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

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

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.

©2015 David Craddock (P)2015 Audiobooks.com

Interesting look into the history of Blizzard

I really enjoyed this look into Blizzard's past and the original of Diablo and Warcraft.

Great listening!

Loved it, how my favorite PC game came about. can't get enough of the WOW information.

love it

it is a detailed a well told biography about blizzard's ans blizzard north firts days, with very cool details

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.