Game Developer’s Market Guide (Premier Press Game Development)

I purchased this book with my eye on one section in particular… the one that purports to have a list of publishers and their contact information. When I received the book, I was excited to flip it open and find, indeed, a list of information for many publishers in the industry. What I soon found out, however, that what seems to be a large amount of information really isn’t.
First, there are a striking number of major publishers that are simply missing from the book. For example, the publisher that historically works the most with outside studios, Take Two (and their subsidiaries, Gathering of Developers, Rockstar, etc.) have no listing whatsoever. There is some solace in seeing companies like Microsoft Games… but they state firmly in their entry that they do not accept unsolicited submissions – which is exactly what a reader of this book would be doing. What’s more, many of the entries in this section were obviously lifted straight from forms filled out by the companies themselves… complete with spelling errors, grammatical hash and useless statements.
The lists of developers and contractors seems to be a bit more of a help – particular for those that are looking for employment or for specialized contract labor to help them augment their own skills. However, this is something that is available through other outlet such as the perennial favorite, Gamasutra.com.
The other sections of this book hold some value, depending on your knowledge and exposure to the industry. There are some decent articles in Section 1 by some good names in the business. They provide an array of education, advice, encouragement and caution to those who may be looking at getting into the industry.
The last section of recommended reading, URLs, etc. is material you could find on your own. It is only really valuable if you are completely incapable of performing the most basic of searches via your engine of choice. Of course, if you couldn’t Google with a reasonable level of skill, you probably wouldn’t be the type of person that would be looking for this book in the first place.
All in all, it is nice to have this information between a pair of covers… but don’t expect an all-encompassing tome of who’s who and who wants you. On the other hand, for the price they are charging, it may be worth it to just pick it up so you don’t have to burn the calories acquiring the information on your own.