Yesterday he confirmed to me that he is dropping the old nickname.

It's "time to grow up a bit," he wrote in a quick note. The name may have suited a 20-something Cliffy B who used to make work on "Unreal Tournament" games and run a website featuring cats sandwiched in copy machines.

Cliff Bleszinski, however, is an early 30s developer at the top of his game. He and his team are working on getting "Gears 2" done for the fall and they're well past nicknames -- at least any they want to be known by publicly.

And that, fellow gamers, means it's time to learn how to spell Bleszinski.