Cliff Bleszinski: "I'll Never Make Another Disc-Based Game"

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I've never played anything he had ever had a hand in. My life's intersection with his had purely been his jibber jabber on sites like this about stuff unrelated to any ACTUAL work in progress.

The tag line for these pieces should be "hey its that guy that made a few games like 3-5 years ago that no one you know ever played, who likes to bust out his sage wisdom on the industry he has barely been a part of compared to people that have been at it for longer than he has been alive. Take a moment to hear about what he is (not) doing next, because...reasons."

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm sorry, who are you again? Gears of wha- Oh, I see. You made some games and stuff. Right, well... You're an authority on things how? Can I see some credentials? Some recent work that shows that you're on the hub of anything? No? Well then, stuff it, Cliffy. You're just an internet personality, and that's not saying much.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Wonder if Brosinski actually holds up to this one.

The guy is good at sensing which way the wind is blowing.

After the wind has already blown.

true. more responsive than some parts of the industry though

 

[RicoADF]

I like to actually hold and have an actual copy of the game to admire. I'm also a bit nervous about having everything I buy being a part of some amorphous digital-distribution cloud.

Fuck me, right?

I'm not entirely opposed to digital copies, I have several in fact. Sometimes, it's a lot more convenient for someone in my position who doesn't have many retail shops in his area. But, considering the fact that a lot of publishers still have the balls to charge the same price for the digital copy as they would the physical, as well as a lot of rigs just not being able to handle it, it just doesn't always seem worth it. Am I really so old fashioned because I want to hold my game, as well? Really?

Also, just so I'm clear on this Mr.Bleszinski, are you trying to say that the console/retail market, the one that netted 'Grand Theft Auto V' a billion dollars in three days... is irrelevant? Because, that's the impression I'm getting.

Nope I agree with you, I only get games at full price if I get a hard copy (usually a collectors edition), otherwise I wait for a steam sale. I won't pay more than $10 for a digital copy, it's too risky, there's no value in them at all and at the end of the day I have nothing to show for it other than data on my HDD. So I pay accordingly ($10 or less, $20 for a few special exemptions)

 

[Sniper Team 4]

But...I like my disc based games... :-(
Guess I won't be buying any games from him or his company then for a while. Maybe if something is truly--oh, wait. PC only. Nope, never buying anything from him. I don't play on PC. I like my consoles.

 

[A-D.]

Didn't he only a few years ago say all PC gamers were pirates, and that everyone was a crybaby when bulletstorm had no PC demo?

I think he also said he didn't want to develop on PC cause consoles sold more (in relation to gears), which is why 2 and 3 weren't on PC?

What a ****.

edit: yeah, I wasn't dreaming it
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/30/epic-no-gears-of-war-2-pc/1

The PC space was terrible then, and if it continued downward we would not have CB, let alone any developer releasing titles on PC. Every tom dick and harry was getting out of that space, it was not a fun time as a gamer. Luckily Steam continued to grow, GoG emerged, and studios like Sega, Blizzard, CDPR, and Capcom continued to release titles. Not to mention Youtube personalities LP'ing and reviewing PC titles as well as Minecraft taking off and turning many a young gamers into PC gamers.

Are we living in the same present? Im not being sarcastic, i genuinely am curious as to whether your experiences of the not-to-distant past are different from mine. The "PC space" as you call it has not changed, not one single bit. This is evident to anyone who has played any games on the PC platform in the last 10 years. GOG emerged quite a while ago, Steam has been a thing since 2004, his comments and opinions on PC as a platform? They are very much recent, which is the same for basicly everyone else. Alot of people were claiming that "Consoles are the future" and "The PC is dead", it isnt, it never was and never will be, most obvious proof? PS4 and Xbox One. The only true console left on the market right now, handhelds excluded, is the Wii U.

Yeah you read that right, Sony and Microsoft basicly made pre-built, cheap mass-produced PCs. Sure you still have the controller as the main input device but thats really it. In terms of software there was not really such a huge difference even during the last generation, granted its not Windows, or Linux as we know it, but there was a rather famous case of someone putting Linux on the PS3 and getting sued which led to a rather long blackout of Sony's online services, its not that long ago. And now the Hardware meets the same standard that has been the norm with PCs for several years and by that i mean the architecture, hell the Xbox One runs on Windows 8. The reason developers and publishers abandoned the PC platform was because of the misguided idea that consoles had become the next big thing, as we know now, they arent, they just are gaming platforms. And thats not even going into issues like second hand and piracy which he as well claimed to be a problem having not changed at all.

