06,07,08 Dev121 news_final 23/09/2011 18:06 Page 1
ALPHA | NEWS
Editorial
STAR POWER THERE’S A moment, 721 words into our interview with him that Cliffy B makes an excellent, if contentious point. I won’t spoil it, but it’s the one about not being an awkward looking social misfit developer in order to make yourself famous, a ‘power creative’ as he calls it, just like him. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Who the hell does this good-looking guy think he is, with his 117,359 Twitter followers, personable nature, esteemed industry reputation, regular TV appearances, enviable CV of game credits, beautiful fiance and… oh.’ Exactly. No one says Cliffy B is perfect – first of all Cliff himself, just check out his anecdote about a tweet with the word ‘cum’ in it. But when it comes to an answer to the ‘How can we have games superstars akin to Hollywood superstars?’ people like him are the closest thing to a perfect answer. I was sat front row at GDC 2008 when he chainsawed his way through the scenery to unveil Gears of War 2. It was a preposterous moment, for any medium, let alone just games. Would George Lucas wave a toy lightsaber to unveil his next bit of Star Wars merchandise? Or JK Rowling cast fake spells with a wand when talking about a new Potter movie? Yet Bleszinski pulled it off. He and his games may not have appeal to everyone – one of his aliases is, after all, ‘Dude Huge’ – but Bleszinski has managed to not only court the media and build a reputation, he’s got form as a game designer and design director of note. As he says, he knows when to be PR, and when to be a person. Forget the jokes about appearance: that’s the unique skill that made him famous. And one you’ll want to learn yourself as developers become more connected to their audience. Michael French michael.french@intentmedia.co.uk
06 | OCTOBER 2011
The gears With Gears of War concluded, Will Freeman asks Cliffy B what other developers can do to become a games dev superstar Cliff Bleszinski is the game development celebrity incarnate. He has famously devoted Twitter following, and is mobbed by fans wherever he goes. By his own confession he is a brand almost as much as his recently completed Gears of War series, and as a result he has enjoyed a very successful career. So how can you do the same? Develop asks the man himself. When you spoke at GDC this year you talked about presenting yourself as a brand. Should all developers aspire to become one? I’ve found that the talk was well received. I was able to – I hate to reuse this term because it sounds so cheesy, and it’s from 30 Rock’s Tracy Jordan I believe –’drop truth bombs on your ass’. It was just a lot of things on my chest that I believe not a lot a lot of developers really have it in them to say, or the capacity or the ability. The funny thing was that when I said I’ve never met a Rockstar employee in that talk, shortly after that I got an email from Sam Houser saying ‘anytime you’re in New York lets have dinner’. I said ‘sure man, but who built your games? I’d love to meet them too’. This is why if a developer Tweets me and I can check them out and really see that they’re legit, I will follow them and we’ll have back and forth interactions. Not only because I’m an advocate of developers, but because its also a nice recruiting tactic. I go from being that guy who does all the interviews and talks to becoming a real person and we can actually work together and be creative together. Developers by nature were the ones at the back of the class drawing in their pad, and not the ones going to parties and things like that, so they have a hard time of putting themselves out there. Its not always easy for the majority of them, but the best thing you can do for your career is to be an actual name as opposed to just, and I hate to say it, a gear in the machine. In terms of becoming a brand, what advice would you give to the new school of indie developers? With Notch, a lot of the news from Minecraft comes directly from his Twitter account. He and I have a playful banter back and forth on there which is great because he’s a cool guy and helps gives me indie cred to talk to him and know that the first PC game I bought in years was Minecraft. But look at him, he’s got over 300,000 followers and he has the hat. Clearly the guy
gets a certain amount of the branding right, he’s got the cool nickname, he’s got the hat he wears everywhere. You spot him and know what he looks like. He’s an example like John Blow. I know who these guys are more so than others. I mean, I’ve had developers send me their resumes who worked on triple-A titles and I’m like: ‘I’ve worked in this industry for 20 years and I’ve never met you?’ They say ‘Oh, I never got to go to GDC or anything like that’ and I’m like: ‘Yeah. That’s probably by design, or people aren’t getting paid what they’re worth’. Now you only see agencies getting involved to make sure that developers do get paid well because by and large, those who are creative will always have the money surgically removed from them by those who are business people. And what about those indies that have the potential to be in that position in a couple of years time, or a few months? Well, first you have to make great games. If Gears of War 3 was getting horrible reviews then suddenly next year, if we’re working on something, nobody would want to talk. It’s just the truth of the matter. You go into what is the games equivalent of movie jail. First and foremost, make a great game but also have a personality. Be the guy with the hip glasses, with the one gauge earring and the gamer tattoo all the way to the sleeves with a skateboard. Stand out. Don’t be a developer archetype: There’s the big chubby guy with the beard. There’s the super skinny guy with the glasses.