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October 14th, 2008 @ 06:35
Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski has complained to Gamasutra that the games industry doesn’t pay enough homage to its visionaries.
“As sad as it is, you’re only as good as your last game, in many ways,” he said.
“In Hollywood, at least, you get movie jail for like a year, and you’re out, and you get to try and make another good movie. In games, you screw up once, and no one ever wants to hear from you again. It’s pretty sad.”
He added: “Look at a guy like Ken Levine or [Peter] Molyneux or Chris Taylor or [Hideo] Kojima. I mean, we all need to celebrate these people.”
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October 14th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I love Cliff. Really nice guy, talks a lot of sense, and he’s made one of the games of the year.
And he’s right about Molyneux, because he’s finally made the game Fable was always supposed to be.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:35 am
I’d like to arm wrestle him with candles on either side of the table where our wrists would be if one of us got the upper hand. You know, Stallone in Over the Top stylee.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Cliff always looks like the guy you would have a beer with. Great guy in my opinion and makes FUN games
October 14th, 2008 at 7:41 am
He looks like a guy I could wrestle.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:44 am
lol you just want the bragging rights of defeating Cliffy in a wrestling match.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Well, it isnt with GeoW that he’s going to get into the very closed circle of gaming visionaries…
October 14th, 2008 at 10:39 am
He’s talking up the members of the exclusive club in the hopes of membership?
Anyway, he’s wrong about visionaries, I’d say. After all, despite Tabula Rasa and all the things he’s done wrong, Richard Garriott is still one of my gaming heroes. He helped bring Ultima VII into the World, and for that I can forgive many sins.
Of course, it might be that there are people in the videogames industry who want to be visionaries but simply don’t deserve the title, and then there are those who speak for their development groups almost as if they’d made the game theirself, without actually needing the development group that did most of the work.
Pete, for example, claims that he’s not a PR man, but to be honest I think he’s a PR man more than he is a visionary. He talks about his game’s flaws and on some levels that can be admirable, but the man doesn’t seem to have any real passion. He doesn’t talk about the things that mean something to him, and the reason I dislike him so much these days is that he seems to be a cold husk and a pale immitation of the Molyneux that I remember back in the Bullfrog days. Back then, he was part of Bullfrog and stood with them, and spoke of things in an impassioned way that I couldn’t help but admire.
If he was still that Molyneux, he’d still be one of my gaming industry heroes too.
Edit: Oh, and Jeff Minter. He deserves a mention, because I still like him, and that’s mostly because he’s a man who really cares about his games. His most recent game was a bit of a flop but when reading his thoughts about it, I could really tell the game meant something to him. That was one of those rare few times I’d wished I’d had a 360 so I could’ve picked up his latest on XBLA.
Edit II: Wait… what about Ragnar Tornquist? Dreamfall was uninspiring but I still love the guy, he’s still a visionary and an important element of the games industry - well, to me at least. He’s one of the few people who could actually write a hand written letter to someone apologising for the lack of full frontal male nudity in his latest game. I keep hoping his next effort will be a real hit, because he deserves to be in the limelight again.
(I could probably keep doing this…)
October 14th, 2008 at 11:04 am
For someone so deeply entrenched in videogame production to deliberately call out individuals in such a way - this is just PR fluff.
I’ve not seen a game made by one ‘visionary’ for decades now. Hundreds of talented people are usually involved in every production and it’s impossible to credit the fun-factor of a game to one person.
Sorry Cliffy, you make nice PR glamourshots but this particular attempt is just vacuous headline bait.
Kudos to Esha for the Minter mention. Truly a game visionary (and one of the few remaining soloists) and master of his art.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I think thats his own way of saying I am a god, bow down to me.
Which he ain’t.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Yes, even the dev diaries are scripted.
His game looks great, but he’s no visionary. He creates middle of the road games.
And Peter Molyneux seems like a good guy to me, I think he is a PR disaster though. His games seem to strive after an ideology that has been experienced somewhat and dismissed for good reason.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
October 14th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
PUD, you have hit the nail right on the head.
I am looking forward to Gears 2, I really am. But, tbh, Cliffy is just looking for anyway to get attention.
And besides, he says that “They dont respect game visionaries enough”
What was it he said about Metal Gear Solid? It was passive entertainment or something.
Thats sort of a contradiction.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Ofcourse for me it’s Bethesda Pre-Oblivion, specifically Michael Kirkbride. Just to show how much games these visionaries produce matter to me, his most recent credits were on Iron Man the game.
And even more ofcourse it’s Fumito Ueda, Kenji Kaido and Hajime Sugiyama.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
He’s not saying he’s a visionary. Give him some credit. He acknowledges his game’s debt to Resi 4 - indeed, he said that he didn’t want Resi 5 to have a Gears-esque control scheme because he wants it to be different from his own game. Indeed, he regularly acknowledges those who influence him, Miyamoto particularly.
Gears isn’t a visionary game, but saying it’s middle-of-the-road is very harsh. It’s a hugely polished, visually impressive Hollywood blockbuster.