Cliff Bleszinski Thinks His Own “Woke” Politics Contributed to LawBreakers’ Failure

Video game designer Cliff Bleszinski is weirdly blaming “woke” politics for his Lawbreakers game’s failure. Lawbreakers is evidence that even good games can sell poorly. Despite its plethora of positive reviews both from critics and players, it managed to launch with player counts lower than even Gearbox’s failed hero shooter/MOBA hybrid Battleborn. While Lawbreakers and Battleborn are both perfectly good games, they failed for many of the same reasons – competition from Overwatch, PUBG, and (later) Fortnite.

Cliff Bleszinski, best known for his role in creating Gears of War and Unreal, is the co-founder of Boss Key Productions, which developed Lawbreakers. Following the game’s release, he responded to a Lawbreakers fan who wanted a refund with a strange screed about how he will never make a another video game again. “I get you’re sad, but god, this kinda sh*t is another reason I am NEVER making another game,” he told the fan in a deleted 2018 tweet. He later announced that Boss Key was shutting down. But that doesn’t mean Bleszinski has stopped sharing his opinion with the many fans who are still genuinely interested in what he has to say.

In a recent Instagram post, Bleszinski reflected on what went wrong with Lawbreakers. Was it the stiff competition presented by similar, already-established competitor games and its inability to find an audience despite excellent gameplay and frequent updates? No, he says. It was his own desire to push his “woke” politics into a game he now thinks shouldn’t have been marketed with that in mind:

“One big epiphany I had was that I pushed my own personal political beliefs in a world that was increasingly divided.

Instead of the story being “this game looks neat” it became “this is the game with the ‘woke bro’ trying to push his hackey politics on us with gender neutral bathrooms.” Instead of “these characters seem fun” it was “this is the studio with the CEO who refuses to make his female characters sexier.” Instead of “who am I going to choose” it became “white dude shoehorns diversity in his game and then smells his own smug farts in interviews” instead of just letting the product … speak for itself.”

Bleszinski adds that it’s OK to be political “when your company or studio is established” but not for newer studios. While many are having trouble locating the gender-neutral bathrooms he mentioned, they exist as one can see if they look carefully at some of the bathroom signs in the game.

It’s unclear why he thinks female characters in the game weren’t “sexy” enough, but he responded to criticism of his remarks with a defense on Twitter. According to Bleszinski, the Instagram post that blamed his inclusion of “woke” politics for the game’s failure wasn’t meant to place blame on the inclusion of “woke” politics. It was just one of many other factors he didn’t bother mentioning that caused the game to fail, he says before pivoting to “gender-neutral bathrooms” again. “When the news stories about your game are that it has gender-neutral bathrooms you’re doing it wrong,” he says. “If one wants to put that stuff in their game, fine, just don’t brag about it online and to the media. That was a mistake, and this is me owning it.”

Lawbreakers‘ gender-neutral bathrooms are a tiny part of the game that aren’t the reason Lawbreakers failed. This game was a victim of circumstance rather than bad gameplay or even “woke politics.” Bleszinski may be right that it was a mistake to brag about gender-neutral bathrooms in the game, as he could have used interview time to talk about how exciting the characters or gameplay were – statements that would have been true. But games don’t fail based on politics alone. Every game, in some way or another, is political. Lawbreakers was a well-baked cake with spectacular ingredients that somehow fell on the floor regardless, and it seems even Bleszinski himself still isn’t sure exactly why.

Source: Instagram/Twitter

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John Prager
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John Prager is a lifelong gamer who is practically obsessed with RPGs, though he can be found playing Overwatch and other games on occasion. Once a member of the PC Master Race, his preference has shifted to consoles over the years. He has completely destroyed four Xbox Elite controllers through overuse (and one in a fit of healer rage). John has been writing for more than a decade and spends most of his free time with a controller in hand and a cup of coffee nearby.

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