Audiobooks narrated by Ray Chase

Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment

New York Times bestselling author and the gaming industry's preeminent investigative journalist Jason Schreier examines three decades of ups and downs at Blizzard Entertainment leading up to a hostile corporate takeover and a sexual misconduct scandal that put the legendary developer in a world of (Warcraft) trouble. For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection. The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of Warcraft was known to celebrate the joy of gaming over all else. What was once two UCLA students' simple mission - to make games they wanted to play - launched an empire with thousands of employees, millions of fans, and billions of dollars. But when Blizzard cancelled a buzzy project in 2013, it gave Bobby Kotick, the infamous CEO of corporate parent Activision, the excuse he needed to start cracking down on Blizzard's proud autonomy. Led by executives from McKinsey and Procter & Gamble, Activision began invading Blizzard from the inside. Glitchy products, PR disasters, and mass layoffs followed, marring the company's once pristine image. Then, in 2021, a staggering sexual misconduct and discrimination lawsuit against the company triggered a widespread reckoning and a shocking $69 billion acquisition. Based on firsthand interviews with more than 300 current and former employees, PLAY NICE chronicles the creativity, frustration, beauty, and betrayal across the epic 33-year saga of Blizzard Entertainment. From previously unrevealed stories of Blizzard's early culture, including fist fights and a hotel ban, to the full story of Titan, Blizzard's most high-profile canceled project, and the behind-the-scenes saga of how Blizzard executives battled their Activision overlords tooth and nail, this book explores the delight and despair of what it really means to "bleed Blizzard blue." Full of colorful personalities and dramatic twists, PLAY NICE is The Social Network for the video game industry.

Jason Schreier (Author), Ray Chase, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Before We Go Live: Navigating the Abusive World of Online Entertainment

‘Starting out, I made three dollars an hour; then I made four, then eight. After a year and a half of streaming full-time I was finally making minimum wage. A couple of years after that I was signed to a professional team and advertising products to my audience for $1,000 an hour.’ Streaming video games is now a billion-dollar industry. In 2022, Twitch alone has over 140 million active monthly users, with top players earning millions each year. But success breeds envy, and when big money’s being made, everyone wants a piece. In Before We Go Live, professional streamer Stephen Flavall, aka ‘jorbs’, invites the reader behind the scenes of this new frontier. From the boardrooms of LA to doctors' offices in the Midwest, dealing with trolls and stalkers to mingling with crypto scammers and ruthless opportunists, Before We Go Live is both a true story about the dark realities of streaming and the tale of a deep and enduring friendship. It’s about what happens when real life intersects with entertainment, and learning to act with kindness and humour in an online world full of prejudice and abuse. This audiobook edition is narrated by Ray Chase, voice of Noctis Lucis Caelum, L, and Bruno Buccellatti.

Stephen Flavall (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction

This short, smart book tells you everything you need to know about 'nothing.' What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space-'nothing'-exist? To answer these questions, eminent scientist Frank Close takes us on a lively and accessible journey that ranges from ancient ideas and cultural superstitions to the frontiers of current research, illuminating the story of how scientists have explored the void and the rich discoveries they have made there. Listeners will find an enlightening history of the vacuum: how the efforts to make a better vacuum led to the discovery of the electron; the ideas of Newton, Mach, and Einstein on the nature of space and time; the mysterious aether and how Einstein did away with it; and the latest ideas that the vacuum is filled with the Higgs field. The story ranges from the absolute zero of temperature and the seething vacuum of virtual particles and anti-particles that fills space, to the extreme heat and energy of the early universe.

Frank Close (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry

From the bestselling author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels comes the next definitive, behind-the-scenes account of the video game industry: how some of the past decade's most renowned studios fell apart-and the stories, both triumphant and tragic, of what happened next. 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. The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games-Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more-on to the shocking closures of the studios that made them, Press Reset tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns, and how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely. Schreier's insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama, bounced checks, and that one time the Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it's become so hard to make a stable living making video games-and whether the business of making games can change before it's too late.

Jason Schreier (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs

A New York Times Editor’s Choice One of Newsweek’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2021 Named a Bustle Best Book of 2021 An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails. In the middle of the night, they are vanished. Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control—suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage—are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these “troubled teens” fear it’s their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever. Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled, Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry. Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

Kenneth R. Rosen (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

How to Catch a Yeti

Legend has it there lives a beast we really want to meet. He's extra huge with snow-white fur and giant, fuzzy feet! I know the Yeti does exist, and I can prove it too! And with my friends, well find him fast before the day is through! When our brilliant Catch Club Kids hear about the legendary Yeti, they head to the mountains to catch a glimpse and prove it really exists! Full of hilarious high jinks and clever traps, How to Catch a Yeti is a fun-filled ride you won't want to miss!

Adam Wallace (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Spend Shift: How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution Is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell, and Live

How we, consumers, responded to the 2008 recession and continue to respond to its aftermath is the crux of much speculation. Will we remain 'frugal' or will we go back to our spending ways? What about this economic crisis has changed the way we live and how will it affect America's future? After decades of unfettered indulgence, Americans are spent. We over-consumed--financed with debt--which has overleveraged our country and erased 13 trillion of consumer wealth and nearly 45% in America's equities and housing values. In the process, we have decimated trust in our financial system, government, and business. In SPEND SHIFT, John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer at Young how we are moving from mindless to mindful consumption; and how we are opting for better goods and services, rather than just 'more.' As a consequence, companies are presented with an extraordinary opportunity to revolutionize their models to reconnect with the new, unwound consumer. Businesses that adapt to these new consumer behaviors will drive business that scale reputation, not debt, and that will expand profit margins by delivering both 'value' and 'values.' Through insight, social data, and in depth observation, SPEND SHIFT analyzes the changing American consumer psyche, documents the five shifting values and consumer behaviors that are remaking America, and explains what it means to businesses and leaders. This will be a must-read for anyone interested in how consumerism is changing and how to understand and connect with consumer during and after the recession.

