Cliff Bleszinski has departed Epic Games, but he’s never really departed the spotlight of the industry, giving interviews and having a presence of industry events. If there’s a reason why he hasn’t started his own studio already, it’s because he sees the industry in a state of flux right now.

“This business has not been in a state of transition like it is right now since the video game crash of the ’80s,” Bleszinski said. “I really think we’re in a massive state of turmoil. I think Nintendo could possibly be faced with the situation of becoming a company that only makes software moving forward. I think Sony and Microsoft are about to come to major blows. But at the same time, people love playing games on their iPad. The PC is going through a wonderful renaissance right now. I think we’re ready to do digital download games all the time…I just want to see what happens. In regards to the industry, it’s like the Super Smash Bros. of business right now, and I want to see if Peach or Mario wins.”

Bleszinski thinks that console owners need to make their platforms more open than in the past. “When Gears of War 2 launched and we found out that our netcode wasn’t working right, it took us three months to get an update out,” Bleszinski said. “By that time, the majority of users had moved on to the next game or had traded it in. If Microsoft and Sony are to do well in this next generation, they are going to need to reduce that time as much as possible, as well as continue to enable user-supported mods, independent games, and really just get rid of the wall that makes it incredibly hard to find those products, even if they’re allowed on the console… All that red tape needs to be stripped away in order to create an ecosystem to allow for a product like Minecraft to actually happen on a console.”

Bleszinski will be giving the keynote at the 2013 East Coast Games Conference, where he says he’ll reflect on the past of games rather than look to the future. “It’s about what videogames mean to me,” Bleszinski said. “Ultimately, I want to take people on a journey through my 38 years of growing up playing games since the age of 6 when I first saw Space Invaders. And how throughout every major milestone of my life, video games have been there for me in a very positive way, and hopefully reminding people that this is a very wonderful medium. And to be frank, I’m kinda tired of it being challenged as some sort of demonic thing in pop culture.”

Source: GamesIndustry International