Control Freak

My Epic Adventure Making Video Games

By: Cliff Bleszinski

Narrated by: Kurt Kanazawa

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.

Loved it!

This brought back so many memories from my younger years. I grew up on Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 and always held CliffyB in high regard. Loved learning about the origins of Gears of War and everything else Epic worked on. CliffyB is a legend!

The book has me wanting to fire up the ole gamespy browser and load up a CTF-Face3 low gravity instagib server. Those were the days…

Openess

Nothing, I felt personally connected to Cliffy B throughout the entire book. A real gamer the man has shown me the stories that can be told through video games and ultimately is why I fell in love with them in the first place. Brothers Til’ the End 💜

excellent look into Cliffs life

I loved every moment of this book! Well written, Cliff has earned every bit of cred he's gotten.

Forget what you know

Browsing the internet, you’ll likely come across this famed video game designer. You might have even rallied against him even though you don’t have the slightest clue what he had to go to go through to become the icon he is today. What I learned from Cliff’s book is that we are often blind to this side of the industry, the people who work in it and we let knee jerk reactions get the best of us. What I learned from this book was nothing that the internet told me about him.

Some of the stories in Cliff’s life had me in tears because I too lost my father at a young age. I also survived the toxic zone that is the internet as a young teen. The book shows a glimpse at what you never see and it’s an interesting story if you’re interested. The book also had me weeping for a kid who had no control over his life and little to no support climbing to his current status. I urge those who hold some unjust opinion about this designer, to give this book a chance. It might change your thoughts on the industry and the man who made the video games we hold dear to our hearts.

CliffyB is a Legend as is his Tome

Cliff Bleszinski tells a fantastic story in this autobiography about his growing up as a young gamer, the personal struggles he had, and how he went from making no budget computer games to becoming the head designer for huge game franchises like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. I would have absolutely loved if he narrated the story himself, but Kurt does a very fine job in nailing the style and mannerisms of Cliff and offers an engaging performance. Unreal Tournament in particular was a very important game in my life as it introduced me to competitive online shooters in a big way, that led to numerous other games for me such as Counter Strike, Halo, Call of Duty, Starsiege Tribes, MAG, etc.