John Gerzema, Michael D'antonio, Philip Kotler (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Inception and Philosophy: Because It's Never Just a Dream

A philosophical look at the movie Inception and its brilliant metaphysical puzzles Is the top still spinning? Was it all a dream? In the world of Christopher Nolan's four-time Academy Award-winning movie, people can share one another's dreams and alter their beliefs and thoughts. Inception is a metaphysical heist film that raises more questions than it answers: Can we know what is real? Can you be held morally responsible for what you do in dreams? What is the nature of dreams, and what do they tell us about the boundaries of "self" and "other"? From Plato to Aristotle and from Descartes to Hume, Inception and Philosophy draws from important philosophical minds to shed new light on the movie's captivating themes, including the one that everyone talks about: did the top fall down (and does it even matter)? Explores the movie's key questions and themes, including how we can tell if we're dreaming or awake, how to make sense of a paradox, and whether or not inception is possible Gives new insights into the nature of free will, time, dreams, and the unconscious mind Discusses different interpretations of the film, and whether or not philosophy can help shed light on which is the "right one" Deepens your understanding of the movie's multi-layered plot and dream-infiltrating characters, including Dom Cobb, Arthur, Mal, Ariadne, Eames, Saito, and Yusuf An essential companion for every dedicated Inception fan, this book will enrich your experience of the Inception universe and its complex dreamscape.

David Kyle Johnson, William Irwin (Author), Charles Carroll, Christine Williams, Paul Heitsch, Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

The First Stone

From the award-winning author of We, the Drowned comes a brutal, unflinching, and bestselling epic novel of a platoon of soldiers descending into the insanity of the war in Afghanistan. Dispatched to fight the Taliban as part of the NATO forces, the soldiers of the Third Platoon arrive in a desert hell intent on testing their courage and endurance. Among them are the charismatic platoon leader Schrøder, a former games designer fascinated by the imaginative potential of war; Colonel Steffensen, whose negotiating tactics will have deadly consequences; Sidekick, the LifeLogger whose online “war memorial” will blur into horror; and the hardened but vulnerable Hannah, who must bury her womanhood—or sacrifice her soul. Confronted by a betrayal that no military training could prepare them for, the soldiers must embark on a desperate mission to track down an enemy whose methods are as murderous as they are unfathomable. As the hunters become the hunted, the mission turns into a depraved, hallucinatory voyage into an Afghanistan they never knew existed. With the Third Platoon’s most fundamental notions of good and evil called into question, survival becomes their only mission. An explicitly brutal portrait of battle told with the propulsion of a harrowing psychological thriller, The First Stone is a stunning and epic depiction of comradeship, humanity, and the bestial realities of a conflict without end.

Carsten Jensen (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Marvel's Phase One Box Set: Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger; Marvel's The Incredible Hul

Relive the excitement of Captain America: The First Avenger! Steve Rogers was once just a scrawny kid. But after a top-secret government experiment, he became Captain America. Join the action when this Super Hero protects the free world against the Red Skull and Hydra in this complete origin story as told in Marvel's Avengers Phase One: Captain America: The First Avenger. Relive the excitement of The Incredible Hulk! Bruce Banner was once just a shy scientist. But after a devastating lab accident, he became The Incredible Hulk. Join the action as this Super Hero fights against Abomination in his complete origin story as told in Marvel's Avengers Phase One: The Incredible Hulk. Relive the excitement of Marvel's Thor! Once just a powerful and arrogant royal from another realm, Thor became one of Earth's finest defenders. Join the action as this Super Hero battles for mankind in this complete origin story as told in Marvel's Avengers Phase One: Thor.

Marvel Press (Author), Jim Meskimen, Ray Chase, Tom Taylorson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Marvel's Phase One Box Set: Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger; Marvel's The Incredible Hul

Marvel Press (Author), Jim Meskimen, Ray Chase, Tom Taylorson (Narrator)

Audiobook

A History of Video Games in 64 Objects

Inspired by the groundbreaking A History of the World in 100 Objects, this book draws on the unique collections of The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, to chronicle the evolution of video games, from Pong to first-person shooters, told through the stories of dozens of objects essential to the field's creation and development. Drawing on the World Video Game Hall of Fame's unmatched collection of video game artifacts, this fascinating history offers an expansive look at the development of one of the most popular and influential activities of the modern world: video gaming. Sixty-four unique objects tell the story of the video game from inception to today. Pithy, in-depth essays examine each object's significance to video game play-what it has contributed to the history of gaming-as well as the greater culture. A History of Video Games in 64 Objects explains how the video game has transformed over time. Inside, you'll find a wide range of intriguing topics, including:The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons-the ancestor of computer role-playing gamesThe Oregon Trail and the development of educational gamingThe Atari 2600 and the beginning of the console revolutionA World of Warcraft server blade and massively multiplayer online gamesMinecraft-the backlash against the studio systemThe rise of women in gaming represented by pioneering American video game designers Carol Shaw and Roberta Williams' game development materialsThe prototype Skylanders Portal of Power that spawned the Toys-to-Life video game phenomenon and shook up the marketplaceAnd so much more! A panorama of unforgettable anecdotes and factoids, A History of Video Games in 64 Objects is a treasure trove for gamers and pop culture fans. Let the gaming begin!

World Video Game Hall of Fame (Author), Ray Chase (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Ray Chase