Cliff Bleszinkski says he may need to be “less of a dick” to draw in Lawbreakers players

Cliff Bleszinkski has a few ideas on what he can do to help Lawbreakers, and one of them is being a better dude online. Bleszinkski has spoken openly about the struggles his studio, Boss Key Games, has faced with Lawbreakers in an interview with Gamespot.…

[Bigpappy]

I think he is growing up finally... at least in his words.

[lelo2play]

Nop. A dick is always a dick...

[cleft5]

The problem wasn't that he was a dick, although that is certainly true from the way he put himself out there. The problem was with the game itself. First off, the game should have been free to play. I am sorry, but Blizzard's Overwatch not only beat them to the punch, but that game is superior to Lawbreakers.

The world and the characters had been in development for years prior to the development of Lawbreakers and they transitioned that into a hero shooter. So, from the start it was an uphill battle. Had they made the game f2p and used good f2p practices the game would still be alive and kicking. Then they made the poor decision to only put the game on PS4, which angered a lot of their traditional fanbase. Then they addressed that anger by dismissing and belittling their core Xbox fans. That was a mistake all around. Then when the game wasn't doing well and people started calling them out on it, they got aggressive in their response to their potential consumers.

In short Cliff completely messed of the handling, marketing, promotion of the game. This isn't the first time Cliff has done something like this either, Bulletstorm was mishandled in a similar fashion. That ended up costing Bulletstorm its success before it could even find an audience. The bottom line is that Cliff being a dick is the least of things he needs to fix. Fix these other issues and then work on getting his ego out of the way. Their are plenty of dicks in this industry, thats what PR firms are all about after all. Let the professionals handle PR and just work on making and selling a game in a fashion that consumers want.

[morganfell]

But he is a dick. I live where he used to work. Nothing like sitting on the open deck, enjoying a beer with friends at a nice brewery. Here goes mr dick. Gets into his Lamborghini, starts it and then sits in the parking lot revving the engine for 5 solid minutes. Then he backs out, pulls up 10 feet and sits there for another minute revving the engine while he attention whores. Then he pulls out onto a 35mph street and tromps the pedal. The car fishtailed so badly he almost took out a few autos lining the street. Everyone outside just shook their heads and made some slap worthy remarks. I am not the only one that saw him act like this around town. Dick is in his DNA. I think its actually what the D in his DNA represents.

[Kleptic]

Cliffy is just the younger generations' Romero. Both have similar egos, one was directly involved with a far more significant game franchise (Romero), both worked a while and then hit it big, but then couldn't hit it big again after burning bridges.

With that, one accepted this (Romero), and lives a quiet life outside of the spotlight of an industry that struggles to retain members long enough to understand 'who is who' within a matter of months, let alone years. Cliffy, a bit younger, obviously hasn't yet...but will.

Whatever antics the dude did when he went from a low key programmer at Epic (with a shoe-in from Sweeney, even) to director of Gears...it happens. It's easy to pass judgement on how other people act when they go to 'i have a job' to 'i never have to work again' in a matter of months.

Anyway, yeah, the guy isn't very likable...and what he isn't grasping is that his popularity was based around people that are now...not kids...and simply don't care anymore. In the marketing sense, when you find yourself riding a wave of 'edginess'; be aware of it...consumers of that 'edge' will grow up, and the next ones in line...will find it obvious and transparent. Not always, but usually. That applies to every form of entertainment. The best see it coming, and simply shut up, and invest wisely. The worst ride it out until they're jokes, and rap at pyramid marketing events (read: Fat Joe, nk). Cliffy should be close to bowing out, or reinventing himself (which i guess is what he is trying to get at) as a normal every day game maker...letting go of past success and trying to reprove himself. Could a 15 year old care about his current new game? definitely. Did that same 15 year old care about what he did in 2006? No, they were 4, and it's too late to convince them that 'well back then no one had ever played an action based third person shooter that used cover like that other than some other game that wasn't popular'. Combine the brilliance of the past while still impressing the older generations that barely care anymore? iD did it, with few of the original members (i.e. the ego'less), and that is arguably the first in gaming history for it to work...but the important part; would it work when trying to bring back the original ego?

