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Peter Molyneux: the sweet promises

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Foamy

Unconfirmed Member
I think this is a case of him being the creepy kid in school nobody liked and when he got older and realized all the attention his games got him by talking them up he just couldn't stop.
Classic attention whore.
 
Don't forget Fable's "plant an acorn and watch it grow into an oak tree over time." Sigh, he had me hook, line and sinker with that first game. After that, he never fooled me again.
 

Futaleufu

Member
I don't get all the negativity about a guy who wanted the medium to move forward, then I see most people just want to play remakes and sequels. He made a lot of mistakes, and also had many great ideas.

Imagine if every time someone mentioned Shigeru Miyamoto people started bringing up Donkey Kong 3, Devil's World or Radar Scope.
 
I vaguely recall reading that the Natal hardware in prototype was far more advanced than the final shipping product - they ended up taking out a lot of built-in processing, moving that stuff over to software to cut costs and of course putting a hard cap on what it can do because of the 360's capabilities. So while people paid $100 for a shitty waggle camera, it was designed to do much more.

Having rewatched that milo clip Its clear the demo was completely faked. And Peter totally oversold its capabilities.

There's some things in that clip it wouldn't be able to do now even with today's technology.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Only thing I remember about him now is that wild interview he had with RPS where they started off asking if he was a pathological liar.

Yeah tbh that wasn’t so much an interview as a personal attack. Utterly unacceptable tbh and I don’t think PM was in a good place at the time.

For me, his work with Bullfrog was fantastic. That was lightning in a bottle - a group that fired each other up to greatness. Powermonger was amazing, as were There Park and Theme Hospital.

I think it’s hard for developers to make the transition from the 16-bit 2D era to the 3D big budget huge team era (and that’s in part because maintaining company culture when scaling up is a very hard thing to do). Consider how the Bitmap Brothers fell apart. I think Peter just never properly adapted to the change - he did better than most, but in the end the modern gaming environment just wasn’t the right place for him anymore.
 

PedanticJase

Neo Member
From the godus dev videos it appears that he was at that time a pure gameplay designer and not super involved at the nuts and bolts level.
I believe that he thought everything he was saying was true.
But I can’t hate the man if he’s partly responsible for theme hospital and syndicate.
 

Roni

Gold Member
I mean, he is a very creative person, gotta give credit to that.

But he is the type of creative person that really needs a business person to keep his ego in check for things to go right.

Just like Kojima and that dude from No Man's Sky.
No Man Sky's great nowadays and you're just plain wrong about Kojima. Thanks.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
He was a good designer, and even better marketer. Incredibly stupid when setting up expectations. He no longer has a job on game design for running his mouth.
 

Tschumi

Member
This guy made a few lovely games around the turn of the century and a bit beyond... Kudos to him. I haven't cared about him since, like, 2003 or whenever Fable came out. Fable had a super nice atmosphere and art direction that felt like a BBC adaptation of a children's' fantasy novel... Loved it. I got it for a chipped Chinese xBox and it was one of the few pirated discs that worked, out of the many that didn't. I don't remember much of the gameplay, but I do remember getting my toon pretty up to date.
 
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"Milo" was the last straw when talking about any sort of credibility to me. It really is the "Marky Mark" of his career. Even if he made a 10/10 game one day, he'll always have that garbage hanging over his head to me, and for good reason. Sucks, but it's true. He lied, lied, and lied some more. Right to all of our faces.
 
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luffie

Member
It's not entirely black and white issue. Yes he did make some great games, but eventually devolve into a scammer. It's not even under-deliver, it's straight up false promises. Except that he is a failure as a scammer, the one that succeed is Chris Roberts of Star Citizen.
 

bender

What time is it?
It's not entirely black and white issue. Yes he did make some great games, but eventually devolve into a scammer. It's not even under-deliver, it's straight up false promises. Except that he is a failure as a scammer, the one that succeed is Chris Roberts of Star Citizen.

giphy.gif
 

Ozzie666

Member
Easy to confuse lies with ambition and over reaching. The Movies, I had a fun time with that title on PC. I thought it was pretty good and different. Some of the Bullfrog productions on Amiga are pretty epic and legendary., stand the test of time.

You could do worse, actually there are plenty worse. Just look at Chris Roberts.
 

borborygmus

Member
In most corporations, there is constant internal miscommunication. Higher ups always oversimplify things and the lower level people doing the work find themselves knee deep in complexity while trying to meet unrealistic, overly simplistic goals.

Molyneux was made into a marketing guy and had to make the product look good. As a manager he had to impress the higher ups and meet their demands and rely on the lower level people to make it a reality. This is insane and a total gamble, but this is how companies work.

I'm going through something like that right now. The higher ups have gone and promised something to some major clients that I'm not sure I'm able to deliver. They went and decided on it without doing any kind of feasibility analysis or even just asking me, and the manager 1 level above me has gone and extolled its virtues in front of the clients. Now I have to bust ass to deliver it, but if I don't succeed or if I have to make compromises to make it work, I'll look bad internally, and she will look like Molyneux internally and externally, having shown off this feature in public.

For video games, this is all amplified by everything being public and "viral" across social media.

The higher ups can just say "you have [x] qualification so you should have been able to do it" and can sleep soundly at night, as manipulators who believe their own bullshit do. Almost every corporation I've ever worked for has operated like this routinely.

