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[jamesprimate]

here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/peter-molyneux-interview-godus-reputation-kickstarter/

its really brutal. for reasons that i dont even really understand.

what's your guys' take on this? it feels like the interviewer, john, is taking all his kickstarter / crowdfunding "shifting industry" frustrations out on Molyneux, and everybody is cheering him on for it. Not that im defending Molyneux necessarily, but he's hardly unique in this situation.

am i actually a bad person for nodding at pretty much everything Molyneux has to say? maybe its because im wrapped up in my own over-budget over-deadline overly-ambitious project, but this seems to really expose the huge gaping chasm between the developer and the consumer. the only way games will evolve as a medium is by developers taking risks in design, and risk is exactly the sort of thing that is the crux of this article.

players obviously DO WANT the fruits of this development style, as they are consistently putting money into these cool projects, aware of the others that have failed. and yet all this piece seems to want to do is slam him for "lying" to "take peoples money". WHAT? cuz if thats the case then i hope people like either flappy bird or unfinished-ass games, cuz thats all they'll be getting from indie studios.

maybe im missing some huge context for this, idk, i just found it an extremely hostile piece.

[Ammypendent]

It's a bad interview, that's why.

The fact that Molyneux continued the interview after the first question really demonstrates his dedication. One of the things said by him really stuck in my mind.

It would be so easy for me to say, ‘No comment.’ I truly care[...]

Instead of trying to explore GODUS's development problems in depth and how the developers are adjusting and going forward, the interviewer continues on his barrage of "stuff Molyneux done wrong."

It appears that this and the mob response from Eurogamer's article got to Molyneux and now after speaking to the Guardian he's said he's done with the press.

[s0]

rps won't load for me at the moment but i read a summary of the interview elsewhere. i agree w/ ammypendent that the interview is crap (from what i know about).

i don't think molyneux is a liar. i think hes genuinely ambitious and enthusiastic about his projects but has some weird compulsion to bite off more than he can chew and also doesn't know when to shut up. games like black & white and fable are actually pretty good and would probably be much more well liked if molyneux hadnt overhyped them to shit.

its sad that most people just see him as a kind of charlatan these days when he worked on so many classic & groundbreaking games in the 90s. he's really a guy who ought to have nothing to prove which makes his apparent insatiable desire for publicity all the more bizarre.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Awful, line after line of john assaulting some dude over fucking videogames. Mega gross.

felix put it pretty well here:

great to see games journalists really hitting hard where it counts: suckerpunching a known-to-be-eccentric game dev when he’s down
>:|

[valrus]

I think it's entirely possible to be a visionary AND a pathological liar; I wouldn't say that's even uncommon.

I'm neither pro- nor con-Molyneux; he wasn't a part of my childhood and so I've also never been disappointed by him in the present.  I have read interviews with old employees of his, though, that describe the troubles they get into from Molyneux's... to put it nicely, shaky understanding of the reality of his own games.  It's not just overhyping and overpromising, it's going to the press announcing that your game already contains features that it doesn't (features that weren't planned or aren't even possible) and then even asking your employees to demonstrate the nonexistent features on camera, putting THEM on the spot to lie or dissemble.

It sounds like Molyneux got his start by being enthusiastic, talking big, and maybe being okay with some minor fraud now and then, and it actually WORKED.  He talked, and the world changed to fit what he said, and he kinda got the idea this is how the world works.  (And it kinda does.)  But thirty years on, the industry isn't a bunch of enthusiastic kids working all hours on smaller-scope games.  You can't just announce things and hope a couple of brilliant young programmers will come in on the weekend and suddenly it will be true.  You've gotta, y'know, manage projects by managing projects, not by fabricating ideas to the press that you've never told your employees about.

[autumnspark]

Holy shit. That is one of the most brutal interviews I've ever read. It's as emotionally charged as a 7 year old cracked out on Mountain Dew trying to strangle its younger sibling with a controller cable. I mean, Moleynx hasn't been able to live up to a lot of stuff, but I don't think you have to take a dump in the developer's mouth and record it for the internet to see.

[cynicalsandel]

I don't know what makes me more depressed, the actual interview and how gross it was, or all the gamers who support it. It ruined my day.

[Christian Knudsen]

Molyneux should never have gone to Kickstarter. The guy is known for outright lying about features (check out his Project Milo presentation where he flat out says that everything we see is real and working), and that was sorta accepted when he was developing under a publisher. But when you're taking people's money directly for a game that you only have a vague idea of, all those lies are going to be that much more apparent. This latest hullabaloo seems to have been the last drop for a lot of people, so now years of pent-up frustation has an outlet.

On the one hand, people are raking Molyneux over the coals for things that pretty much every Kickstarter project has experienced (delays and cut features). On the other, Molyneux is simply reaping was he has sown over the past many years. And with this latest mess, there are just so many conflicting messages and statements out there that it's impossible to not view Molyneux as someone who is very poor at planning and following through on those plans -- or just an outright compulsive liar that says whatever will make the most of a given situation for him, regardless of the feasibility of what he says.

