• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Tim Schafer defends Peter Molyneux.

Well that's one way to describe dismissiveness.

You are projecting your arguments over an opinion that has nothing to do with them. I already told you and others you were right, three times now I think in this thread.

This isn't an argument about being right, anyone with a sliver of common sense can tell immediately that Molyneux is on the wrong for his actions, or lack thereof according to his promises.

This is an argument about tone and overblowing negative attitudes and your only defence, and some other guy's/girl's, is to show an overblown negative attitude and be dismissive.

I still agree with your arguments, Molyneux did break a lot of promises and yes he has not fulfilled his project's goals, nor his agreement with the winner of Curiosity nor many past claims like the things you'd be able to do in Fable, Project Milo, Fable: the Journey, etc etc. I am not blind or ignorant to any of those things and I agree with you that it was and is wrong of him to do it repeatedly.

I'm not defending any of those things.

The only thing I'm defending is the tone and aggressiveness of the criticism. He is a passionate games developer that failed to meet many of his promises, not a terrorist to the gaming industry.

If you insist on remaining tone-deaf to that, then I truly have nothing more to say to you.

I understand man. I apologize for being dickish. I still disagree and feel the response amongst the majority of the press has been completely justified.
Jim Sterling's latest Jimquisition has pretty accurately described how I feel.
AND WITH THAT I'M GOING BACK TO MONSTER HUNTER.
 

CHC

Member
At this point they might as well get Warren Spector and John Romero to chime in. I'm sure Tim Schafer is a cool guy, but Double Fine is a half-baked idea factory.
 
I understand man. I apologize for being dickish. I still disagree and feel the response amongst the majority of the press has been completely justified.
Jim Sterling's latest Jimquisition has pretty accurately described how I feel.
AND WITH THAT I'M GOING BACK TO MONSTER HUNTER.

If the latest Jimquisition accurately describes how you feel, then you should accurately try to display a bit more tact when discussing the matter, like Jim did.

I hope Gore Magala whoops your ass.
 
accountability????????????????

What does accountability have to do with what I was saying?

I'll repeat the point. It's one thing to call out Peter on his bullshit. He deserved that. The problem is that it did not stop there. At some point this stops being criticism and it becomes a vendetta.

Btw I think you missed a question mark there.
 
Not gonna say I'm surprised at the ad hominems towards Tim Schafer.

If Tim Schafer is equivalent to Peter Molyneux as a con man, I guess every delayed game's developer is a con man too.
 

JDSN

Banned
Amazing how Peter played this game, the feeble whimsical persona served as an excuse for his negligent disorganized self. Of course Schafer is gonna project some of his own traits and controversies on him.
 
Here's the thing about Molyneux and Schafer. Both of these guys were parts of really good teams 20 years ago, that made great games, 20 years ago, but because of this they got jumped up to positions they are obviously ill suited for (creative directory, ceo, business manager, producer, whatever they do these days) and because they worked on a few legendary games, 20 years ago, some segment of gamers will give them a continue free pass.

This has been my problem with a lot of KS games. They were pitched by people who left the industry for over 20 years, or simply hadn't done anything noteworthy for 20 years and people gave in with their nostalgia, not understanding that software and game development have radically changed since the 1990s. You can't make a AAA game on the strength of one person's ideas anymore no matter who that person is, but you can sink a lot of time and money if one domineering personality has too much control over a project and not enough ability to realize when they're fucking up.

Guys like Schafer and Molyneux got coddle for far too long and no one is willing to tell them that they keep fucking up OR they have their heads so far up their own asses that it won't matter.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Eh....barring nothing else, there was a stretch goal for linux...and there isn't currently a way to make linux happen.

The artbook/documentary....is in limbo.

There's other stuff that isn't adding up on Godus, and it's not like this was an unknown dev.

It's a little bit of throwing gas onto a fire, but Molyneux isn't some helpless victim, either.

Wasteland 2, for example, got delayed, sure, but Fargo and his team seem to have delivered on relatively reasonable terms, and were transparent throughout the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Broken Age got shipped with half of the game done (I know there are reasons, that Schafer was pretty transparent about it, and that the 2nd half is coming), and Godus looks even worse.
 
What does accountability have to do with what I was saying?

I'll repeat the point. It's one thing to call out Peter on his bullshit. He deserved that. The problem is that it did not stop there. At some point this stops being criticism and it becomes a vendetta.

Btw I think you missed a question mark there.

Question what vandetta was there again ?

1 interview with RPS and then.... what happenned ?
I saw nothing different than what was before

All i saw was . 1 eurogamer article about curiosity , 1 RPS article about molyneux and then 1 interview by RPS of molyneux ( that happenned because of the first article ) ..

