Think of it this way, someone had to be best. It's like saying a book is obviously best because it's been handed down for generations, or a song is great becau

Think of it this way, someone had to be best. It's like saying a book is obviously best because it's been handed down for generations, or a song is great because everyone knows it. There will always be a best selling version of something, and you may not need anything special about it other than a coincidence of luck, skill, and inspiration, of which only luck accelerates the first success so that the subsequent ones have the opportunity to succeed. In this respect, the ancillary factors are always quite boring because they don't influence the making of great games - they don't slow anything down. Others may have had a sick day at the wrong time or a hopeless addiction to reading the paper in the morning, or mild depression, or a vibrant social life that distracted them, or something equally mundane. If the book avoids personal details, it's probably because they weren't differential factors, and we'll never know about the second or third best version of him because games (and life) are not a double blind process. Success breeds opportunities.