[princejb134]

i doubt it. Its just strategy for people can show sympathy for him and buy his game. I'm sure he's the same dick as always

[Palitera]

Exactly. The hiring of a PR to build a character for him won't change how much of an *** he is.

Then again, it will work flawlessly. In two years, these "oh he has grown" comments will probably dominate the discussions.

[iDadio]

Being a dick isn't correlational to the game being generic and bland and just not fun to play :(

[-Foxtrot]

Hasn't he said something like this before

Regardless I don't see how it's growing up, it's just talk and one last ditch effort from him to draw people in. Making yourself out to be the problem and go against your high up big headed proud attitude is desperation at its finest.

[Tzuno]

Mhmm, fully erect.

[madpuppy]

He's been "talking" about growing up for the past 12 years, Maybe he should actually try to someday.

To me, He is just a smug whiner, Crying poor just before he hops into his Lambo and drives home to his mansion where his trophy wife is waiting for him....

[joab777]

His attitude is irrelevant. The game isn't bad but he is missing the reasons why games like Overwatch succeed. And something Destiny has done which greatly improves it's IP. They don't take themselves seriously and there is personality to the games. They have their own look and back stories etc. This games biggest fault is that it's forgettable. From the name to the generic characters and art style. Is it beautiful, yes. Was there a ton of work that went into making the outfits etc? Yep. But they do not stand out. Overwatch has become a social icon like Angry Birds and recognizable by ppl that don't even play games. This is important. This is something Biiware has to keep in mind with their new Destiny-like game. Destiny has a lot of personality, and their game will need it also. Too much of a push to make things realistic. If you do go this direction then it must find a niche in its grittiness or something.

Lawbreakers is a fine game, but he needs to ask himself as a player, why would I choose to play this instead of Overwatch etc? I thought it stood a chance as a f2p game that wasn't trying to break the bank.

[Snez]

Spend less time making gender neutral bathrooms, ugly characters and remove that awful loot box system then i'll consider looking at it. Tribes and Quake are better movement heavy shooters anyway, it's not like Lawbreakers is anything original.

[Eonjay]

Why do people care about bathrooms? I have been to unisex bathrooms and its not this special thing.Its a damn bathroom. Like its not an issue. I can't be bothered to care.

[spicelicka]

It's stupid as fuck. Basically let's them flaunt their activism for "equality". Being equal means men can have their own bathrooms, and women can have their own bathroom. As long as both bathrooms are similar it's EQUAL. What they instead push for is SAME instead of EQUAL, hence they have to have the same bathrooms.

Eventually they'll push for both genders to start dressing the same, doing the same activities, acting the same, who knows what else. They want to evolve into unisex hermaphrodites perhaps.

[Eonjay]

@spicelicka

Nope, its about someone feeling like a woman or man and wanted to use the bathroom. Like thats it. I am frightened that people care. I have seen both men and women use the opposite bathroom because they didn't want to wait. Because who gives a damn, its a bathroom. As for the game, I can't see myself seeing a unisex bathroom and giving a damn. I refuse to parse who should have access.

[Xb1ps4]

Well... maybe you should ask your self this question again the day you have a daughter using the rest room and another man that feels like he is a woman for the day decides to walk on in and use the restroom standing right by her side..

Frikin millenials just don't care about anything anymore, no values, no morals just no care in the world as long as there iPhone works In there little bubble world.

[Eonjay]

@Xb1ps4

That is bogus. Have you ever heard of this happening ever? No really. At some point you will realize that made of fears like this are stupid. And that made up nonsense should make you invest time into caring. Logically, gay men use the men bathroom and there is no rash of sexual assault of game men or boys in the bathroom. These people, the ones that want you scared of everything will one day sell you psychopath insurance, just in case you know.

[81BX]

If you're a boy use the boys bathroom, if you're a girl use the girl bathroom. I don't care if you feel like pretending to be a sex ur not.