So I really did not enjoy seeing Molyneux get so much hate. He's obviously a technical and creative guy, and should not be in a marketing role trying to achieve dysfunctional objectives set by upper management. Imagine being the marketing guy and developer at the same time. Just imagine the expectations the upper management must have of you.
 
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anab0lic36

Member
What is he up to these days? is he still in game development? Doesnt seem to be in the media as much.

I worked briefly for him at lionhead studious on fable and black and white. Some good memories from that era...
 

cireza

Banned
He is the kind of creative person who absolutely needs some other people to force into stopping the creative process and complete things.
 

gradient

Resident Cheap Arse
Guy still owes me £35 for the copy of Black and White I purchased at launch but was never able to play because it was such a bug-ridden mess it couldn't even load.

I was a huge fan and well on board the hype train when Lionhead launched. Followed B&W development for years and was an active member of the (at the time very active) Lionhead forums. Then it released and WOW what a trainwreck. Wouldn't load for about half of people, crashed out after 5 mins for a large nuymber of others, bugs and glitches everywhere, couple of gamebreakers for those who could play but ended up being unable to progress. And then there was the now infamous failure to deliver on promises with all of the freedom and functionality missing.

But the real kicker was that the staff all took time off immediately after launch. So here we had a new release with severe issues and no hope of a patch for weeks. Insane, the forums were on fire and I've not seen a shitstorm like it since. What a mess.

After that, it just seemed to become his MO. The legend from the Bulldog days and all of those great past hits like Populous was gone and the meme we now know had taken his place. Sad times. Still want my damn money back though.
 

Pidull

Member
Nice, I literally played and beat Fable 2 for the first time yesterday.

I was one of those folks who bought into the "plant an acorn and it'll become a tree" bullshit he peddled with Fable. And before that I was hyped for Black and White and playing God.

Peter definitely got our imaginations running, and that's what I love most about him. Were his games disappointing because he couldn't deliver on all the promises? Hell yes. But the games were still an absolute joy to experience, and he still pushed gaming in new directions.

People like him are good for the industry, they try to do things that are impractical or impossible, but by pushing the limits, they still do some cool new things.
 

Mokus

Member
I mean, he is a very creative person, gotta give credit to that.

But he is the type of creative person that really needs a business person to keep his ego in check for things to go right.

Just like Kojima and that dude from No Man's Sky.
Liars actually are quite creative and also very persuasive. It worked for him in the 80s and 90s, but then internet to the masses came around.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
When Fable was in development it was the hypest shit. I looked forward to it, and in fact the game proper isn't even bad. its very good in fact. But its just an adventure game.

If Molineux just stfu and advertised it as such, I think the game would've been received well. Because Fable 1 isn't bad at all. Its his hype making Fable a project that didn't deliver anything in the eyes of the crowd.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
From the godus dev videos it appears that he was at that time a pure gameplay designer and not super involved at the nuts and bolts level.
I believe that he thought everything he was saying was true.
But I can’t hate the man if he’s partly responsible for theme hospital and syndicate.

Back in the 16 bit era he was more hands on - I think I recall seeing that the 3D engine that drove Populous and Powermonger was his work for instance.
 

nkarafo

Member
He made the original Dungeon Keeper. He can now become a ruthless dictactor for all i care, i will still like him.

I’m talking about there being lots of scam artists like Molynuex. I don’t see him being a brilliant creative. He’s a scam artist and I can’t imagine anyone bringing him up in the same conversation as Kojima.
Molyneux is a much better GAME designer than Kojima. There is no comparison. He has many more games with creative and original gameplay in his portfolio. Game design being his focus. Kojima is more like a mind for storytelling. And even that is arguable given the cringy stuff he makes sometimes.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Was he also responsible for B.C. getting cancelled? I was really looking forward to that back in the day.



Nope, but he was totally responsible for Fable not getting shit-canned. Even if it was by anonymising its actual creators.

Molyneux is a much better GAME designer than Kojima. There is no comparison. He has many more games with creative and original gameplay in his portfolio. Game design being his focus. Kojima is more like a mind for storytelling. And even that is arguable given the cringy stuff he makes sometimes.

No.

Just not even close, Kojima is way superior. Peter was a mediocre coder who got lucky that Glen Corpes was messing about with an isometric tile engine on his own time.
 
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JCK75

Member
I'm in the camp that has long thought Molyneux is full of hot air and don't tend to love his games, but man the Movies was such an underrated game and I'd love to see a more ambitious sequel.
 

Sethbacca

Member
I still don't know how they haven't brought back the Black and White IP as a VR game. Like, that would be the absolute perfect application of VR.
 

Fuz

Banned
He made the original Dungeon Keeper. He can now become a ruthless dictactor for all i care, i will still like him.


Molyneux is a much better GAME designer than Kojima. There is no comparison. He has many more games with creative and original gameplay in his portfolio. Game design being his focus. Kojima is more like a mind for storytelling. And even that is arguable given the cringy stuff he makes sometimes.
Populous, Powermonger, Syndicate, Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper.

Fable and consoles fucked him up.
 
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Dude gave me my favorite games together with Lionhead, I couldn't care less that he "lied" his ass off when talking about said games, to me it always sounded like someone praising their favorite horse a bit too much. I hope Playground games manages to capture any of the charm with the Fable reboot.
 
Anyone else think that Peter looks awfully similar to Marshall Applewhite the heaven's gate cult leader? They both have that crazed look in their eyes that's for sure. :pie_roffles:

faQvABc.jpg


LO511LQ.jpg
 
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