Darrell Huff spent most of his life as a journalist and writer, yet he gained worldwide fame as an expert in statistics. This recognition came thanks to his most successful book, How to Lie with Statistics, written back in 1954 but still relevant to this day. At least, publishers continue to successfully reprint it time and again.
The entire tone of the book can be summarized with its very first epigraph, which quotes Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
No, the author does not try to portray statistics as a terrible or useless science. Instead, in a light and ironic manner, he explains what many people perceive as infernal mathematical gibberish. He also demonstrates how numbers can be used to manipulate opinions and the perception of information.
The discovery of the past few months for me is the book This Button Needs Text by Kiril Egerev. It likely would have gone unnoticed if Alexey Arefyev hadn’t recommended it in his Telegram channel about product management.
Kiril Egerev is a seasoned copywriter who has worked in many online publications, both as an author and as an editor. Recently, he has been working as a UX writer at Russia’s Sberbank. For those unfamiliar with professional terminology, let me clarify: a “copywriter” is someone who professionally writes various types of non-fictional texts. These can include advertising copy, descriptions, official letters, and so on. UX stands for “User eXperience,” which essentially refers to how users interact with your product and what emotions they experience during this interaction. A UX writer (or UX copywriter) is a specialist focused on creating product texts. Here’s a direct quote from the book:
“UX writers are typically the ones who write clear and non-annoying texts for error messages, buttons, switches, and all other interface elements. They help develop the product’s voice, compile style guides, ensure consistency and adherence to typography requirements, and often handle user emails as well.”
In his book, Kiril aims to explain “briefly and clearly” what his work entails and why it is essential for any product, countering the common misconception of “who cares what we call the buttons; everyone will understand anyway.” In IT, there is also a role known as UX specialist (often called a “UXer”). In practice, the line between a UX specialist and a UX writer is very blurred. It’s generally accepted that the former focuses more on the overall interface and interaction (proper arrangement of elements, creating an intuitive design), while the latter specifically handles interface texts. However, in reality, one doesn’t exist without the other. As a result, the tasks often fall to either a team of two specialists with narrower roles or a single person who does it all.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Alexey Savchenko’s book Game as Business, which provides an excellent description of the gaming industry from the perspective of production and working with publishers. However, it says almost nothing about what comes next. Especially if your game is designed to last for years: how to work with users, how to study their behavior, and, ultimately, how to make millions.
That’s why Vasiliy Sabirov’s book Game by Numbers, which was also published last year, serves as a perfect complement. Its subtitle, How Analytics Helps Video Games Thrive, speaks volumes.
But first, a bit about the author. Vasiliy Sabirov is an analyst with extensive experience. Over the course of his career, he worked as an analyst and head of the payment solutions department at Xsolla (one of the largest players in the gaming payment market), as a lead analyst at the gaming company Alternativa Games, and then moved on to the emerging devtodev (now the largest gaming analytics service in the Russian-speaking game development sector). At devtodev, he worked as head of the analytics department and also served as an evangelist for both the service itself and its educational platform, where he released a course, including one on gaming analytics. In 2020, he made a major life change, transitioning (and relocating) to work as a lead analyst at the gaming company Easybrain (also one of the major players in the mobile gaming market). In other words, Vasiliy knows what analytics is and how it works. I would even say that if you’re talking about game analytics in Russian-speaking companies, Vasiliy Sabirov is the first name that comes to mind.
Now about the book and game analytics. If people around you are throwing around strange terms like MAU, LTV, ARPPU, and others, and you find yourself staring blankly, it’s time to read this book. Because behind these intimidating acronyms lie concepts that aren’t all that complicated. Learning how to work with this data properly, however, is the next step. But let’s take it one step at a time.
When I wrote about Alexey Krivitsky’s book Agile Retrospective Kickstarter a month ago, I mentioned that much of his work is based on the work of Esther Derby and Diana Larsen (as he openly acknowledges in his book). At that time, I also promised to write separately about the book by these women facilitators. So here I am, fulfilling that promise.
I read the book in English, although in 2017, it was also published in Russian by Dmitry Lazarev Publishing under the title “Agile Retrospectives: Turning Good Teams into Great Teams.”
Why do teams need retrospectives? I’ve already written about this in detail elsewhere, but here’s a brief reminder: retrospectives help teams learn from their mistakes and grow. Without them, no Agile methodology can operate at full capacity.
Esther and Diana explain how to make such meetings as productive as possible, drawing from their many years of experience and unique insights. It is in this book that they propose the five-stage format for retrospective meetings, which Alexey Krivitsky actively adopts and promotes in his own book.
Alexey Savchenko is a name well-known in the Russian gaming community, and not just there. For some time, he officially held the position of Evangelist for the Unreal game engine, and even now, many still refer to Alexey by that title. Open in communication, always ready to help—a remarkable colleague. When he announced that he was planning to release a book about the gaming business, I had no doubt that it would be worth purchasing and reading.
Although Alexey is now primarily involved in working with business partners, he has had a long journey and knows game development from many different angles, including as the owner of his own studio. In his book Game as a Business, he set out to describe all aspects of the gaming industry and project development—”from dream to release,” as the subtitle states.
Alexey structured the book along this very path, beginning with “I have a dream… I want to make games.” From there, he meticulously yet accessibly explains what awaits an aspiring game developer on the road to creating their dream game and, ideally, achieving fame and fortune.
It is evident that the author has a deep understanding of the subject, and the book is both accessible to industry newcomers and engaging for professionals. Despite my many years in the gaming industry, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
One of the most valuable aspects is how Alexey begins his advice by helping newcomers understand what lies behind their dream. Does the aspiring developer truly want to create their own game? Are they ready for the challenges this path entails? This guide is specifically for people who have decided to start their own business and are willing to risk their time, money, family relationships, and ambitions. Because if all you want is to make games, then joining an established studio is also an excellent path to consider.