WHERE THE HECK is the vandetta ?

1 interview != vandetta

Meanwhile everyone across the net did react to the RPS interview and that's it Molyneux lied ...news at 11 .. did something else happenned to make it a VANDETTA ?
 
The man is either a con artist or incompetent at this point, honestly. Since he wanted his money from the public this time, the public are going to be the ones to hold him accountable, and sometimes that doesn't mean being polite.
 

Conezays

Member
Well I'm not well-versed enough in Molyneux's history to completely side one way or another, I have personally been pretty disappointed with what's been going on with Broken Age. A fairly disappointing Act 1 IMO...and still no Act 2 over a year later? Not that he had to chime in, but not altogether too surprising that Schafer isn't raising a pitchfork over Molyneux's actions with Godus.
 
Not gonna say I'm surprised at the ad hominems towards Tim Schafer.

If Tim Schafer is equivalent to Peter Molyneux as a con man, I guess every delayed game's developer is a con man too.
Completely disregarding content changes, length of delays, stretch goals never intended to be met, lying just to get funded, etc.

You are so right. Totally the same as a typical game delay. Yep. Sure is.
 

nubbe

Member
cc3SdYw.gif
 
Everything I have read about this the past week or so since it blew up paints Molyneux as someone who doesn't give a shit what he said/promised in the past and only focuses on the moment.

This is kind of where I am. He's just in the moment, whatever he says to the public doesn't really matter and he doesn't really think of it. I think he honestly believes those wild dreams when he shares them, and he wants to share his passion for it and he knows people will love it. I don't think he does it maliciously to dupe people. But then the rubber hits the road and all that shit disappears like an etch-a-sketch in a washing machine. He doesn't put any weight in what it is he promises to people, doesn't give it any mind, wonders why people are disappointed and probably needs people to read him back a transcript of his own words so he can remember.
 
Completely disregarding content changes, length of delays, stretch goals never intended to be met, lying just to get funded, etc.

You are so right. Totally the same as a typical game delay. Yep. Sure is.

But you can't say that he lied or defrauded anyone because he's still 100% committed to finishing the game! Yep, I'm sure the two guys he left in charge of Godus are totally gonna make sure the game is done in a timely fashion, is feature complete, and also magically works with Linux somehow. Then Peter Molyneux will be able to keep his multiplayer required promise (which even the new lead developer of Godus labeled as seriously shaky) to Bryan Henderson. Also known as the guy who Molyneux completely forgot about for two years, even though he won his life changing Curiousity contest.

By the way, I read the RPS interview and for a second Molyneux had me believing that he had way more people on the Godus team but this is really not the case.

The other people called out in the interview by PM supposedly working on the game:

Peter Molyneux: So the people who aren’t working on Godus are the people who wouldn’t be busy on Godus most of the time. So at the moment, I’m just looking over them now. We’ve got Dave, Pavle, Konrad, Andy, Martin and Conor, and Michelle just stuck up her arms as well. [to Michelle] You’re not working on Godus.

And then Peter on the art side, and on the Trail we’ve got Sara, who’s a concept artist so there’s not much work for her to do on Godus, we’ve got Paul, who did all the sculpting stuff so there’s not much for him to do on Godus at the moment, Tony’s working on the Trail, Demetri and Tom, and then on the art side the new artist is learning Maya and we’ll have to see how he gets on. And Paul McLaughlin is working on Godus and he’s the head art. I think I’ve covered everyone that I can see.


Dave is a community manager, 1st time ever doing that job but it doesn't contribute to development of product
Pavle is a programmer, started as an intern.
Konrad is intern, now lead designer
Andy no idea but I think he's a producer (joined after I left)
Martin is a tester
Conor is a tester
Michelle is a PA but not working on GODUS

Those are 7 people he says explicitly are 'working' on GODUS but for the exception of two (Konrad and Pavle) are support staff and not development. As by his own admission, the rest of the team are on The Trail. It's also interesting to see how he omits key staff in his answer, such as Gary Leach who was the lead engineer on GODUS. He's also on The Trail now.
 
I think it was a pretty fair statement from Schafer. He does says that Molyneux owns resposibility for the game not developing as expected, but that the reactions towards it has been extreme. There's a middle way between letting him of the hook, and every single being on the internet doing their part in the character assassination of him.

One con defends another

I pretty much know the answer, and it will be silly, but in what way is Tim Schafer a con?
 

Big One

Banned
I can see the point that the interview was being an asshole, but honestly, he only asked what was on everyone's mind that every other interviewer was afraid to ask.

