Cliff Bleszinski On LawBreakers: "I Have To Keep This Game Alive"

The Gears of War designer says he's been humbled by the launch.

[MunchMiller00]

What a shocker. Guy's game gets ignored, all of a sudden

"....and try to be less of a dick, honestly" -- Bleszinski

Translation: "Oh s**t, I can't be my usual a**hole self and get away with it. Better do some damage control for that bank!"

Hope your game bombs and takes you with it.

[AzubuEntus]

This narcissistic prick deserves the situation that he is in now. As far as I'm concerned, all of the constant karma Bleszinski spoken for the past years are all rushing back to him on this game. He should've stayed in retirement.

[EatCrow]

I dont like the guy. But geez do gamers ger a bad rep if this is how game creators are treated. I dont care about his personality or his actions. Only whether or not the game is any good. Which it doesnt seem to be.

Unless he pulled an asshole move on the gaming industry like targeting streamers or specific people like a real a**hole would then I dont care what he is like.

[rainslacker]

So he says things which are typically usually true in the overall picture, but lacks any kind of polite social etiquette , and he deserves to be cast aside forever?

Love or hate the man, most of his insights were usually correct on some level. He was just piss poor in delivering such things, and came across.....well, a "dick".

[Cartman55125]

Say what you want about his personality, but the guy created an online only game and released it for 30 bucks, in addition to releasing all future dlc for free. He may be an asshole, but he is a loud voice in gaming who is doing the right thing. Whether or not the game is good is a different story.

[Lamboomington]

"Hope your game bombs and takes you with it."

Hope you don't comment again. We don't need this kind of attitude, honestly.

[subtenko]

apparently we dont need the attitude from this dev either in the past....so I guess you also dont want this dev to make games again., well ok! deal!

[Yui_Suzumiya]

Well that's kinda harsh, lol

[DarXyde]

That's a bit much. Say what you will about Cliff, but he's worked on some great games (Unreal Tournament and Gears. for instance).

He's done the industry some good. He's not the most important in the industry, but he has still contributed meaningfully. Hoping he goes under is petty and immature.

[spaceb0y]

I think it deserves a chance if he is sincere with improvements and additions.

[DaGR8JIBRALTAR]

Damn son! Lol

[themodern_age]

the game looks fun, but $40 for a game I haven't played is a financial risk.

[dudesteve]

How do you buy any game? You need a demo before every purchase you make?
Kinda stupid comment if you ask me

[slavish0]

Agreed

[themodern_age]

Now adays they offer betas and demos for releases. I would like to see that for this game. I usually only buy games from franchises/companies I am familiar with (Bethesda,Rockstar,FromSoftwar e)

[Brave_Losers_Unite]

@themodern_age

Sorry but take an L

[SCW1982]

Its $30 and its an extremely well made skill based game.

[The 10th Rider]

He could be from Canada. "$" doesn't always denote USD.

[salisberg]

Why are people not playing?

[akurtz]

there were two betas i believe

[Sniperwithacause]

Dude they had an open beta on PS4 about a week before launch. You should have payed more attention.

[JackBNimble]

If $40 Is a financial risk for you then you shouldn't be playing games. Maybe get a second job or marry some rich bitch.

[dazsarge]

To be honest, seems like there is nobody here who has tried it.

[maybelovehate]

Cliff as a person has nothing to do with me not being interested in Lawbreakers. The game just doesn't appeal to me.

[chris235]

who would want to pay for and play the umpteenth generic mee-too online fps? go back to school and find ooutabout how markets are working.

[Knushwood Butt]

First Jaffe, now Cliffy.

[Nesflix]

You tried.

[gangsta_red]

I have to laugh at this guy and his "higher install" base comments. Once again that excuse doesn't equal being a success.

[InTheZoneAC]

No, no lawbreakers

[medman]

Crickets......

[-Foxtrot]

Cliff isn't really the problem, the game just doesn't look appealing, exciting or something you want to rush out and buy. Too many games like it on the market.

Do something different Cliff

[xenz]

Too many games like it? Could you give some examples except overwatch?

[-Foxtrot]

I meant online focused and first person shooters

[xenz]

I asked you to be more specific..

[-Foxtrot]

Online First Person Shoots in general?

Overwatch, COD, Battlefield, Battlefront, Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike, Doom, Destiny, Day-Z, Titanfall, Battleborn...want me to go on? Regardless how they are set up and differ in modes they are still first person and online focused.

[eddieistheillest]

If you played it , there are no other games like it, but on paper it sounds like every other shooter.

[datriax]

Right. Jump around and frag people. Wow. Let me lie down at the evolution of gaming right here. lol

It's just another garbage FPS that tried to cash in on the moba/fps blending hype. End of story.