So no, the "PC space" hasnt changed, what has changed is his opinion because he now sees profit to be made in a market he has previously ignored, if not actively shunned.

 

[Something Amyss]

true. more responsive than some parts of the industry though

Can't argue with that. The gaming industry really sucks at the whole change thing.

 

[sXeth]

Hey, its more old devs whining from their armchairs in the retirement homes. Although unlike Molyneux, or Garriott, or whoever else, he doesn't seem to be actually doing much of anything to address any of his concerns(?, comments? random tangents?).

So you won't make a disc based game again. Okay? Is this supposed to differ you from all the other B-tier (in size/budget) devs and indie guys out there running on Steam/XBLA/PSN/whatever. This isn't a groundbreaking stratagem being proposed or anything, its already a decently large chunk of the gaming sphere.

Topping it off, he doesn't seem to have anything to actually sell, on disc or not. He's telling his customers (I guess thats who this random sputtering is aimed at?) what color bag the magic beans come in before he's even sold them on the beans.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Fair is fair, and CliffyB has made some big contributions to the game industry - bigger than most. But in predicting the future and trying to find his place in it, I think he's in basically the same boat as the rest of us: flailing about as he tries to figure out what's going on. Maybe he'll never make a disc-based game again, but maybe he will, especially if he comes up with a hit and Take-Two or EA shows up with the money truck.

I don't think conventional retail is dead. Lots of people, myself included, use it as their primary method of acquiring games. It's easy to have an "all hail digital" attitude when you live and work in an area with unlimited, super-fast broadband access, but when you don't - and believe it or not, lots of us fall into that category - it's a different situation. And as others have said, I like "owning" my games. I like boxes and manuals and quick reference cards and all that bullshit, and it infuriates me that I so often have to buy special editions to get that stuff these days, but I do it because it's an important part of the experience. A game that doesn't get a retail release is a game that I'm far less likely to buy.

He does make some interesting points, but I don't happen to agree with them - and more to the point, I hope he's wrong. A digital future is not my future.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Off topic; wasn't he part of the "used games are killing the industry" crowd

Kinda. Read the whole article at his blog. It's very well written and has a lot of great points.

The thing is, Cliffy can be a jerk but he knows what he's doing. I like to think of him as the House of the gaming industry.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

He's worded that one carefully. If his PC ventures fail then at least he can fall back on making games for the 3DS! Gears of Mario 3D here we come.

Like anyone's gonna be making disc based games for any console in a year or two...

 

[Strazdas]

Hmm, so apperently Cliff Bleszinski has actually gotten some intelligence in that head of his and not just antipiracy propaganda. Despite how much you dont want to admit it, he is right, this is where gaming is going.

I'm glad he thinks everyone lives in a place without download caps and horrible speeds.

I'm lucky, I've got moderate high speed internet.
-Averages around 500-900kb/s.

Some of my friends don't even get 100kb/s.
There's NO WAY they're going to be able to deal with a 15GB download or whatever.

C.B. is nuts.

Everyone that cares about modern videogames affords to. The only reason you and your friends dont have decent speeds and have donwload caps is because your ISP is abusing you, likely because they are monopolistic assholes. There is an easy solution - force your ISP to provide decent service. Of course, for that you need to work united across all its users, so its not that easy in the end since humans fail to cooperate.

Also, even back in 2000, you know, back when 100KB/s internet was normal, i downloaded files even 8 GB in size (back then we had 100 GB per month limit, but limits been lifted since 2008). It took longer, granted, but thats about all the trouble it was.

The PC space was terrible then, and if it continued downward we would not have CB, let alone any developer releasing titles on PC. Every tom dick and harry was getting out of that space, it was not a fun time as a gamer. Luckily Steam continued to grow, GoG emerged, and studios like Sega, Blizzard, CDPR, and Capcom continued to release titles. Not to mention Youtube personalities LP'ing and reviewing PC titles as well as Minecraft taking off and turning many a young gamers into PC gamers.

PC space was never terrible. It is a myth perpetrated by idiots who spout things like "Only PC gamers pirate" and other such nonesense. A lot of attentino was paid to consoles back then since they still offered competetive hardware (was the last time they did actually) and unlike PC gamers, console gamers accepted to bend over and be raped with things like Xbox Gold.

I get the facebooks generation is all hyped about nonsense like this but I remember all this happening before, and it never ends with good results.

You remmeber digital distribution being done before? Do tell us how it ended.

How is this guy in any way relevant to game industry at the moment, sure he made Gears of War and popularized chest high walls but anything else aside from that and antagonizing a lot of people?