Molyneux falls into the trap of having more ideas than his studio can handle, and tells everyone about them before the game is even released. Most of the time developers keep that stuff under wraps for a reason...cause the final version tends to be quite different than what was intended at first with cut features and whatnot. This happens with EVERY game, only with Molyneux he tells everyone about his ideas before they even start development on the game itself which gets people hyped up for nothing.

But at a certain point of repetition, you GOT to know he's intentionally doing this for a reason. Hell was there any reason why he couldn't have delayed Godus for fuck-all how long so he can get all the promised features in the game?
 

jett

D-Member
Developer defends fellow developer. Honestly, I don't like Molyneux, but even I thought that interview was unnecessarily aggressive.

Completely disregarding content changes, length of delays, stretch goals never intended to be met, lying just to get funded, etc.

You are so right. Totally the same as a typical game delay. Yep. Sure is.

If you're talking about Tim Schafer and Broken Age there, you better explain yourself immediately. You're talking out of your ass.
 
Pretty foolish of Tim to get in the line of fire considering the current state of Double Fine's Kickstarter projects.

There's no defending Peter's behaviour over the last 10 years.
 

Aikidoka

Member
Developer defends fellow developer. Honestly, I don't like Molyneux, but even I thought that interview was unnecessarily aggressive.



If you're talking about Tim Schafer and Broken Age there, you better explain yourself immediately. You're talking out of your ass.

I don't really know what he was referring to, but in addition to Broken Age being quite massively delayed, they ended up just stopping development on Spacebase DF-9 and basically just sold an alpha version.
 

Pomo

Member
The situation with Molyneux isn't... erm... black and white. He's probably a fine individual who cares about what he does. It's very possible—if not probable—that he believes the would-be lies that he tells. That said, he misleads everybody constantly and the RPS interview did a fine job of taking him to task for it. Just because it was disrespectful doesn't mean it was somehow illegitimate or undeserved.
 

jett

D-Member
I don't really know what he was referring to, but in addition to Broken Age being quite massively delayed, they ended up just stopping development on Spacebase DF-9 and basically just sold an alpha version.

This is a misrepresentation of the facts. The original tentative release date was for a game budgeted at 300K intended to be a small mobile game. When Episode 2 comes out in March or so, it will have been three years since the KS, an reasonable development period for a full-blown point and click adventure game.

The Spacebase situation is something else, but when it comes to Broken Age Tim and DF have been impossibly transparent to the backers.
 
Yeah I agree with what he says. He is getting some rough treatment. Even if I hate the fact that a lot of his grandiose ideas dont make it into his games. I feel like the gaming industry benefits from Peter.
 

Speevy

Banned
Tim Schafer made Grim Fandango though.

He also used all of his notoriety and made Psychonauts.

Yeah he made Brutal Legend, but damn it, he didn't make Fable 3.
 
I disagree with it being unfair. Harsh? Yes, but I think it was about time someone was harsh towards him and his bullshit. It's not just overpromising on features and such, I understand he gets hyped up with his own games, but more:

1. Admitting to making up features just for the press not to fall asleep, actually lying
“Sorry – I’ve slightly over-promised on things on occasion. I could name at least 10 features in games that I’ve made up to stop journalists going to sleep and I really apologise to the team for that.”


2. Blaming everything on others. Even in the RPS he goes on to blame one particular person because he left the company (???, how does this make it alright to just completely forget about the winner of curosity)

3. Admitting he knew Godus budget on kickstarter wasn't enough or realistic, and saying you just feel like making anything up to get your money.

4. Lying about how many are working and have worked on the game.

5. Not fullfilling the kickstarter rewards, which kickstarter is pretty clear about being things you got to deliver, which he just really hasn't been bothered to... and it's probably someones else fault anyway.

6. Getting caught lying and contradicting himself several times just in the RPS interview. Or as he says, not telling the truth, which isn't lying.


Maybe he should listen to his PR guy... Oh wait.


I wish too.

Molyneux should have a PR guy who just says, "Shut the fuck up, Pete. Just shut your fucking mouth before it writes a check the team can't cash." He builds a promise bubble and it always bursts because he can't fucking shut his mouth.

That used to be me. Problem is he never listens to advice and instead will bully and insult you into oblivion if you dare to disagree with him.

and then he plays the pathetic victim card.
 
I find it rather hilarious that Schafer of all people is defending Molyneux after his own gaming debacles these last few years.

Anyways while Molyneux deserves all of the criticism coming his way seems like some people might be going a little bit overboard.
 