Lately, I have been actively rereading various books and articles about Agile, and sometimes even exploring new material. In my opinion, Agile methodologies offer a lot of valuable practices, but one of the most useful ones is retrospectives—meetings where the team can look back, reflect on what has been done, analyze their experiences, and choose a few experiments to improve how things are done.
When people implement different Agile methodologies, they often forget that flexibility is not just about introducing daily stand-ups and breaking tasks into short sprints. It is fundamentally about learning from experience, adapting, and evolving. Without retrospectives, this does not work. That is precisely why retrospectives are so important. However, even these meetings can either be conducted properly and effectively or simply for the sake of formality (“because it is required”). For this reason, retrospectives are sometimes the subject of not only individual articles but even entire books.
Agile Retrospectives Kickstarter is one such book. Although it was written by a Russian-speaking author, Alexey Krivitsky, it was originally written in English, with the Russian version created later with the help of his colleagues.
The book itself is relatively short, just over 50 pages. The author, a practicing Agile coach, shares his experience in conducting retrospectives. However, he does not do this by providing an extensive set of examples or academic knowledge. Instead, he has compiled experiences from many sources into a highly condensed “retrospective cheat sheet,” offering a collection of possible exercises for conducting effective retrospective meetings. Alexey candidly admits from the outset that he did not invent any of these exercises (or at least does not remember inventing any) and even borrowed the methodology for breaking a meeting into several stages from other coaches. His contribution was to compile all of this into one relatively short guide that can be kept handy and used whenever preparing for a retrospective.
Today, I would like not just to make a post but to invite a discussion on the topic of book adaptations. However, I will focus only on the adaptations of one specific series: The Adventures of Erast Fandorin by Boris Akunin.
Boris Akunin is one of my favorite authors. I have not read all of his works, nor do I enjoy all of them equally. However, the Erast Fandorin series is, in my humble opinion, the best he has written. Today, I will not discuss which novels I like more or less. Instead, I will share my thoughts on the three existing adaptations.
It all began with the film (and later mini-series) Azazel, an adaptation of the very first novel in the series. In fact, I watched the film before I started reading Akunin’s books. At the time, everyone around me was talking about this new and trendy writer, Boris Akunin, and I dislike following trends just because they are popular. But I really enjoyed the film, and almost immediately after watching it, I read the book and became completely immersed in the series, devouring one novel after another.
The series currently consists of 15 books, plus an additional one about Masa, a Japanese servant and partner of Erast Fandorin. Adaptations have been made of the first novel (Azazel, or The Winter Queen in English translation), the second (Turkish Gambit), and, somewhat surprisingly, the sixth (The State Counsellor).
Sometimes even I fall for advertising, especially when it’s promoted in a reputable community. A few weeks ago, I came across an invitation to a free webinar on strategic sessions in a remote setting. It’s clear that the topic of remote work is being exploited by just about everyone these days, but I’m genuinely interested in the subject of strategic planning in general (and this is a good moment to remind everyone of the excellent book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt). At the same time, I’ve spent many years building workflows with remote teams. So, this webinar touched on two areas of interest for me.
The webinar was hosted by Constantine Koptelov, someone I hadn’t heard of before. However, the hour-long presentation flew by almost unnoticed. I took several notes during the session and became so intrigued by the topic that I immediately purchased Constantine’s book, Order in Chaos: Objective and Key Results (OKR), which I’ll tell you about today.
Once, Roman Papsuev, also known online by the nickname Amok, began drawing characters from Russian fairy tales in the style they might be depicted for computer games, purely for fun. He shared his first sketches online for everyone to see. These illustrations quickly went viral, with articles about them even appearing on international platforms. That’s when Roman decided to take on the project more professionally, giving rise to the world of Old Rus’.
His illustrations continued to gain immense popularity, and the release of an artbook was only natural. In 2018, I bought and eagerly flipped through (calling it “read” doesn’t quite fit) the book Tales of Old Rus’. The Beginning. It was a classic artbook — lots of illustrations with minimal text, but all beautifully executed.
Later, Roman released a second book, titled almost the same: Tales of Old Rus’. The Origins. Based on the description, it was essentially the same book, but this time the author added significantly more text: he started describing the characters, explaining why they were depicted the way they were, and so on. The illustrations, however, were mostly the same. So I thought, why would I want to go through the same thing again? Still, I bought the book, if only to support the author.
Not long ago, on the last day of 2020, I wrote a review of the book Kanban and Scrum — Making the Most of Both, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in implementing Agile methodologies. However, this book was not the first by the author, Henrik Kniberg. His first book, published in 2007, also drew on his personal experience with agile methodologies and was titled Scrum and XP from the Trenches. Kniberg himself admits that he wrote this relatively short book over a single weekend, when he felt a strong urge to share his experiences with others.
This time, I won’t delve into the specifics of agile methodologies or why I’m singling out Kniberg’s books in particular, as I covered that in my previous review. Instead, I’ll briefly describe the book itself.
It’s also a very concise account of how he and his teams implemented various practices from Scrum and Extreme Programming in their work, with concrete examples and specific descriptions of the pros and cons. He’s not afraid to admit mistakes and point out what can go wrong. This is quite normal for agile methodologies, where much is governed by the motto “experiment and see what works best for your specific team.” The key is to frequently evaluate what’s been done (unlike older methodologies, where you might work for a year only to realize that you’ve been doing it wrong all along).