[Manuel Magalhães]

I don't know what makes me more depressed, the actual interview and how gross it was, or all the gamers who support it. It ruined my day.

[J-Snake]

He was recently asked how he would want to live after possible retirement from game development. He said that's impossible. There would be nothing left to do so he could die. And he doesn't want a normal death. His wish is to be knife-stabbed by a fan on stage or getting a heart attack during creative work.

[Cobralad]

I read the whole thing. Heres it boiled down:
John Walker: Here is that milestone you set why isnt it real?
Molyneux: No one can predict budget, esp in gaming.
(Then they repeat)


This kinda shows everything wrong with industry:
-businesman-led technology and production value arms race that wiped out middle class and resulted in life-ruining working conditions and customers that never going to receive satisfiyng product.
-capitalist journos with their misplaced monomyth postworldwars "protagonist-evil villain" mentality that allows them to yell at people people in the name of greater good

Also this:

Peter Molyneux: Because what you must realise is that doing a game in today’s world and a game that’s live is a nightmare.

RPS: I know it is. I’ve visited many studios and I know how difficult your job is.

That guy has visited some studios. Gamedev pro right here.

[s0]

I don't know what makes me more depressed, the actual interview and how gross it was, or all the gamers who support it. It ruined my day.

Gamer Culture(tm)

RPS is still not loading for me btw, anyone else?

[J-Snake]

not loading for me too

but it's not like I will be surprised, you can tell the man has passion and critics don't understand his vision

[cynicalsandel]

It loaded fine for me, but I'd imagine this is probably generating a lot of traffic.

[lithander]

i really felt sorry for peter reading this interview.

i can see where john walker is coming from. he makes valid points. but i don't know what he wants peter to admit to? that he deliberately scammed people? that it's all a fraud? john should be veterna enough to know that molyneux is a peculiar character, a dreamer, a vision person. always has been. people that pledge money on a molyneuxs game should know that there will be severe compromises to the grand ideas pitched, right?

still, despite the harshness of the interview molyneux is the unprofessional one of the two. he doesn't act like a industry veteran of 30 years. he doesn't act like a owner and CEO of a games company. if he would know and accept his responsability and also his flaws and shortcomings then molyneux would hire/promote a managing director to handle the budgeting and project planning and relinquish control over that area. he should also get someone to do the PR for him to soak up all the critizism without getting personally hurt in the process. then focus 100% on creative direction.

[knifeySpoonie]

I loved Molynuex's early games but he's a dinosaur who doesn't understand modern development. Agile changing designs/evolving products and development don't allow for broad statements to be made as wildly as he makes them.

He promises the moon gets people psyched up, uses his previously "untouchable" reputation in the press then delivers an average product which touches on his vision but ultimatly leaves people feeling dissapointed and flat..

I'd love to defend him but this time he took Kickstater money, with a pitch of "THIS IS WHAT WE ARE GOING TO MAKE" and delievered an average free to play game that most people wouldn't have backed without his name backing it.

It's a shame, but he needs to maybe step back and take some help off some progressive young designers who know how game development works. his pride will be dented but once he learns the modern methods again he could easily be back.. However it's easy to be the old dog saying "but i made theme hospital and black and white..love me "

[s0]

i managed to read bits of the interview now (rps still not loading, rip europe) and wow this is embarrassing. "investigative" style journalism is crap when its applied to anything not of public import. i could understand these questions if molyneux was, like, a politician suspected of corruption or sth. but this is about VIDEOGAMES ffs

[Christian Knudsen]

It's a shame, but he needs to maybe step back and take some help off some progressive young designers who know how game development works.

That's actually exactly what's happening with Godus now. A Kickstarter backer that wasn't happy with how the game was coming along was pushy enough to first get an unpaid internship at Lionhead and is now lead developer (I believe) on the game.

[MrBones]

is molyneux really still relevant
has he even done anything actually noteworthy since Fable besides half-finished ideas? I don't really hate the guy and I'll admit that the interview was pretty brutal and a bit uncalled for. However, the guy just keeps making broken promises and I don't know how people can think that he shouldn't deserve any criticism for this. I wouldn't call it a scam or a fraud, but it's definitely a case of being overly ambitious. Again although this interview might have gone a bit far, I think he deserves some of the criticism he gets from the general public. He admittedly has good ideas, but at this point that's it. When the ideas seemingly aren't backed by anything things fall through. It's the ever present curse of the "idea guy", something I've actually run into multiple times, especially in the Indie Dev scene. I'd hoped that molyneux would have known that by now, especially since this isn't the first time this has happened, but whatever.

tl;dr Molyneux doesn't deserve to be brutally harassed or anything but some criticisms against him are valid

[J-Snake]

I'd love to defend him but this time he took Kickstater money, with a pitch of "THIS IS WHAT WE ARE GOING TO MAKE" and delievered an average free to play game that most people wouldn't have backed without his name backing it.

Same thing happens with other devs. You make it sound like he is an exception.