Former Epic Games design director to give "storytime" address at March gaming convention; Saturday, three-day passes sold out.
Cliff Bleszinski will give the keynote "storytime" address at PAX East 2013. Penny Arcade's Jerry "Tycho" Holkins announced the news, saying the former Epic Games design director has "seen a lot of sh*t and is in a very good position to handle this format."
Last year's PAX East keynote speaker was Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner. PAX East comes to Boston, Massachusetts, March 22-24 this year. Saturday and three-day passes are entirely sold out.
Bleszinski left Epic Games in October after 20 years. Since leaving the company, Bleszinski has visited the offices of Activision, Zynga, Double Fine, and Electronic Arts. He has also met with God of War and Twisted Metal designer David Jaffe and has been courted by Ubisoft.
In a December interview, Bleszinski said he intends to eventually open a new studio and get to work on a new intellectual property codenamed "Silverstreak." The longtime Gears of War designer explained that he wants to redefine his career, saying, "I don't really want just the whole chainsaw gun to be my legacy."
In addition to announcing Bleszinski as the PAX East keynote speaker, Holkins revealed the concert schedule for the now-annual event. Friday's lineup includes the Video Game Orchestra, Those Who Fight, and Protomen, while Saturday's schedule features Sam Hart, Frontalot, Jonathan Coulton, and Paul and Storm.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
:lol: Haters goin' keep on hatin'. Gears of War games are fantastic and I always enjoy hearing what he has to say. I'm also very much interested in seeing what he comes up with next. He also seems to really enjoy gaming and playing a bunch of different games to which I like to read his opinions on. I'd flip to see him work in some capacity with Capcom or Konami on franchises like Resident Evil or Contra.
1 Like Cliff has contributed a LOT to the industry, but sometimes following his twitter makes me wonder if his #1 goal in life is to try and remind everyone how awesome he is. Bragging to the community you drive a 350,000 italian sports car and constant talking about your supermodel wife doesn't really do anything but further alienate him from the gaming community.
3 Like He's so in love with himself. Does this guy ever shutup. Why do we never hear from the great developers Kojima, Todd Howard, etc but this mofo gets all the interviews.
2 Like @TheSnowmanSaint When he starts talking about his "legacy" its easy to dislike him. He made one good franchise in Unreal. Congratulations. What separates him from rockstar devs, ubisoft devs, todd howard, newt, kojima, miyamoto, etc?
Some of his latter comments last year left me with the Impression that he talks equal amounts of sense to nonsense. However, he Is very ambitious, I will give him that. He's had a taste of decent money from his success at Epic & he's aiming big. For a big bank balance that Is.
2 Like Since when does a grade-schooler that passed for an adult cloning his own very-ordinary shooters and calling them sequels giving a key note to anything but a pencil-maker convention??
3 Like He should just go run the EA public relations dept he sure talks enough garbage to do the job well.
8 Like geeez, lot of trolls on this page, I think CliffyB is one of the finest devs we've got in the industry and I'm excited to see what he does next.
Agreed. He actually left EPIC when they decided to make GOW Judgement. He wanted GOW3 to be the last one for a few years, so he could start working on something new and less generic. But when he found out about Judgement he quit, and fair play to him I say. He didn't want to see the GOW franchise being whored out on a yearly basis like COD, and decided not to be a part of that.
Interested to see what he'll be able to come up with in the future when he is his own boss.
@Shingetsu @Aletunda So why didnt he stay for fortnite? He could have worked on a number of projects, why didn't he switch? He left because he wanted a break.
So he's giving a speech on storytelling? Not the first person I would have thought of, but more power to him.
1 Like Wha? ....wait this dude still around?.......after the Fails called Gears 2 and 3?
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1 Like I've read this same article like a million times with slight variations to it. "Cliff is interviewing with Activision! He left epic blah blah blah" No one even knows how much Cliff Bleszinski even contributed to the games Epic has released. For all we know he just brought everyone coffee and rode the wave of success and functioned as a face for the company.
2 Like Not really interested to hear from him. Gears is akin to Transformers. Fun to watch, but ultimately disappointing.
@BlueRaptor7 well, just giving you added info that he innovated multiplayer and singleplayer fps (Unreal 7 & UT). So, Gears was just an afterthought for him.
1 Like DISLOYAL!! A company you helped build from almost nothing! You don't have any shares in your own company or what??... On my resume it says LOYAL I really hope yours doesn't. You should hire me epic, I won't be so into myself.
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Former Epic Games design director says situation bleakest since '80s crash, claims Nintendo could become software-only company.
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