Protome

Member
Tim Schafer made Grim Fandango though.

He also used all of his notoriety and made Psychonauts.

Yeah he made Brutal Legend, but damn it, he didn't make Fable 3.
Brutal Legend wouldn't have even been as big a fiasco if the publishers marketing of it hadn't hidden the RTS aspect the entire time. It was still a pretty good game at that.

While I get the Spacebase complaints, the game was never sold as anything more than an experimental side project that only a couple of devs were fighting tooth and nail to get anywhere. They were pretty open about the issues that caused it to fail too and Valve has since clarified the purpose of Early Access to try and reduce other devs making those mistakes.
 

Dlacy13g

Member
Jesus...when did we all become so full of spite and anger? Just reading this thread and the comments of many just is kinda depressing.
 
Pretty surprised at how some people feel about Schafer, he seemed like a stand up dude to me, extremely endearing and hard working.
Not always getting it right, but always trying to do what's best for the game, the fans and all his employees.
 
Pretty surprised at how some people feel about Schafer, he seemed like a stand up dude to me, extremely endearing and hard working.
Not always getting it right, but always trying to do what's best for the game, the fans and all his employees.

I doubt most people here have problems with him personally, however how he and by extension Double Fine handle game design is questionable.
 
Pretty surprised at how some people feel about Schafer, he seemed like a stand up dude to me, extremely endearing and hard working.
Not always getting it right, but always trying to do what's best for the game, the fans and all his employees.

This is how I feel. He's probably the coolest guy in the industry right now.
 

legend166

Member
Not really.

If anything, the way this gets punished in social media has lead to the current status quo where anybody in any important capacity only gives vague responses or elaborate non-answers.

Elaborate non-answers it's basically another form of dishonesty, which is what I'm talking about.
 

Burai

shitonmychest57
Jesus...when did we all become so full of spite and anger? Just reading this thread and the comments of many just is kinda depressing.

Pretty surprised at how some people feel about Schafer, he seemed like a stand up dude to me, extremely endearing and hard working.
Not always getting it right, but always trying to do what's best for the game, the fans and all his employees.

Which is lovely, but imagine being sat in a boardroom with the guy and hearing that sob story when you've just flushed millions of your company's dollars away on him "not always getting it right but trying his best." In 99% of jobs that would get your ass fired.

This is where we are now. We aren't just disgruntled consumers any more. We're disgruntled investors. We are, collectively, no different to a Bobby Kotick or a Mark Cerny sat here wondering why the money we gave them didn't turn into what they promised.

Is the public's backlash over Godus really any worse than Microsoft handing Molyneux his cards after repeatedly under-delivering or EA telling Lionhead where to go after getting repeatedly burned by project after project?

Molyneux entered into Kickstarter hoping that he'd get the same funding he'd get from a publisher but without having to deliver to the same standards and that blind consumer loyalty would get him through it all.

But it hasn't worked and it shouldn't ever work.

There's a damn good reason why the likes of Schafer, Molyneux and Inafune aren't currently working for publishers and that's because they have a track record of letting their publishers down.

Now we're the publishers they are letting down and we have every right to be angry if they aren't delivering on what they promised just as EA, Microsoft, Capcom and Activision were.
 

A-V-B

Member
Which is lovely, but imagine being sat in a boardroom with the guy and hearing that sob story when you've just flushed millions of your company's dollars away on him "not always getting it right but trying his best." In 99% of jobs that would get your ass fired.

This is where we are now. We aren't just disgruntled consumers any more. We're disgruntled investors. We are, collectively, no different to a Bobby Kotick or a Mark Cerny sat here wondering why the money we gave them didn't turn into what they promised.

Uh. maybe mentally? But we're not investors. We're getting no actual return out of this. We're just donating.

We just don't like getting behind the scenes on games, is what I think it is. This shit's been happening since the dawn of electronic entertainment, but it was all internal so we never witnessed it unless some big story broke.

Now we're seeing it all the time. It's really raw. And it sucks.

So maybe that's where we can at least empathize with the dudes in suits.
 

Burai

shitonmychest57
Uh. maybe mentally? But we're not investors. We're getting no actual return out of this. We're just donating.

We just don't like getting behind the scenes on games, is what I think it is. This shit's been happening since the dawn of electronic entertainment, but it was all internal so we never witnessed it unless some big story broke.

Now we're seeing it all the time. It's really raw. And it sucks.

So maybe that's where we can at least empathize with the dudes in suits.

Most Kickstarter tiers have rewards and you usually get a copy of the game unless you've gone in really low for some insane reason. That's your ROI.
 
Top Bottom