Former Gears of War guy Cliff Bleszinski didn't have much to say about his return to game development beyond the fact that he's doing it with a free-to-play arena shooter called BlueStreak . But yesterday he took to Reddit for an AMA in which he touched on topics ranging from how he'll handle the "pay to win" challenge to how he ended up in a publishing deal with the company behind Maple Story.
There's one thing you really can't deny about CliffyB: He's an entertaining guy. So even though the Reddit AMA doesn't say a lot about BlueStreak—probably because there's not a whole lot to say at this early juncture—it's still a good one, and well worth a few minutes of your time.
On microtransactions in BlueStreak: "Honest answer: I'm not sure, and it's entirely too easy to tell or make the call. Free to Play is one of those genres that means something entirely different depending on the game. For every model that feels like Las Vegas methods (Zynga, Candy Crush) there's folks who do it right, like League of Legends, or WarFrame," he said. "So we'll experiment, tweak, tune, and most importantly, build a positive community around the game as we develop it."
On the risks of "pay to win": "I'm DETERMINED to not do Pay To Win. Since this game is a shooter I want that one player who likes the game and doesn't feel like spending any money to be able to take down the trust fund kid that's spent a ton of money to have All The Stuff."
On why he returned to game development: "I need to get out of the house. When my wife [and I] are at dinner I ask 'how was your day' and she says 'YOU WERE THERE' and I'm like okay I'll go back to my chicken now."
He talks about a great many other things as well, some related to the game business and others more personal, and even says something about his dog that kind of got me right here . There is insight into BlueStreak to be had, but more than that it's an interesting look at an interesting guy. Check it out at Reddit .
