Control Freak by Cliff Bleszinski

Author:Cliff Bleszinski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I traveled to Redmond, Washington, to pitch the game, hell, the entire intellectual property, to Microsoft. I downed a couple of vodka cranberries at the bar to quell my nerves and slept surprisingly well. In the morning, I did as many push-ups as I could while listening to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” the classic pregame, get-pumped song. I traded emails with Emily, who said she knew I was going to kill it, and stepped into my meeting attire: Affliction shirt, designer jeans, bracelets and cuffs on my wrist.

An hour later, I walked into the conference room to the desired effect, like a young Keith Richards, edgy, cool, and about to preview for them Exile on Main St. Our partnership was already a sure thing, as was our partnership on Gears, and I needn’t have been as nervous as I made myself, but I wanted to make up for the way I’d embarrassed myself the last time I was in front of this group.

Once the Microsoft team took their places around the table, a calm came over me when I saw an unexpectedly familiar face. He didn’t know me, but two-thirds of the way down the long conference room table sat Howard Phillips, the bow-tied guru of all things Nintendo, whom I worshipped when I was growing up. He was consulting for Microsoft. I felt my childhood rushing into the present. It was perfect. Like this was all meant to be. Excitement and congratulations followed. I returned to Raleigh having attained a new personal best.

Game development is fluid, organic, mysterious, constant, and collaborative. It involves many people working simultaneously, often independently, before coming together to share their creations and figure out how to stitch it all together in a way that grips and dazzles and demands repeated play. So much was happening at the same time. I was head cheerleader as much as lead designer. I had the art department create propaganda posters that I posted all over the office. “Imulsion—The New Gold Rush!” and “Join the Coalition!”

I kept scratching my head on ways to differentiate Gears from the juggernaut that was Halo, including the just-released Halo 2 in November. One of the features I kept returning to was the idea that our enemies would be from the planet’s underground instead of space aliens. The name Wyrm came to me. One of Tim’s genius young programmers was the first person I ran into after selling myself on this must-have idea. I pitched it to him, and he shrugged with that standard indifference I’d seen a million times from stoic coders.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why are they underground?”

“Because they are,” I said.

“How’d they get there?” he asked.

How come he didn’t get it? Typical coder. Flustered and frustrated, I took a step back before putting on a shit-eating grin.

“That’s just part of the fucking mystery,” I said.

I could have explained further. DOOM 3 had come out months earlier and was maligned for having what were called “monster closets.” Basically, every

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