QUOTE | “I’m going to stop doing press and I’m going to stop talking about games completely.” — Veteran designer Peter Molyneux, responding to the “terrible and awful, emotional time over the last three days” after he admitted failing to deliver his Godus Kickstarter promises.
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “We come under attack… every day, by people who hide behind the banner of free-speech, and they demean it by doing so.” — Alex Lifschitz, who along with Zoe Quinn has set up the Crash Override service, explaining how they help targets of online mob harassment.
QUOTE | “I’ve seen the very destructive and damaging effect of too much secrecy.” – Creator of Pong Al Alcorn, reflecting on the history of the games business and how the game industry could do better.
QUOTE | “I’m really interested in getting away from the box of space marines and simulations and moving into the space of empathy and creating the ability to experience other people’s lives.” — Designer Robin Hunicke, talking about how she likes to push the boundaries of the gaming medium.
STAT | 10 million — Number of copies sold, combined, of Assassins Creed Unity and Assassins Creed Rogue in 2014, according to Ubisoft; Far Cry 4 sold seven million, while Watch Dogs sales now total 10 million units.
QUOTE | “One of the things I love about the industry is that it’s in a constant state of disruption. We don’t have a formula yet for what a game is and even in the last 20 years, games have evolved incredibly.” — Jade Raymond, former managing director of Ubisoft Toronto, talking about the industry’s future.
QUOTE | “The games industry is fascinating. It is volatile, full of unexpected successes and failures, fantastically expensive and, in my mind, the future of entertainment.” — Joost van Dreunen, CEO of SuperData, explaining why EA and other companies should provide more info about digital sales.
QUOTE | “I’ve always disliked the notion of scores on something as abstract and subjective as games.” — Rami Ismail, Vlambeer co-founder, commenting along with other designers about Eurogamer’s move abandoning numeric game ratings.
STAT | 2.4 billion — Number of Minecraft video views in January, making it the most viewed game on YouTube with 41 per cent of all game video views; that’s three times as many views as the next game franchise, Grand Theft Auto.
QUOTE | “Most people start with gaming first… We always start with the story and the cast and then think of how to get people to do what they organically really want to do while playing in that environment.” — Telltale CEO Dan Bruner, talking about their approach to game design.
QUOTE | “We only really have one shot to convince consumers that VR is as amazing as those of us working with it know it to be.” — nDreams’ Andreas Gschwari, talking about the challenges of designing for virtual reality.
Comments
9 responses to “This Week In The Business: He Hates These Cans”
Might be for the best Pete.
I have always understood that most gamers don’t fully understand the inherent problems and issues with game development.
But it has always annoyed me that some developers who do know this and know their limits and restrictions choose to make that excuse whenever their promises and claims fall flat.
He should have done everyone a favour and stopped talking about games 10 years ago.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/peter-molyneux-interview-godus-reputation-kickstarter/
Have you read that? All he does in talk in circles, contradict himself and then make excuses. But he’s never lied. According to him anyway. I think in his mind a lie isn’t a lie, it’s a mistake, and somehow that’s different.
I enjoyed fable though. And I remember looking at Magic Carpet when I was a kid, but I didn’t buy it because my PC wouldn’t be able to run it.
I think at this stage the industry would literally be better off without him, like he suspects.
Molyneux has brilliant ideas for games, the problem is he has no idea how to implement them and doesn’t say things he’d like to do with a game but their having trouble coding it right now he talks about ideas as if they are already rock solid in the game. Even the ones that he comes up with in his head during the talk about the game.
The problem is the games we all want new version of like Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, Black and White he no longer has the rights to, and the company that does own the rights does horrible things with them.
I don’t want to outright call the guy a liar, I think he promises far more than he can ever deliver he’s like a young kid in a theme park they say they want to ride the roller coaster a thousand times and you know it isn’t possible but they truly believe they can do it.
The man has no buisness talking to the press or even consumers. He should be a background figure who helps come up with the ideas, not the team leader and definately not the PR man.
Thank god for Satellite Reign
I actually side with him in that his overenthusiastic planning for goals he doesn’t succeed in meeting isn’t lying. A statement is not a lie if you are not deliberately attempting to deceive, as a lie is an intentionally false statement.
However, he has broken promises, not just in terms of over-optimistic expectations, but in terms of having said he would do something then later failed to do it despite it being entirely within his power.
The “winner” of Curiousity was promised an “amazing, life-changing” prize. What was offered initially to the winner was a role as “God of Gods” in Godus and a “small piece of the pie” from every sale of Godus.
The actual contract he was offered changed the “pie” to being only the multiplayer component, and only while he was acting “God of Gods”. As multiplayer isn’t ready yet, and may never be completed, so far he has received zero and may only ever receive zero.
Technically that may be “amazing” and “life-changing” but certainly not in the sense that everybody expected.
As somebody who made the mistake of actually paying for an Early Access copy of Godus, then made the same basic complaint in the forums (i.e. the thing is a clickfest) as most of the pther people complaining, then saw that complaint largely ignored – I think it’s a reasonable position to take to simply no longer trust the guy. Maybe his years at Microsoft warped his sense of reality, but the signs were there long before that…
In the Bullfrog days he was making claims that didn’t get backed up.
In the EA days he was making claims that didn’t get backed up.
In the Microsoft days he was making claims that didn’t get backed up.
The only difference is how many people heard them.
The thing is how many people heard those claims. Now days his celebrity status means everybody everywhere hears pretty much everything he said or worse a paraphrased tweet of a paraphrased tweet, so the original message is lost. Add onto that every thing he ever said wrong is brought up like bad credit check.
“I’m going to stop doing press and I’m going to stop talking about games completely.” — Veteran designer Peter Molyneux…. which he said in his “final” and “exclusive” interview. Before going out and giving even more interviews saying the exact same thing over and over again, proving how habitual he.
I really, really love The Jerk reference 😀