[rainslacker]

I think his marketing was a little too focused on the hardcore, as opposed to trying to broaden that market to the more casual players who probably have no clue who he is.

That being said, a new MP shooter IP can be a hard sell without copious marketing. Looking at the successful one's this gen, they had marketing campaigns which were larger than their development budgets. Lawbreakers marketing was mostly social media, and not very well funded.

While I respect cliffyB's, work, given his experience with working for Epic which is well versed in good marketing, it seems like a pretty big oversight.

Hopefully he can keep it alive though. I know he put a lot of work into it. Seems to be one of those games you either hate or like well enough.

[noxeven]

Orginally this game was gonna be free to play then they apprently talked with nexon and decided they try charging for it. I bet it will go f2p again eventually! just give it time

[Gwiz]

He was not confident about this game and depending on ingame purchases by making it F2P.
They charged money to make sure they got something back,all the talk is just BS.You gotta see trough the BS.

[PlayStation_5]

LawBreakers is already dead. Why can't you do the same Cliff Bleszinski?

[darksky]

Make it free to play and then maybe people will play it.

[opinionated]

It has nothing to do with him being a dick. People know who he is because he's a dick, it didn't stop his other games from selling. These type of games just don't have the same appeal as they used too. He did everything right, lowering it to 30 dollars, releasing on multiple platforms. I can respect him trying to take the blame on his personality. I guess he would rather do that than blame the lack of interest in his game.

[datriax]

You ever heard of tolerance? Cause I'm sure people have run out of it when it comes to this guy. Why this needed to be explained to you? That's beyond me.

[opinionated]

See, I'm actually a tolerant person. That's why you need to explain your irrational intolerance. What has he done that has "literally pushed you over the edge." There is nothing he could do to drum up such hatred from me, so please, enlighten me. Help me understand why you're such a hater.

Or is it also beyond you to actually articulate why you are intolerant so you just lash out at random people? Are you just a band wagon hater or can you give an example of your intolerance?

[rainslacker]

He can be pretentious, but very rarely has he ever actually tried to imply the masses were somehow unimportant. The only times he ever really put down certain segments of the community were in reference to changes in the market, where he pretty much just said the way things actually are. While I feel he downplayed the significance of the group he was trying to say wasn't as relevant as they believed, he's never really personally insulted anyone.

So while I greatly dislike his public persona because he is condescending, what exactly has he done or said to earn so much disdain?

I've often called him out on his personality, but never thought he was trying to insult people directly, nor did I often think he was wrong on most topics. But his personality didn't help him when he said things that people didn't want to agree with, but their inability to see things in the broader reality is their problem, not his. No reason to hold that against him.

[jesujohn]

eh everyone is a dick at some point lol

[opinionated]

Exactly

[Relientk77]

Good luck Cliff

[ramtah]

I tried the game and it was no fun!

[quenomamen]

Just go buy another pair of matching Lambos for you and your old lady Cliffy, Karma's a bitch.

[PlayableGamez-]

Well good luck with that CliffyB you shouldn't have been so smug about your game.
I would have sympathize with CliffyB, but his smug remarks towards his Xbox fans kind it makes hard for me to empathize on the failure of his game.

[rainslacker]

How exactly were his smug comments towards Xbox fans actually relevant to the sales of the game on PC or PS4?

[hercules_]

The fact is that he was provoked to make such remarks. Xbox fanboys were calling him a traitor and posting nonsense.

[obidanshinobi]

If I remember correctly, when asked politely by a games journalist why Lawbreakers wasn't on the XB1 Cliff snapped "cause I hate Xbox" in a snarky tone. Why do that ? The journalist wasn't being rude, there was no need for such a response from Cliff. I think he laughed it off straight after but why answer the question like a dick in the first place ? Cause he's a dick, that's why. Maybe he had been asked that question a lot through out the day but still he's a professional game designer, he should be used to responding to repeated questions from journalists. The sort of response he gave should be beneath him but instead his dickish personality overrode the response he should've given as a professional game designer and a business man seeing as Boss Key is his own studio.
In a climate where some games journos and gamers are being fanboy dicks in this console war bullshit, you would expect respected game developers to not sink to that level, but he did and he got shit for it, rightly so.

[Liqu1d]

@obidanshinobi He made a sarcastic comment as a joke and then explained that he had to choose 1 console for his game since he doesn't have the manpower for both. Stop being so sensitive, it was a business decision.

[Liqu1d]

He said nothing about Xbox fans. He said Xbox fanboys were salty after they gave him crap on Twitter, seems like he was right.

[Yui_Suzumiya]

Looks better than Overwatch but I'm just not interested in online FPS's.

