CliffyB's Fall

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Polygon has an extensive and very interesting read on CliffyB's rise to stardom and fame, and his subsequent crash into a scorching dumpster fire. If you are not familiar with Law Breakers, his last foray into making a Triple A title, that came up short, give it a watch. It had true potential, but did not ring true with gamers. It seems as though he is not happy with Polygon's take on it.


Bleszinski has spent the last few days sending out tweets, hardly the act of a man who wants to retire from publicity. Some are wistful revelations of games he wanted to make. Others are angry denunciations of his treatment in the media. At least for now, it looks like Bleszinski isn’t quite ready to exit the stage.
 
I bet LB could have done well if it went F2P. It seems like a big waste to just walk away from the game.
 
He reminds me of a former boss I had.

I hated everything about that man. Every fiber of his being was an overwhelming annoyance. His very presence was enough to make my eyelid twitch. I even hated the way he pushed buttons on the vending machines in the break room because even that was aggravating to witness. If you could take the sound of nails on a chalkboard, knives on a dinner plate, and Jim Carey's most annoying sound in the world from Dumb and Dumber, and put all of that into an overpriced dress shirt and slacks, this man was that very thing made manifest.

CliffyB is possibly related in my opinion.
 
CliffyB probably should have concentrated more on making games than being a douche celebrity. As far as Lawbreakers, honestly, I’ve never heard or seen much about it. Maybe that’s why it never had many players.
 
Some interesting other game ideas on his twitter thread. The dragon samurai one sounded interesting, and the VR toobin' thing could have been cool. Giant mech games are always welcome, I and like the team based aspect of it (not sold on VR tho). Who knows, maybe some other studio will see value in something "different". He needs to get away from shooter games like Lawbreakers and Bulletstorm, Gears, etc, and do something totally different. All 3 of those would qualify.

Honestly, I would play that dragon game.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/05/16/cliff-bleszinski-shows-three-games-that-could-have-been/
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
He reminds me of a former boss I had.

I hated everything about that man. Every fiber of his being was an overwhelming annoyance. His very presence was enough to make my eyelid twitch. I even hated the way he pushed buttons on the vending machines in the break room because even that was aggravating to witness. If you could take the sound of nails on a chalkboard, knives on a dinner plate, and Jim Carey's most annoying sound in the world from Dumb and Dumber, and put all of that into an overpriced dress shirt and slacks, this man was that very thing made manifest.

CliffyB is possibly related in my opinion.
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You really described him well.
 
I think it was because he basically pulled a John Romero and let his ego sabotage any chance of success.

Also the fact that he decided he could do an overwatch style game better than Blizzard when interests were trending toward battle Royale, then not realizing he wasn't going to be able to compete with Fortnite or PUBG at battle Royale.


Sometimes you gotta strike when the iron is hot and sometimes you have to Forge your own path.


I bet he would have been really successful making a borderlands style coop loot shooter instead. There's a genre that's underdeveloped.
 
Krenum said:
Hopefully he'll come to his senses and save the current state of UT. It's pretty bad.
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What input did he have when improved on what was a very solid base with UT2004. Delaying initial spawns of armors was a great idea and works imo
 
He should have stayed at Epic and continued making games together with them rather than branch out in his own. That bridge most likely has been burned now so he probably should take some time off and then come back and make games for phones as a start and then move back into consoles. The problem for him though is he’s not a programmer so he’d need a solid partner that can program to help kickstart anything he wants to do.
 
Chaos Machine said:
I think it was because he basically pulled a John Romero and let his ego sabotage any chance of success.
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Hey now, let's not be cruel. CliffyB has actually produced some decent, FUNCTIONAL games. All Romero produced was *cough* Daikatana *cough* and some random mobile games.

Lawbreakers wasn't terrible, it just wasn't exceptional. Same for Bulletstorm. Now, how much was his level of coding involvement in either? Who knows.

Now if we're just gauging 'tude level, maybe they are in the same building. But the game industry has no shortage of attitude or ego. Just the way some of these guys roll.
 
Travolta said:
CliffyB probably should have concentrated more on making games than being a douche celebrity. As far as Lawbreakers, honestly, I’ve never heard or seen much about it. Maybe that’s why it never had many players.
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Nah, at this point it is enough to have his attitude attached to a project to drive players away. It would be in his best interest to not even reveal that he has worked on a game if hopes to make it successful.
 
You can't possibly make every game a hit. You take a risk and sometimes you fail. (Trying to make a competitive arena shooter that still has to compete with the likes of OW,CS,and other stuff. A tough market to crack. )
So what. Leave the guy be, he should just stop posting. Take time off,decide what to do next.
 
I have never even heard of the guy before this thread. But then again, I don't know anyone else who works in game development either. I know of several different gaming studios, just not any one who works at them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At least I have heard of most of the games he worked on.
 
I only remember the guy from when he guested on Something Awful way back when.
 
OW getting big around the same time also helped nail the game to the grave. LB had potential but it was a clusterfuck to play. Telling allies and enemy apart was a pain due to the overall move speed and failure to distinguish easily.
 
I wonder how many people were turned off lawbreakers right away just by his involvement. The PC gaming crowd doesn't have a lot of love for Cliffy.
 
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