[iceman06]

World travel does wonders for perspective. Having lived in Japan for 3 yrs., it was not unheard of to just have a bathroom. Hell, there were some where the urinal was up front and women would have to walk by to get to the stalls. Was it a culture shock at first? Yep! However, logistically, it made sense for certain facilities. There weren't pedos waiting for young girls so they could oggle them. People would respectfully handle their business and be out. Maybe this "worry" says more about the lack of respect and trust in our culture?

[iceman06]

At Xb1PS4....Here's the problem. Trangendered is NOT pedophilia. A transgendered individual has no more interest in your daughter than the average person. If a transgendered person were to be using the restroom next to your daughter, it would be in the stall next to her, so she and everyone else would likely never know.

[spicelicka]

It has nothing to do with feeling like a man or woman. It's simple comfort level. Separate bathrooms have never been a problem in history so why are they a problem now?

I have no problem with PRIVATE unisex bathrooms. If it's a separate closed off bathroom, doesn't matter if a man or woman uses it, just like at home. I hope this is what the idea is.

But if this is suggesting that public bathroom stalls have to be shared, that's horseshit. I don't feel comfortable enough shitting next to my male coworker, where I can see his shoes and hear the sound of his toilet water splashing. I sure as hell won't be comfortable next to a female coworker.

[Cyro]

Eh, I don't think that has anything to do with the failure of this game.

[rainslacker]

I don't think it's as big a reason as he seems to think it is. About the only people he really pissed off were some Xbox fans who didn't like being told that they weren't as important as they thought they were and he didn't feel it was right to pander to them when it came to the interests of establishing a stable ground for his business. While he coudl have been more delicate in the delivery, I can not think of a way that upsetting a customer on a system where he wasn't even selling the game was in some way overly detrimental to the actual sales of the game.

Marketing was his biggest problem....couple with a rather glutted market for the genre. New IP without a huge marketing campaign, in a market where only the big guns are truly successful means he missed the mark in the marketing department.

His decision to go with a specific console had nothing to do with it, as it's likely it wouldn't have sold any better, even with an established "cliffy" base on that console, because realistically, despite his contributions to advancing game design, how many actual fans does he really have in the greater market?

[bolimekurac]

why bring xbox fans into it. or you cant help yourself. many of us had no clue this was even a game until the news of it flopping surfaced

[Kiwi66]

Wouldn't you be pissed off too if you had been playing his games from the start only to be told that your loyalty means nothing now, so those people had a right to feel that way about him seeing as he turned his back on them because he thought that the other fanbases would make his new game a success but he was wrong as it pretty much did the opposite

[rainslacker]

@boli

I bring Xbox fans into it, because they're the only one's that got pissed off at him during the marketing of the game. His reasons for not putting it on Xbox, and his eventual response to those who decided to deride that decision were all on Xbox.

I'm not putting down Xbox fans in this, I'm saying that their grievances with him and what he said/did wouldn't have had much to do with the game selling well on PS4 or PC. Generally speaking of course.

In other words, the Xbox fan was at no fault, and likely had no influence on the success or failure of this game because they weren't even really part of the current target audience.

@Kiwi

To some degree yes. And I'd probably not be too keen on the man based on how he expressed his views towards those who had that greivance towards him.

ROTTR was kind of the same, although Square Enix decided not to antagonize their future potential user base, and at that time, it aggravated me. not as much as I'm sure some of the Xbox fans felt, but at the same time, I do understand that there are business decisions that sometimes need to be made. Sometimes those won't be beneficial to me. I can gripe about it. If Square Enix came out and basically said, "look, this is just the way it is, you aren't that important", I'd still be just as upset. I wouldn't be calling for blood or acting like some of the people I've seen act hoping he fails miserably. I'd just ignore their product....like I did with ROTTR.

But with ROTTR, I did say that their decisions would have some affect later on. And that's where I'm going with these comments. The current success probably didn't have much to do with Xbox fans, so him thinking this is looking at things the wrong way. The future sales of the game in a potential future release on Xbox may be more affected by his decision to exclude it now, and certainly won't help that he put his fan base off, because they may not be willing to support him and help market his game through social channels, and bring more negative attention to the game. Same as it was with ROTTR.

