Godus - Peter Molyneux under fire

No references to Wasteland. I would strongly recommend you actually read the the entire interview carefully. There's a lot in there because it lasted over an hour. I'd also suggest reading Rich Stanton's opinion piece on Eurogamer, it includes an interesting insight of Peter Molyneux exaggerating [to Rich Stanton, then a reviewer] about features in Fable 2 just before the game launched. Not a case where features where cut from development, but where they were never in there to start with.

You say "deserve this" like he's being unfairly treated. While the RPS interview certainly was blunt, they weren't throwing accusations at him, they were presenting him with his own statements and claims. I personally have no problem for someone who freely put themselves in front of the press to make money to then to held account by that same press. The guy took people's money on Kickstarter and he admitted he knew he couldn't deliver the game on that budget but nonetheless he promised pledge rewards that would never be possible.

Huge AAA games manage to do this: Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted, The Last of Us. As do AA games like Shadow of Mordor, Infamous Second Son, Metro Redux and Far Cry 4. But some games do sometimes need to change during development. Sometimes development is extended and misses the target launch, sometimes features get dropped or changed, sometimes it's a bit of both.

What developers generally don't do is start developing games where they know the funding is insufficient (Godus) at inception or make promises about game features being present in virtually complete games when they aren't complete and there's obviously no time to add them (Fable 2). It's Molyneux's consistent failures over many years that single him out.

Again, the difference is the occasional diversion from the original vision and making a career out of doing it.

 

I just happened to come across this little article, which I thought was funny (also a bit now in the light of Crossy Road)

https://archive.org/stream/ace-magazine-48/ACE_Issue_48_1991_Sep#page/n85/mode/2up

 

I can't believe how stupid and naive PM comes across during this interview...everything he said is basically a lie, immediately disproved by the journalist (kudos to him for being so well prepared!)...this guy has already lost the overview about when he lies and when he is not. Even that he agrees to do this interview...I just can't wrap my head around it.

It reminds me of corrupt politics who don't even understand why people are mad at them when it is discovered that they are corrupt - total loss of reality imo.

I hope that this is a starting point for more interviews like this, which is imo desperately needed in the gaming world...next up: DICE and BF.

 

i just read the RPS interview... why the heck his voice is yelling in my head while peter's voice is as calm as he usually is O_O
is that because of the writing style and how the question was asked...

EDIT:
it seems this whole fiasco can be evaded by simply hiring PR guy and stopping molly doing PR stuff...

Heck, even bungie who only "hinted" some stuff on Destiny already get lambasted on the internet by forums, blogs, gaming web, etc. Watch Dogs with graphic downgrade also got fire on internet.

Molly is like... a whole another level... he leaked the whole "dream" of the game to public.

Those that knows Moly will knows that the dream he announce wont be the same with the final game. But the general public wont know that. Moly need to clearly state that its a dream, a vision.

EDIT:
for some reason, the interview makes me remember a quote

"people will hate the delays, but they will forget all of that when the awesome game is finally released" or something like that and.. "releasing development info into public is a pandora box. much better being secret"

EDIT:
the way peter keep asking rps to come to 22cans... why it sounded so eery? sounds like 22cans will zap RPS's memory or something (MIB style)

 

Well Molyneux seems to be a pathological liar, to the point he doesn't even realise it himself.
He sold something on kickstarter, a game with features and a release date, but failed to deliver, and doesn't want to be responsible of it and refund people as he should, which is made even worse by him saying that he knew he wouldn't deliver in time... Shouldn't people automatically get a refund after that ?

 

His dishonesty does indeed seem to have a degree of compulsiveness to it, like he can't help himself. Not that this is much of an excuse, really; although he should know himself well enough by now to not put himself in these kind of situations where he knows he'll end up lying to the press and public, I have to assume that his sociopathic sense of self-aggrandizement can't be satisfied any other way.

 

yeah, there;s sould be responsibility. When destiny got delayed, Bungie penalty was "did not get the bonus" or something like that from the Activision-Bungie contract. Godus?

 

About the competition winner.
The way he's worded it, "he will receive royalties for the duration of his reign as god of gods, which could be 6 months" (originally he said 5-10 years)
Depending on how the game is programed, the first day god of gods goes live he could be challenged lose the title and receive nothing.

 

Ugh, 53%... I just booted it up to see where things stood, and I am greeted by a new tutorial yet again, but now with Peter telling me about things they are working on. Sculpting, he says don't over sculpt - well great, because this more than any game really hurts my hands. LOL

I bought the game pretty early, and it at times it was charming. My son used to like to play it, but a few builds back he lost all interest.

I like when they asked Peter if he was a pathological lier, I think the right term would have been over-promiser/over-dreamer. I think the hints have always been in front of us, he makes "God" games. Ha!

I hope 22cans will finish Godus, I paid for more than 53% I think. I guess based on his ability to slightly finish big AAA games, that this would be further along.

 

I would pay £40 for a modern remake of the original Populous, obviously with some of the features of Populous II like roads and walls. Ditto Powermonger.

 

Me too! In a heartbeat. In fact, that's what I expected Godus to be. "How could Moly possibly fuck this up", I thought. He was part of making the original game in the first place for chrissakes.

Make it like Populous, but with modern graphics and maybe a few new bells and whistles, but basically like the original because that was good enough, and simplicity was a big part of what made it both intricate and great. KISS, ya know?

So what the hell went wrong? I'm at a loss. Even if they didn't have enough money for an advanced multiplayer lobby or whatnot, at least the core game, the really important bit, Should Be There. How much did the original Popu cost to develop - in today's money? Can't exactly have been millions...

 

I remember spring of 95 reading the newest copy of PC Gamer and their big cover story was a long piece on all the upcoming Bullfrog games. So you can imagine where I'm going with this. The most exciting one was the Indestructibles, Bullfrog's super-hero 3D game with a fully realized destructible city. Create a Superman-ish hero and push buildings over, watching the ensuing destruction as a skyscraper comes smashing down. Years later one of Bullfrog's former programmers talked about how it was all lies, Molyneux made it all up and that no engine or PC hardware could handle what he was describing (and he was doing so emphatically stating this is what he was seeing out of the latest build back in the office, not hypothetical wishing).

I wanted that game so badly, and it has yet to be made by anyone.

 

Rampage on PS1 plays a bit like that.

 

Just Populous II would be fine. I played it again recently - it's very easy to play on an Atari ST emulator now, like STeem. It still looks good even full-screen, but there are some aspects of the way the levels build up that could be improved I think, and you could do some fun things. Still fun today though.

The iOS version is not a big failure though - I think it could easily be as good at least as the original Populous II, but it's surprising that it takes them this long and that conflict takes so long as well. They should just have an option where you buy the game, no microtransactions needed. But I haven't played it enough yet to give a good verdict on it.

 

Someone pointed me to this the other day:



I expect many of you have already seen it but I thought it was quite amussing and rather interesting as I haven't played or been interested in a Molyneix game since Black or White.