Control Freak cover art

Control Freak

My Epic Adventure Making Video Games

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Control Freak

By: Cliff Bleszinski
Narrated by: Kurt Kanazawa
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About this listen

 The designer of Unreal and Gears of War offers an eye-opening personal account of the video game industry as it grew from niche hobby to hundred-billion-dollar enterprise.

Video games are dominating the planet. In 2020, they brought in $180 billion dollars globally—nearly $34 billion in the United States alone. So who are the brilliant designers who create these stunning virtual worlds? Cliff Bleszinski—or CliffyB as he is known to gamers—is one of the few who’ve reached mythical, rock star status. In Control Freak, he gives an unvarnished, all-access tour of the business.

Toiling away in his bedroom, Bleszinski created and shipped his first game before graduating high school, and at just seventeen joined a fledgling company called Epic Games. He describes the grueling hours, obscene amounts of Mountain Dew and obsessive focus necessary to achieve his singular creative visions. He details Epic’s rise to industry leader, thanks largely to his work on bestselling franchises Unreal and Gears of War (and, later, his input on a little game called Fortnite), as well as his own awkward ascent from shy, acne-riddled introvert to sports car-driving celebrity rubbing shoulders with Bill Gates. As he writes, “No one is weirder than a nerd with money.” While the book is laced with such self-deprecating humor, Bleszinski also bluntly addresses the challenges that have long-faced the gaming community, including sexism and a lack of representation among both designers and the characters they create.

Control Freak is a hilarious, thoughtful, and inspiring memoir. Even if you don’t play games, you’ll walk away from this book recognizing them as a true art form and appreciating the genius of their creators. Entertainment & Celebrities Celebrity Video Game Game Funny Witty War Epic Games

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Cliff blizinski, probably best known for his involvement with the development on huge fps franchises like unreal and unreal tournament gives a guided tour on the inner workings of the video game industry. Sharing his personal highs and lows, the struggles developers face with developing new game franchises and the inherent workload, frustrations and successes that follow.

This book is a wild tale of a rockstar video game designer coming to terms with his ambitions and how these affected his personal life and ultimately the hows and why’s of (maybe) the demise of bosskey, Cliffs own game development studio, which closed its doors in 2018.

An Industry legend pulls back the mystery curtain on video game development.

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amazing insight into cliffy b & gears of war & so much more thankyou 🙏

amazing

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A great listening for a great creator from a great narrator. Whoever was a gamer in the 90s-00s is a must read from jazz jackrabbit to gears to failures like radical heights , Cliffs journey is a hell of a ride , thank you.

Great in every way

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captivating, thoroughly enjoyed the life of Cliff .was quite sad at the end.lets you see what is like to be financially successful.

really enjoyed

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As a huge fan of the Gears Of War series I enjoyed the background into the making of the series as well as an insight into one of the most recognisable names in the gaming space, the honesty throughout was greatly appreciated as it wasn't just a biography of how perfect and great his life was the genuine ups and downs where interesting to learn about.

My only gripe with the audio book is that a book about "the Gears Of War guy" should at least get the names of characters from the series correct, on more than one occasion where main characters important to the series referred to as incorrect names as well as unusual pronunciation of other common words and phrases and this just bothered me and took me out of the book for a few seconds each time.

A really cool insight

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