While I understand the nature of providing for your fan base, Cliffy's fan base just wasn't big enough to support this game in a big way. He has a following, but as a business, he does have to consider what is most likely to bring success to a game. If I were making a game, I would look at not where my fan base could be, because I know the internet can be fickle, and what may seem like a good thing going is not really all that big, is no where near as quantifiable as a user base that is twice the size of where my primary fan base may reside....particularly when that larger install base has a rather strong indicator of FPS games selling well.

That being said, I certainly wouldn't have said some of the things he did to the Xbox fan base. If I had fans, I would respect them, because they appreciate what I would be doing. I'd apoligize, empathize, and try to explain the reasoning as best I could.

That to me, is how a product should be marketing. Cliffy made it about himself, and that was where he kind of dropped the ball there.

But in the end, no matter how I may have handled a similar situation, it probably wouldn't have affected the sales of this game too much.

[gangsta_red]

Here's the thing, Rainslacker can't help himself and this as usual is his way of being slick.

The whole "higher install" base excuse is nonsense and the proof is exactly this game right here. Would it have done better if it was also on Xbox? Probably not, but would he have gotten at least some more sales and a possible *cult* following from Xbox players? Probably yes.

I would rather hear "no plans at this time" when asked about why a game isn't on another platform rather than "higher install base" especially after the fact that games usually have the same mediocre sales or straight up bomb when on this higher install base. Also it's funny to hear from devs how close in architecture these two platforms are so porting wouldn't be much of hassle let alone the cost and if I'm not mistaken the fee for submitting games has been removed or substantially lowered.

[rainslacker]

Yeah, I'm evil, and it's my mission to completely rid the world of XBox fans by constantly talking crap about them.

But at the same time, not a single person seems to have said how pissing off the Xbox fan base somehow affected the sales of this game that is on the PS4 and PC....as in NOT THE XBOX.

Are people intentionally dense, or do they not read past the name? He had a crap marketing campaign. That's readily apparent. His ego outweighs his relevance and fan base....we've known this for a long time. And as I said before, the problem with the sales of this game were in no way related to the Xbox fan base, and it's wrong of him to believe that.

As far as what you'd prefer to hear, I believe I said that he should have been more professional, but don't throw a hissy fit when he just tells you the way it is. Some people are good at spinning PR, and here we have Cliffy who isn't. You'll rake someone over the coals for PR spin that you see, but when he's direct and honest, you still rake him over the coals because he says you aren't important enough?

Sure...OK. Don't call me out, because I'm 100% saying that the Xbox fan is in no way responsible here, and the Cliffy could work on his public persona and leave his ego at the door.

If that's me being slick, then whatever. You just want to avoid anything I said, and I'd wager you haven't even read it. You haven't invalidated a single thing I said in any other way than ignoring my comment and trying to act like I'm blaming MS fans, when I explicitly said that wasn't they weren't the problem?

[rainslacker]

What Cliffy said is completely irrelevant to the sales of this game, because the people he pissed off were primarily on a system the game didn't come to. There is no reason for the PC gamer, or PS gamer to care if he pissed off the Xbox fans. His ego may have had an effect, but that's likely because he doesn't have the same kind of fan base on other platforms that would ignore his blatantly poor social skills for a decade, to suddenly be mad because he wasn't suddenly being all buddy buddy with MS.

[Fluke_Skywalker]

I didn't really care whether or not he was a dick, I just didn't think the game was very good.

[spartan112g]

I'd play it, but I don't have a PC and I play my shooters on my Xbox instead of my PS4 due to the controller unless the trophies are enticing enough.

[fluxmulder]

Well that's no fun. That's what we love about him.

[derkasan]

This has certainly been a humbling experience for Cliffy B, hasn't it?

[InTheZoneAC]

I'm glad no one is buying his game!

[rainslacker]

I'd say it couldn't hurt. While I always thought he came across as pretentious, he wasn't usually wrong in a lot of the things he said. But nowadays, people do take things more personally, and don't like it when it's pointed out that they aren't as important as they believe they are.