His last game was only 2 years ago. You dont become irrelevant in only 2 years you know.
He is also responsible for creating unreal engine. you know, the engine that over a hundred games were developed for (and a big profile ones you know) and that is STILL being used to develop tens of games every year. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games]

I've never played anything he had ever had a hand in. My life's intersection with his had purely been his jibber jabber on sites like this about stuff unrelated to any ACTUAL work in progress.

well, then i guess you missed a lot of games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games]

You know, games like Mass effect, Bioshock, spec ops, Xcom and many other titles.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Does this guy ever have anything useful to say? All I read was "because being pretentious means never having to actually say so." Seriously, why should the industry care what a guy who's not even making anything right now says he has planned for his future.

 

[putowtin]

It's not just Cliff but the whole "disks are bad, download good" crowd really p1ss me off!

Seriously folks, we don't all live in an area that gets great, superfast internet.
Some of us live in areas where you can only connect to the internet a certain times!

Captchas: Miles To Go.... your damn right captcha, your damn right!

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

It's not just Cliff but the whole "disks are bad, download good" crowd really p1ss me off!

Seriously folks, we don't all live in an area that gets great, superfast internet.
Some of us live in areas where you can only connect to the internet a certain times!

Captchas: Miles To Go.... your damn right captcha, your damn right!

I don't think anyone argues that discs are bad, I don't see why anyone who can use digital distribution would even care if discs were available or not.
Developers and publishers are pushing digital distribution because retailers are being a cancer on the industry and go to extreme lenghts to block new sales and make the money for themselves. Which is possible only with discs.
Digital distribution is simply the best way to ensure game sales.

There comes a point where sales lost due to a part of the consumer base not embracing/being able to embrace digital distribution will be less than sales lost by used games market and retailer scumming. And when that point comes no one will bother making physical copies anymore.

 

[Ephidel]

I like the general distaste towards Cliffy B's ramblings. Makes me feel like there's hope behind the BS advertising facade that "the industry" holds.

As a general rule, I treat the whole PR image of ANALysts, "industry experts" and either "triple A" gaming or the currently trending indie scene, with that greatest degree of cynicism and skepticism. "The industry" may have a vastly wider audience and demographic, coupled with a multi-billion dollar revenue stream, but when it comes right down to it, your "core" consumers are your bedrock, and they'll be the hardest to fool or "sweet talk" when they've already been burned.

What I'm trying to say is, this superficial posturing means nothing. All it currently represents is a metaphorical fart in a hurricane. Actions speak louder than words, and going off Cliffy B's actions (and the actions of "the industry" at large), no-one on the core consumer side is (or should be) taken in by anything said by Cliffy B or anyone like him.

Sure, I'm jaded and cynical, but that's justified when all we get is a smoke and mirror light show up front, and a Mr Burns "nickel and dime" system fused and implanted throughout our experience behind the scenes. My distrust for "the industry", and (unfortunately) all of those in it, is at an all time high, and thankfully, The Escapist seems like the only sane port in this asylum.

So, no matter what, who or why "experts" are waxing lyrical about their thoughts on "the industry", I'll be taking nothing at face value. Cliffy B helped to peddle his wares by talking them up, and that trend for "celebrity developers" has me worried about just how much of what is deemed as "a good game" is actual gamer tested, "word of mouth" feedback, and how much is just the mesmerizing showmanship of the spectacle.

 

[Crimsonmonkeywar]

So no, the "PC space" hasnt changed, what has changed is his opinion because he now sees profit to be made in a market he has previously ignored, if not actively shunned.

Really? Scinse the realease of Gear of War 2, 6 years ago

Steam went from 13m accounts and a little over 1m concurrent users to 75m accounts and over 7m concurrent users

PC gaming revenue went from a plummeted 701.4m to over 20b

GOG launched in 2008 and GMG in 2010

Price to performance on hardware is moving at a faster rate than development allowing the PC to outpace the console space at a much faster rate.

All dedicated gaming platforms are now X86 based

The iPad released in 2010 eliminating the need for regular PC usage.

EA released Origin and Ubisoft Uplay

Big picture mode is a popular steam function as well as the idea a of PC media center[/quote]

PC space was never terrible. It is a myth perpetrated by idiots who spout things like "Only PC gamers pirate" and other such nonesense. A lot of attentino was paid to consoles back then since they still offered competetive hardware (was the last time they did actually) and unlike PC gamers, console gamers accepted to bend over and be raped with things like Xbox Gold.

Numbers don't lie, revenue, PC gamers to Console ratio, and number of released titles beg you differ.


