Cliff Bleszinski:"I'll never make another disc based game" The end of video game CDs?

Cyan

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Cliffy B. is back with some declarations of intent and he says that he will never create a disc-based game anymore.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-18-bleszinski-ill-never-make-another-disc-based-game

"The whole 'old guard,' where you get a Game Informer cover and an E3 reveal, is dead," he said. "I'll never make another disc-based game for the rest of my career, and [at E3] they're trying to woo buyers from Target and Walmart?"

Okay, I am conscious that disc-based games are a dying breed, somewhat... But I hope they never disappear, because I'd like to keep forever with me those games I consider masterpieces, to show them to my future grandchildren someday, if I am lucky enough to have them.

Now, since selling games burnt on disks is allegedly not the future, my opinion is that I respect Cliffy's opinion but I don't agree with him.

To me the only future viable model is something like GoG.com. I own quite a few digital games, both on PC and consoles, some of them were free (Games with Gold), others I chose to buy them.

Cliffy B. sounds to me like he is using the "go with the times" card, without thinking that to some people that's not the ideal model.

There are games with more modern and fun and interesting mechanics, timeless games from the past that others could learn from, and feel more up to date than some current games. Say... i.e. the Heroes of Might and Magic series.

Thing is, I don't hate digital, but I don't like how games are sold to you.

I have 12 Steam games, a few Impulse (Gamestop digital store for PC) games, and a lot more GoG games.

The problem with digital for me, is that they strip you out of any sense of ownership. I don't feel like the games I buy are mine anymore, EXCEPT on GoG.

I mean, you aren't installing the game yourself, you aren't given the installation files, "your" game installs automatically for you, with no way to save your files in another computer or carry your games with you anywhere not only in a digital manner, but in a physical way too.

This certainly screws my brain out in the sense that I don't feel that those games belong to me, it kinda negates my enjoyment of the game because I paid full price for them.

Now GoG for instance is truly a paradise. You don't have a physical copy of the game, but you have all the extras, and the manuals, for you and just for you. Also the installation files are downloaded to your PC, which means that you get what you actually paid for, a game. --not just an automatic installation.

The installation process is as easy as it has ever been. And more importantly, you can copy your games (the installation files and extras, or just the install exectutables) to an external hard drive, to a pendrive or to another PC, etc etc. they are yours forever.

That to me is the future I want to embrace, regardless of whether we are heading towards a digital world or not.

I would agree with him more if he just said that having physical and digital content available and a good online service is essential these days -look what happened to WiiU and its abysmal sales and how stuck in the past Nintendo are, as romantic as it can be- to increase your revenue when you create a game.

But you never know if the next game from him is going to be a success or not, and no matter how good it is, if I have to buy it on certain digital stores, that detracts a point from the overall score, at least to me.
 
There was an article about cliffy B. The first few words read
"industry mouthpeice Cliffy B"

ps: Gog is a Digital Download service done right
 
The gaming world is more than just Cliffy B (which sort of defeats the thread title), and the world in general is more than just walmart and target in the united states (which sort of defeats Cliffy B).

Sooo...what else is there to say? :)
 
Whatever floats your boat. Somebody will make disc based games as there is no such thing as "one size fits all".
 
So does this mean he's not making games at all anymore? Or just ones that more than 1% of the market will buy?
 
Its weird because Cliffy like a year and a half ago was all about defending AAA bloat to the death, even to the point of shitting on the consumer and saying it was life. I guess he staked his career and made a bet on whether or not MS would put 2.5tflops in their machine? That's what he was literally begging for in 2012, and now that business reality sets in, now it doesn't matter and he's "all PC"? Even after shitting on PC for years and years and years and years?

This just confirms to me that this guy is not someone to take seriously in the gaming field by either console gamers or PC gamers. The absolute worst of hypocrites.
 
LOL, yeah I just read that as "I will only be making ass games for the rest of my career!"

So all those beloved indies on Vita and PS4 are ass now, after being talked up so much on forums?? :rolleyes:

You know, as a gamer I love the big triple A productions. But I got to thinking they probably aren't much fun to make. The team must be so large everything must be done by committee and there probably isn't much room for one man and his vision, besides the publisher pressures. In that respect even though I favor triple A over small games to play, I bet it is much more fun to make a game with say a 15 man team, where your vision is what drives it. Catch 22 I guess.

Well, I'm not the biggest CliffY B fan dont get me wrong, but I'm surprised how negative the the comments here are. He usually says interesting things anyway. Couple his comments with recent sales figures, irrational closing, etc and I'm just a tad worried about the future of console triple A, but I hope and still believe there's a place for it.

He made at least a couple other interesting comments in the interview. paraphrasing, "your game is a good as how many youtube videos it produces" and, "I'll end up on PC, it's where the community is".

But I feel I'm just being contrary, because part of me wants to tell Cliffy in response to no more disc games, "well I guess I'll never be interested in one of your games again". Heheh.

Disc being a pseudonym for Triple A big budget though. Does anybody really think discs have a long term future? They're already nigh extinct on PC.
 
I'm sorry but who cares what he thinks, this is the problem I have with the internet and social media.
Someone just has to be sort of famous and all of a sudden they become these all knowing guru's, leaders of industry that we need to know every bit of shite that comes spewing out there mouths.
 
I used to like Cliffy B. He just seems like he thinks his fartz smell wonderful now. He has been going around lately talking smack about his own game (Gears).
He acts like he didnt control the character creation in the games.
Digital game distribution is the future but it's not there yet. I hope he realizes that when he releases this future game he will be alienating some of his potential customers who dont have high speed internet at their homes. On a side note I love GoG!!! I cant use steam as I dont have broadband at my home. With GoG I can go to a friend or relatives house and purchase a game and bring it home on a flash drive. I can even buy a game at Starbucks on my android and bring it home to my desktop. Steam doesnt give you these abilitys.
 
On issue with digital sales is price. I believe that especially on console lots of gamers are willing to pay 60/70$ for a game because it has a resale value. Publishers would love to kill the second hand market but second hand market is also what enable lots of the enthusiasts to spend 60/70$ on brand new games, if there are a lots of second hand games available it is obviously because some people buy the games new in the first place... Selling a game funds partly the acquisition of a new one
had an interesting talk with Captain Obvious yesterday night :LOL:
For those prime buyers, digital purchases represent a significant loss in value.

Digital purchases are troublesome in various ways: 1) the price of the games has to go down or you have to enable resale of your games. 2) AAA games are big and downloading them is still an issue for lots of people.

For Cliff .B I think that by stating so I also imply moving away from huge, "monolithic", release of AAA games. From a creative pov I can understand how all the constrains surrounding AAA games can be seen as huge constrains: we speak about lots of money and the related risk management, there is not much room from risky bets. I think it also affect the nature of one's work, it turns into serious managerial job, crazy big teams, etc. It is legit for one to choose to move away from that environment, it is a personal choice.
 
He was one of the most vocal supporters of the xbone's previous policies, so he's being consistent with his previous statements..

I'm not ever going to purchase a non-retail PS4 (except for huge discounts on PSN and Plus) because I have friends I want to trade my games with, or I may want to sell those afterwards.
That makes me out of his target audience. Well, too bad. I'm not even bothered.


I agree that Cliffy B has become someone who thinks his farts smell wonderful.
He speaks and acts like he could change everyone's way of living and economic capabilities.
 
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