Jess Cliffe
American video game designer
Jess A. Cliffe (born June 27, 1981) is a video game designer who co-created the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike with Minh Le and started the Counter-Strike series. In the first entry of the series, he is the voice of the radio commands, the voiceline "Counter-Terrorists Win!" and various sound effects. He has worked on maps for Half-Life: Deathmatch.
01Education
He attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1999 to 2003.
02Career
Before getting involved with the original Counter-Strike, Jess Cliffe was a very active gaming website designer. The earliest known gaming website he founded was Jedi Knight Multiplayer Addon Group (JKMAG) which he founded in December 1997. After around a year of maintaining the website, he moved on to start the website Action Quake2 Map Depot. It was during the time he was involved with this site that he got to know Marcelo Dilay and Minh Le, as Dilay and Le were part of the team developing Action Quake 2. Around January 1999, Cliffe also founded the website Silo X devoted to Half-Life maps.
After graduating, Cliffe took a job with Valve, where he was employed as a game designer, 3D artist and level designer. However, he was suspended from Valve in early 2018 due to being arrested.
03Legal history
In February 2018, Cliffe was arrested in Seattle on allegations of sexually exploiting a minor after meeting a 16-year-old girl through an adult website. He claimed he believed she was an adult and denied videotaping their encounter, which the girl alleged occurred against her will. Cliffe later wrote on Reddit that he ultimately entered an Alford plea to a reduced charge of second-degree assault and served 57 days in a minimum-security facility; he also stated he was innocent, and that he was a victim of catfishing.
04Works
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Counter-Strike | Game designer |
| 2004 | Counter-Strike: Source | Game designer |
| 2004 | Half-Life 2: Deathmatch | Level designer |
| 2005 | Day of Defeat: Source | Level designer |
| 2007 | Half-Life 2: Episode Two | Level designer |
| 2007 | Team Fortress 2 | Level designer |
| 2008 | Left 4 Dead | Level designer |
| 2009 | Left 4 Dead 2 | Level designer |
| 2010 | Alien Swarm | Level designer |
| 2011 | Portal 2 | Level designer |
| 2012 | Counter-Strike: Global Offensive | Level designer |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Jess Cliffe”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Jess Cliffe 2017.png by Valve Corporation, CC BY 3.0
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.