Control Freak
My Epic Adventure Making Video Games
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Control Freak
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Narrated by:
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Kurt Kanazawa
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By:
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Cliff Bleszinski
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 17 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 best-selling 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.
©2022 Huge Tank, Inc. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about Control Freak
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Zisis Paraskevaidis
- 29-01-23
Great in every way
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.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Chris M
- 29-07-24
A really cool insight
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.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 05-01-23
An Industry legend pulls back the mystery curtain on video game development.
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.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 25-03-23
amazing
amazing insight into cliffy b & gears of war & so much more thankyou 🙏
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Martin Malmer
- 01-09-24
Relatable and nostalgic
Having grown up with Mario, Zelda, Jazz Jackrabbit, Doom, Quake, UT, The Crow, and basically every other thing of Cliffy's earlier years, and also ending up in game dev (albeit without the FU money), this is a relatable nostalgia trip of passion struggles, and keeping at it. This was a great listen. Thank you for sharing!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Hedgehog
- 16-04-23
MEH!
feel he is taking a lot of the credit for the games he contributed to designing and not enough credit to the coders making it happen.
Was hoping for more insight into game design opposed to his self soul searching. also do people really say F*** Dude quite so often?? seems to be said in every interaction he has.
To sum up its not Masters of Doom.. and other than having a few lucky breaks with his FPS games i suspect it was the power of the Unreal game engine that made them popular. Tim Sweeney and the team that created and coded the Unreal game engine deserve the credit.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 26-03-24
Very flat stories in game design part
Expected to hear more about game design but it was more about his personal relationship he had with people
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1 person found this helpful