CliffyB, all grown up?

“Gears of War 2” lead designer Cliff Bleszinski no longer wants to be called “CliffyB,” a name he’s used since the 90s. It’s “time to grow up a bit,” he wrote in a quick note.

How do you make a game girlfriend-friendly?
You have very cool and bad-ass main characters that have a very human side. And you make sure that the female characters in your game don't have ginormous tits and aren't bad stereotypes. "If the sequence is overwhelming for your significant other, he or she can just sit behind cover, blind fire a little bit, and you can handle all the shenanigans," Bleszinski says.

A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, "yeah, I f*cked her." I know that sounds crude, but it's the honest-to-God truth. Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list -- you can say, "yeah, I played it." Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game.

You've got to have a thick skin. If I had a nickel for every time I was called a fag on the internet, I could retire. It's just the way the fans are sometimes; you do a good job and they'll hold you up in a chair and carry you through the streets. You screw up once and they'll be the first to tar and feather you, and that's the risk I take when I stick my neck out there.

And guys like this don't even realize how what they're saying might make some people uncomfortable. I know. I've worked with a few of them. No wonder women so few women want to work in the industry and so many leave after having to deal with guys like this. In any other industry, no company would stand to be represented in public by a person like this.