In any case, if he wants to draw in players, he should stop talking about what he needs to do, and just market the game. He'd be better off removing himself from the game, as it seems like he feels that his status is a selling point of the game itself. At best, it's good for some attention early on, which can help build buzz and could eventually build sales, but at this point, it's more about discovery, and getting the word out to those who don't care who he is, and may just enjoy the game. Marketing does that.

If the biggest selling point of the game is that he made it, then that's not much of a selling point. Kojima and Miyamoto are about the only two devs who really can benefit from that kind of thing, and their portfolios are much more impressive than Cliffy's, although Cliffys is quite impressive in itself.

So in other words, focus on the game's strengths, and remove himself from the marketing of the game. Also stop worrying about what people say about him. The only people that care about that stuff are probably not going to come in droves to your game anyways, but if the game starts selling, then eventually they might cave and play if it becomes popular enough and the excuses of it somehow sucks for some reason that isn't likely based on experience dwindles as people's bias towards Cliffy's comments falls into obscurity.....which is where him shutting up, or being more humble will help, but that's a long term thing.

[V0LT]

Its too late.

[NecoTehSergal]

Less of a Cuck too. (For anyone who saw his tweet about his shirt, was really funny)

[-GreenRanger]

Being a dick has little to do with it. The game industry is run by dicks. How about just forget it and move onto something else. The people interested in this kind of game already tried it. It's over. It's a failure.

[Profchaos]

In short does he comes off as arrogant however go listen to his long form interviews when he appears on the Joe Rogan experience and you will see a normal guy

[CrimsonWing69]

Dude people just aren't interested in the game, move the f*ck on already!

[47]

Stop being a hardcore SJW Beta male and you'll be on the road to recovery Cliff.

[BeRealisticNow]

Or you know, make a better game

[PlayableGamez-]

Well that is a start.

[Angerfist]

Yeah the best way to sell a dudebro Game is to put transgender bathrooms and go full SJW on Twitter. And that from the guy who once created Gears 2.

[Derceto]

Cliff Bleszinkski was already irrelevant 10 years ago. Cliff Bleszinkski just hasn't figured that out yet.

[TejasTV]

He and Art Briles can be best friends together. When they meet each other in HELL!

[Makavelithedon]

I think this games awesome little weak on contant but fun the game modes are fun. Just try the game u wont regret it and its $30.

[senorfartcushion]

Erm...how about not making a hero shooter after 5 other devs?

Or if you do make one after 5 other devs, how about actually making the characters and enviroments look different from each other?

[Liqu1d]

It's not a hero shooter, it's a class based shooter.

[senorfartcushion]

Do you have any idea how useless that comment was?

[Liqu1d]

Don't like being educated with facts?

Overwatch is hero shooter. You pick heroes like Lucio, Mercy, Genji, Hanzo, Winston etc. Every hero fills a role such as support, defense but they fill those roles in different ways. In Overwatch you pick unique heroes, that have unique ability sets.

Lawbreakers on the other hand has 9 classes, Assassin, Battle Medic, Juggernaut, Enforcer, Gunslinger, Harrier, Titan, Vanguard and Wraith. Each of those classes have 2 characters, 1 for the Law, 1 for the Breakers. These characters differ purely in their aesthetic, their abilities are shared within their class as you can see in the example below. In Lawbreakers you pick a class and your avatar (character) is decided based on what team you are on, it's no different than how it works in Battlefield.

https://lawbreakers.gameped...

If you played both games you would know this.

[bangoskank]

Nope. Too late for that.

[Felsager]

Cliff you need to get a retirement. Please stay in your retirement, videogame development is not your thing anymore.

[DillyDilly]

That is not how it works Cliff

[brich233]

....or maybe his studio should produce a better game.

[CrimzonRazor]

I stopped buying games he was involved with many years ago because I couldnt stand him and was not going to support him or his studio's. The damage was done a long time ago and I will never support him in the future he should have stayed retired.

[DrShoe]

A leopard can't change its spots, Cliffy.

[milohighclub]

I think what he really needs to do is not release 2 awesome tech demos (infiltrator and Samaritan) then follow it with a generic shooter in an over saturated market.

[Liqu1d]

Vast majority of gamers don't even know who he is.