My point being, to act as though PC gaming has always remained on top in delusional. It was ahead of the herd before but now with everything set in place(Bandwidth, hardware cost, User base, unified storefront, quality support and Youtube) it's looking to decimate. Developers who were once PC gaming only are coming back to a vastly different market than before. You can stay bitter but I for one am glad to see Ken Levine, Peter Molynuex, Cliff Bleszninki and other powerhouse minds coming back into the fold. Heck, Japaneses developers are now starting to find a market and cheap development cost on the PC that they don't have on consoles.

 

[A-D.]

So no, the "PC space" hasnt changed, what has changed is his opinion because he now sees profit to be made in a market he has previously ignored, if not actively shunned.

Really? Scinse the realease of Gear of War 2, 6 years ago

Steam went from 13m accounts and a little over 1m concurrent users to 75m accounts and over 7m concurrent users

PC gaming revenue went from a plummeted 701.4m to over 20b

GOG launched in 2008 and GMG in 2010

Price to performance on hardware is moving at a faster rate than development allowing the PC to outpace the console space at a much faster rate.

All dedicated gaming platforms are now X86 based

The iPad released in 2010 eliminating the need for regular PC usage.

EA released Origin and Ubisoft Uplay

Big picture mode is a popular steam function as well as the idea a of PC media center

Alright im going through these point by point.

1: The Number of accounts is largely irrelevant, just because there are now more accounts than in the past does not imply anything. Its like saying consoles became the main market because the Xbox 360 sold more units than the original Xbox. Many games have adopted Steamworks, which is essentially DRM and ties games to steam, some need steam running, some do not. Basicly if you bought skyrim, you have a steam account, but whether you use it regularly, or have any other games on steam is another matter altogether. It is therefore valid to assume that all those users who have a steam account now just didnt have one before, that does not imply they werent playing primarily, or exclusively, pc games.

2: Thats the Industry for you. When all the big publishers think that the money is only on consoles, then yes, the marketshare of the PC will drop because nobody makes games for it anymore. Couple that with stupid opinions such as Ubisoft not too long ago who actually argued that the PC as a platform is only used by pirates, where as all legal consumers only use a console, which is basicly bullshit.

3: Again largely irrelevant. GOG used to be about "Good Old Games", hence the name. They have since changed their business model to also include more recent releases when available, but the first idea was to re-release old games which are basicly not supported anymore, either by a publisher or even a OS. These games by and large predate most consoles, except Nintendo which was already in the market back in the day.

4: How is that relevant? This has been the case for years, in fact this has been utterly normal for over 20 years now. In 1995 i got my first PC, a Pentium S with, if memory serves, 80 MHz and 8 MB RAM. Hell i even had a 2gb Harddrive couple years after, back then that was modern. Then came Pentium 1, 2..the list goes on. Even when the PS2 was new, the PC was the more powerful platform, hell even when the original Playstation came out in 1997, the PC was the faster, more powerful platform.

5: Nope, not all of them. Unless Nintendo also uses it but i dont have any sources for this. Also the XBox One is not a dedicated gaming platform, its a media-center, its not exactly the same thing. A PC isnt a dedicated gaming platform just because you can play games on it either after all. However you prove my point that by changing to similar architecture, which i also pointed out, consoles are now PCs, pre-built and made for the living room, they are no longer consoles.

6: Entirely irrelevant to the PC market. Thats like saying the Laptop eliminated the need for a regular Desktop machine. Plus the iPad can not do everything that a PC can do, or rather being a competiting product from Apple, it probably doesnt run stuff like Excel, nor is it made for this purpose. The iPad wasnt designed to be a pocket-PC so to speak.

7: First, thats a DRM method and second, they wanted a cut of the pie. Its the same reasoning as to why Steam has more users now, being forced into the service does not imply that the market has changed in any way. Example, Mass Effect 1 does not require Origin, nor does it install Origin or need a activation code for Origin. Mass Effect 3 on the other hand you can not play unless you install Origin and register with the service. Additionally most accounts Origin has are not active, EA simply moved all accounts from its subsidiaries to Origin, such as Maxis and Bioware Accounts, thats how i got a Origin Account even though i never used and never will use this service.

8: Irrelevant honestly, the PC as a media center is not a new idea. It could already be connected to a TV before hand, in fact i distinctly recall friends having done so in 2003 and after, long before Big Picture was a thing. Additionally the PC could always play videos, music and play games, even the Controller for PC is not a new design and has been standard for many years. What is different is that it is much easier now to do so, see HDMI and so forth, but that is not inherently a change in the PC space at all.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Hmm, so apperently Cliff Bleszinski has actually gotten some intelligence in that head of his and not just antipiracy propaganda. Despite how much you dont want to admit it, he is right, this is where gaming is going.