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

This is what happens when you ignore your core audience. This game should have been on xbox as well. Just another example of why 3rd party games should not be console exclusives.

[OldGuyStillGaming]

Cliffy B and David Jaffe need to meet up and have a drink to talk about where they f'd up on their latest project

[C-H-E-F]

See, I hope this humbles him, the game looked interesting but I didn't support it when I found out he was behind it, I really don't like this guy. He really thinks he's the God of the gaming community I feel for the developers that need a job that works for him, I can only imagine how much of his "Godly" attitude they get from him. In the great words of Kendrick Lamar, Cliffy B, be humble.... sit down.

[eddieistheillest]

For the people commenting negatively, have you actually play the game ? Its actually really fun.

[CrimsonWing69]

Just let it go, man.

[NickAwesome]

The market is oversaturated with multiplayer shooters, bring back narrative driven, story based single player games, hellblade was a good start!

[datriax]

When was the last time this clown was relevant? People still hold him in high regard for some games he helped build over 10 years ago? Really? Anything he's touched since GoW has been forgettable garbage. LB included.

[rainslacker]

Most of the game designs he brought to Unreal Tournament and Gears of War are used by many games today. I'd say that still makes him relevant. His last successful game wasn't so far in the past that he's now suddenly a nobody.

People hate him because of his personality, but his talent is still spot on, and while I dislike his personality, he isn't usually wrong in many of the things he talks about, thus his opinions or insights are still relevant, and probably based more on actual knowledge of the industry than those that criticize him or act like he's just wrong out of course.

[ziggurcat]

just let the generic arena shooter die, cliff...

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

But the game isn't an arena shooter.

[ziggurcat]

yes it is.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

There is no emphasis on weapon pick ups in lawbreakers, which is unlike Quake, Unreal Tournament,Gears of War, Halo, Timesplitters, etc. Arena shooters have an emphasis on weapon pickups, and equal (or near-equal) starts.

[Tankbusta40]

Cliff needs to distance himself from gaming, very few people like him anymore. He is so stupid these days that he doesn't even realize statements like "I have to keep this game alive" will only make it die a quicker death.

[Scatpants]

All those statements he made about how free to play is the way to go and everyone should just deal with it put me off this game. I know it's not free to play now but I'm assuming it still feels like it.

[Cyro]

LawBreakers has been sitting at 196 players in the last 24 hours. The game is pretty much dead on PC.

[XStation4pio_Pro]

Karma’s a bitch, cliffy. I hope some newfound humility will guide decisions in your future. Not always great being the other guy.

[X-23]

There should be a free weekend period or something for PS4 and PC. A lot of people probably missed out on the beta and if they could get a hands on to see what kind of game they're dealing with they would likely pick it up. Especially considering its not full price.
I mean the game has skill based matchmaking, so if this continues on then the game will definitely die, new players won't be able to sync up with adequate competition and when they finally do manage they'll get slaughtered so.

[Italiano1234567]

I just think it came out at the wrong time. Way to many good shooters. Look what happened to Titanfall 2. One of the best shooters ever and did nowhere near expected cause of when it came out

[HeyNowChillax]

Successful people who are smug about often win, but most everyone wants them to see them deflated just a bit. Just so happens the gaming market is extremely competitive with many kinds of great games and developers to support. I bet a little slice of humble pie would have helped sales a bit.

[just-joe]

Clearly there wasn't enough gender neutral bathrooms.

[bluefox755]

I'm sure the game is fun, but I'm not really into these types of games. His real problem wasn't the game, or his attitude, IMO. It's that the market is already saturated with these types of games.

[OffRoadKing]

Sorry Cliff played the beta and wont be returning, good luck keeping it alive though, lol.

[XStation4pio_Pro]

boy i bet the xbox players are super bummed they are missing out on this stellar ps4 console exclusive, passed down from the PC heavens. oh please, lord cliffy. grace us with an xbox version so we can stop enjoying this forsaken destiny 2 and other games launched recently. (laying on the sarcasm pretty thick here).

[KillBill]

CLiff getting his family and friends to get on the servers to try and keep it alive. Pathetic.

[korgun]

maybe the game is not good

[Gwiz]

Blaming his personality for a game failing is hilarious.The trick is to stay humble no matter what.

[Firehazard5]

It's just business. For any new game your customer should be able to differentiate within seconds. I'm a pretty active gamer and to this day I don't really know what lawbreakers does differently. Most companies market map to find a space when launching a new product. Lawbreakers launched in a market with no gap in it. The only explanation for that kind of basic negligence is arrogance.

[obidanshinobi]

It will be free to play in 4-6 months time I reckon, maybe sooner.