Peter Molyneux just can't help himself

ArtiX

ArtiX
Cloud Breaker said:
www.rockpapershotgun.com

Peter Molyneux Interview: "I haven’t got a reputation in this industry any more"

We speak to Peter Molyneux about Godus, Kickstarter, and his career of overpromising.
www.rockpapershotgun.com www.rockpapershotgun.com

Mr. Walker really tied together all my thoughts and opinions on Peter Molyneux. There's some people you just shouldn't give money to.
Click to expand...


You want visionaries or math professors to make games you can play?

You know why Peter Molyneux shaped the gaming world so much?

Think big and then make it a reality.

An Imagineer at WDI or in other companies does just that.
It's all about finding the middle ground. (It's called Blue Sky)

I've played most Molyneux games, if i named like a dozen games i remember from my childhood, Molyneux games would certainly dominate the list.





Dungeon Keeper - The mother of all base building games and dungeon crawlers. You could even argue that Diablo was inspired by DK

Theme Park - broke ground for what we have today (after all, without Chris Sawyer (with RCT) AND Peter Molyneux (with Theme Park) PlanCo would have never come into existence,
and Frontier might not even exist today without these two pioneers)

Theme Hospital - do i need to say more? Hundreds of games tried to clone the feel and atmosphere of that game, only TPH succeeded in that endeavor.

The Movies - In the wake of the Movies and with the Halo machinimas by Rooster Teeth this brought Machinima.com into existence and revolutionized the way people looked at games. Leading all the way up to today's Let's Play culture.
(btw, I was also one of the first machinimists to be featured on Machinima.com back then)

Black&White - He made a lot of promises on this one and not all of it became a reality, but hadn't he thought big and played with the ideas he had, we'd have gotten a seriously boring game. And you gotta give it to B&W, back when it came out it was still mindblowing and few games could compete.

Fable - same as above, just mindblowing and gaming history by now. Even if it didn't have all the features he kept talking about in interviews, it was more than a great game, it was an epic experience and enabled the XBox ONE(the real XB1, not that third-gen abomination) to gain enough market share to compete with the PS2.
If you ask anyone what made the XBOX a success, the answer will always be "Halo:CE and Fable".



And that's just a short excerpt.


I couldn't name any other person than him who had such an array of Industry-influencing titles than he does.
And that's ALSO because he kept bringing ideas to the table
and his only mistake was how he couldn't properly communicate the difference between an idea and a promise,
but without that, the roster wouldn't be filled with so many legendary titles.

So if you applied your "some people you just shouldn't give money to" logic fairly, you shouldn't buy any games AT ALL!

And had we all done that for the past 30 years, we'd probably still be staring at paintings and sculptures.
 
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Sysmon

Sysmon
ArtiX said:
You want visionaries or math professors to make games you can play?

You know why Peter Molyneux shaped the gaming world so much?

Think big and then make it a reality.

An Imagineer at WDI or in other companies does just that.
It's all about finding the middle ground. (It's called Blue Sky)

I've played most Molyneux games, if i named like a dozen games i remember from my childhood, Molyneux games would certainly dominate the list.





Dungeon Keeper - The mother of all base building games.

Theme Park - broke ground for what we have today (after all, without Chris Sawyer (with RCT) AND Peter Molyneux (with Theme Park) PlanCo would have never come into existence,
and Frontier might not even exist today without these two pioneers)

Theme Hospital - do i need to say more? Hundreds of games tried to clone the feel and atmosphere of that game, only TPH succeeded in that endeavor.

The Movies - In the wake of the Movies and with the Halo machinimas by Rooster Teeth this brought Machinima.com into existence and revolutionized the way people looked at games. Leading all the up to today's Let's Play culture.
(I was also one of the first machinimists to be featured on Machinima.com back then)

Black&White - He made a lot of promises on this one and not all of it became a reality, but hadn't he thought big and played with the ideas he had, we'd have gotten a seriously boring game. And you gotta give it to B&W, back when it came out it was still mindblowing and few games could compete.

Fable - same as above, just mindblowing and gaming history by now. Even if it didn't have all the features he kept talking about in interviews, it was more than a great game, it was an epic experience and enabled the XBox ONE(the real XB1, not that third-gen abomination) to gain enough market share to compete with the PS2.
If you ask anyone what made the XBOX a success, the answer will always be "Halo:CE and Fable".



And that's just a short excerpt.


I couldn't name any other person than him who had such an array of Industry-influencing titles than he does.
And that's ALSO because he kept bringing ideas to the table
and his only mistake was how he couldn't properly communicate the difference between an idea and a promise,
but without that, the roster wouldn't be filled with so many legendary titles.

So if you applied your "some people you just shouldn't give money to" logic fairly, you should buy any games AT ALL!

And had we all done that for the past 30 years, we'd probably still be staring at paintings and sculptures.
Click to expand...

You forgot Powermonger! I loved that game to bits as well. The idea of having seasonal warfare and soldiers that just wanted to get home to the farm during harvest season... Brilliant!

:D S
 

ArtiX

ArtiX
Sysmon said:
You forgot Powermonger! I loved that game to bits as well. The idea of having seasonal warfare and soldiers that just wanted to get home to the farm during harvest season... Brilliant!

:D S
Click to expand...

I "forgot" a lot of titles, just wanted to name a few examples of historical value (writing those two words makes me feel really old 🐘)
The list just wouldn't end. ^-^

Absolutely, and i think these brilliant and creative ideas and approaches can very well justify him going overboard in Interviews in the past.




And i get it, younger gamers don't see the relevance and the impact his work had on the industry.
He's taking it slow nowadays, but can you blame him? He made gaming history throughout a timespan of about 30 years.
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Sysmon said:
You forgot Powermonger! I loved that game to bits as well. The idea of having seasonal warfare and soldiers that just wanted to get home to the farm during harvest season... Brilliant!
Click to expand...
Yes, all the details that make a game great that many gamers now consider "boring".
 

Surefoot

S
Yeah Powermonger was a genius game, so many small details contributing to the whole, i remember orders were sent by carrier pigeons and you could see the birds go out and fly when you clicked on an order, so your troops had a delay in their reactions.
Populous and Syndicate were on top of the list for me, with the latter being the last "golden era" game from Bullfrog.
 

hunvagy

hunvagy
Well he already slipped with the Fable games, so the feature never materializing should not have been a surprise with Godus, really. Now not having a game at all, yeah that was weird. Also as a slightly unrelated sidenote.. this thread reminded me of a kinda Populous clone called Genesia (Ultimate Domain). And when I googled it.. apparently someone is making a successor and it's in EA on steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/591930
 

ArtiX

ArtiX
amigacooke said:
Peter's previous history made the Godus episode all the more surprising and disappointing.
Click to expand...


The 22Cans move was a mistake, but Kudos to him for eventually going independent.
That tinkering game looks like it could have a lot potential, though the 22C artstyle ain't my cup of tea. (pun intended)
 
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