I'm glad he thinks everyone lives in a place without download caps and horrible speeds.

I'm lucky, I've got moderate high speed internet.
-Averages around 500-900kb/s.

Some of my friends don't even get 100kb/s.
There's NO WAY they're going to be able to deal with a 15GB download or whatever.

C.B. is nuts.

Everyone that cares about modern videogames affords to. The only reason you and your friends dont have decent speeds and have donwload caps is because your ISP is abusing you, likely because they are monopolistic assholes. There is an easy solution - force your ISP to provide decent service. Of course, for that you need to work united across all its users, so its not that easy in the end since humans fail to cooperate.

Also, even back in 2000, you know, back when 100KB/s internet was normal, i downloaded files even 8 GB in size (back then we had 100 GB per month limit, but limits been lifted since 2008). It took longer, granted, but thats about all the trouble it was.

The PC space was terrible then, and if it continued downward we would not have CB, let alone any developer releasing titles on PC. Every tom dick and harry was getting out of that space, it was not a fun time as a gamer. Luckily Steam continued to grow, GoG emerged, and studios like Sega, Blizzard, CDPR, and Capcom continued to release titles. Not to mention Youtube personalities LP'ing and reviewing PC titles as well as Minecraft taking off and turning many a young gamers into PC gamers.

PC space was never terrible. It is a myth perpetrated by idiots who spout things like "Only PC gamers pirate" and other such nonesense. A lot of attentino was paid to consoles back then since they still offered competetive hardware (was the last time they did actually) and unlike PC gamers, console gamers accepted to bend over and be raped with things like Xbox Gold.

I get the facebooks generation is all hyped about nonsense like this but I remember all this happening before, and it never ends with good results.

You remmeber digital distribution being done before? Do tell us how it ended.

How is this guy in any way relevant to game industry at the moment, sure he made Gears of War and popularized chest high walls but anything else aside from that and antagonizing a lot of people?

His last game was only 2 years ago. You dont become irrelevant in only 2 years you know.
He is also responsible for creating unreal engine. you know, the engine that over a hundred games were developed for (and a big profile ones you know) and that is STILL being used to develop tens of games every year. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games]

I've never played anything he had ever had a hand in. My life's intersection with his had purely been his jibber jabber on sites like this about stuff unrelated to any ACTUAL work in progress.

well, then i guess you missed a lot of games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games]

You know, games like Mass effect, Bioshock, spec ops, Xcom and many other titles.

So that link wasn't really helpful, unless you believe that he personally developed games like Deus Ex, Magna Carta, Silent Hill Downpour, and Borderlands. Those being the only games on that list I have played with any enjoyment/at all.

This is a more helpful link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Bleszinski#Credits

 

[Saltyk]

Fair is fair, and CliffyB has made some big contributions to the game industry - bigger than most. But in predicting the future and trying to find his place in it, I think he's in basically the same boat as the rest of us: flailing about as he tries to figure out what's going on. Maybe he'll never make a disc-based game again, but maybe he will, especially if he comes up with a hit and Take-Two or EA shows up with the money truck.

I don't think conventional retail is dead. Lots of people, myself included, use it as their primary method of acquiring games. It's easy to have an "all hail digital" attitude when you live and work in an area with unlimited, super-fast broadband access, but when you don't - and believe it or not, lots of us fall into that category - it's a different situation. And as others have said, I like "owning" my games. I like boxes and manuals and quick reference cards and all that bullshit, and it infuriates me that I so often have to buy special editions to get that stuff these days, but I do it because it's an important part of the experience. A game that doesn't get a retail release is a game that I'm far less likely to buy.

He does make some interesting points, but I don't happen to agree with them - and more to the point, I hope he's wrong. A digital future is not my future.

This, I agree with. While I do download a few games and PS+ makes that all too appealing when they give me games for free, I also really like owning the game. My internet speed isn't even bad, and those games still take a good hour. Being able to pick through my collection with my own two hands and decide which game appeals to me today. It's nice and gives me a feeling of ownership.

Games I download are a separate beast entirely. And what happens when I switch to a new PC or a new system? Assuming the game can still run on my new system, I still have to go through the whole process of downloading all those games.

I also like the experience of shopping in those "brick and mortar deathtraps". Looking through the games, talking to customers and employees. Asking opinions, giving advice, or just swapping stories of our gaming experiences. And, what I find funny is that people keep predicting the end of this style of gaming while laughing about how people were predicting the end of PC gaming. Do they not see the hypocrisy in that sentiment?