 01-17-18
By: Tristan Donovan, and others
-
Of Dice and Men
- The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It
- By: David M. Ewalt
- Narrated by: David M. Ewalt, Mikael Naramore
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Of Dice and Men, David Ewalt recounts the development of Dungeons & Dragons from the game’s roots on the battlefields of ancient Europe, through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides, to its apotheosis as father of the modern video-game industry. As he chronicles the surprising history of the game’s origins (a history largely unknown even to hardcore players) and examines D&D’s profound impact, Ewalt weaves laser-sharp subculture analysis with his own present-day gaming experiences.
-
-
Nerrrrrrrrrrd!
- By A. Listener on 12-28-15
By: David M. Ewalt
-
Getting Gamers
- The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on the People who Play Them
- By: Jamie Madigan
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Getting Gamers will show that rather than being a waste of time, video games can help us develop skills, make friends, succeed at work, form good habits, and be happy. Taking the time to learn what's happening in our heads as we play and shop allows us to approach games and gaming communities on our own terms and get more out of them. With examples from the games themselves, Jamie Madigan offers a fuller understanding of the impact of games on our psychology and the influence of psychology on our games.
-
-
Great look into why we play
- By Jody on 01-08-20
By: Jamie Madigan
-
Service Games
- The Rise and Fall of SEGA: Enhanced Edition
- By: Sam Pettus
- Narrated by: Tom Racine
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New Edition! More content, images, and corrected text and facts. Monochrome edition. Starting with its humble beginnings in the 1950s and ending with its swan-song, the Dreamcast, in the early 2000s, this is the complete history of Sega as a console maker. Before home computers and video game consoles, before the Internet and social networking, and before motion controls and smartphones, there was Sega.
-
-
The Story of the Fall of Sega
- By Austin on 01-05-15
By: Sam Pettus
-
The Dream Architects
- Adventures in the Video Game Industry
- By: David Polfeldt
- Narrated by: Matt Wolfe
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The inside story of the booming video-game industry from the late 1990s to the present, as told by the managing director of Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment (The Division, Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations).
-
-
Its not so good.
- By Anonymous User on 02-28-21
By: David Polfeldt
-
iWoz
- How I Invented the Personal Computer and Had Fun Along the Way
- By: Steve Wozniak, Gina Smith
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand and slim laptops that fit snugly into briefcases, computers were like strange, alien vending machines. They had cryptic switches, punch cards, and pages of encoded output. But in 1975, a young engineering wizard named Steve Wozniak had an idea: What if you combined computer circuitry with a regular typewriter keyboard and a video screen?
-
-
Not Another Apple History!
- By Daniel Dennis on 04-08-08
By: Steve Wozniak, and others
Publisher's Summary
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.
More from the same
What listeners say about Stay Awhile and Listen
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt C
- 09-06-17
Interesting look into the history of Blizzard
I really enjoyed this look into Blizzard's past and the original of Diablo and Warcraft.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-19-17
Great listening!
Loved it, how my favorite PC game came about. can't get enough of the WOW information.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Nevins
- 08-27-18
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.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erik
- 03-23-18
Gamer geeks will appreciate this!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I'd recommend this to anyone who's really into gaming history, especially Blizzard games.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Stay Awhile and Listen?
I liked the "Side Quests" and quotes. Though, I could be mistaken, but several seem to have been pulled from Blizzard's Retrospective video a while back.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
I really do appreciate the author's effort to distinguish the voices, but they're REALLY cheesy, and started to annoy me. His gamer geek impressions sound like a cross between Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted, and Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. His attempt at a Japanese accent is like George Takei meets Ben Stein... if they had strokes.
Any additional comments?
I'd have liked more insight from the 'Blizzard South' team - most of the quotes were from the 'North' people.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vitor Silvestre
- 11-06-18
love it
it is a detailed a well told biography about blizzard's ans blizzard north firts days, with very cool details
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- NP
- 04-29-18
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.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- CunningStunt
- 06-14-16
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.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sam Windham
- 04-17-18
Narration kills this book. I wouldn't recommend it
The narration is quite bad. The voices he chooses to use... are more or less making fun of the material he is reading. I wouldn't not recommend this to anyone...
Otherwise, the information is decent, a little more topical than I prefer. But, it does give some in-depth information/nuggets on the beginning of blizzard. I would rate the story a 3.5 or maybe 4, but again hard to follow with the narration.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 01-07-19
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.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Yoly
- 10-25-18
Fun story about the origins of Blizzard
Fun story about the origins of Blizzard, focusing on Diablo (the first one) and some Warcraft.
I'm looking forward to part 2 which it's supposed to come out in 2019.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 08-30-21
Nope
This book, or at least the first hour, is a collection of interviews. That's pretty much it. If I actually *read* the book, it probably wouldn't be so bad. But as an audio book I hated it. The narrator is basically trying to act out the interviews, with different voices for different people. And I don't really blame the narrator, because how else would the listener be able to tell the different people apart? It's just a series of quotes from various people. So the narration is really silly.
1h 30m in and I give up.
I wish somebody would write a new book where they actually tell the story and not just quote the interviews. Because I want to know the story but not in this format.