Roderick

All aboard the Molyneux crazy train! TOOT TOOT!

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i would guess that Mad Men got greenlit more on the credits of the Sopranos-vet executive creative team behind it. Ask any Arrested Development, Firefly, Family Guy, or even Deadwood fan about the current state in TV demographic modeling and you will get a pretty angsty answer. Premium channels have better shows (for the most part) not because they do more numbers-crunching but because their shows are a larger investment so they can't help but to run a show for an entire season and nurture each show and promote it properly to try and garner an audience, rather than the week-by-week reactive nature of networks. I seriously doubt most TV executives do any kind of homework before making a decision on a show. If there's talent attached and it fits their budget, they buy it. If it doesn't test well after it's created they cancel or shelf it. That's what pilot season is all about.

Seems incredibly helpful to me. Not sure there's anything in the current TV industry worth cribbing, whether its well-intentioned or not. Just take your risk, strive to do something individual and unique, and hope for the best. Let publishers put out sequels and licensed properties to pay their bills and nurture a Molyneaux project or a Warren Spector project as a prestige game racking up metacritic scores and "awards." Much more similar to the movie industry than TV.

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I don't know how the TV industry works so I should probably not assume too much. Not arguing that executives should do their homework though, I think it's the game developers who should, as it'll make it easier for the money people to trust what they're doing.

Pilots seem like a good de-risking strategy, by the way (though obviously not without flaws). I guess prototyping is the game industry equivalent.

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Pilots seem like a good de-risking strategy, by the way (though not without its flaws). I guess prototyping is the game industry equivalent.

Good point. I think there's a larger investment with a pilot but who knows -> not me.

I guess as a general practice, making a researched well-informed pitch is not a bad idea in any industry. The question is the validity of that research and whether or not it means anything.

To money people, Transformers 2 is the safest bet of the year. To critics, it's a chore. of course, people still go and see Transformers 2 so the money people are right in their assessment. All of this assumes that the overall goal is to prioritize art over commerce. Since it may or may not be proven that the best and most artistic achievements come with the ignorance or lack of market research, the value of it is suspect.

so i guess:

research supporting existing unique awesome idea = good

research driving creation and direction of ideas = bad

P.S. posting on here has made my boring work day go much faster! Inane babbling sure can be fun

Edited by thl

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I'm really confused at what Molyneux is trying to say.

At one point, I though that Molyneux was going to make a case for finding ways to shape or display a crazy, unpopular concept and make it accessible to a wide audience.

It's a 100% creative process that most creator should be bothered with since it ensures that a lot of people are exposed to their idea. I, for one, find it interesting and difficult because it should only alter slightly the concept without loosing sight of its original uniqueness and quality.

But then again, Molyneux seemed overly pleased with the interviewer mentioning 'Market research', so :fart:

Also, I don't think that a user centric approach to game design is Evil : talking and prototyping with potential users all the time is great if only for the fact that their misunderstanding and preconceptions about your stuff are awesome pools of new ideas. Plus, it's always refreshing.

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Are you serious? Molyneux was the one who brought up Dexter, which is on a cable channel. He can bring it up, but I can't?

And Mad Men is on its third season and The Wire ran for five. My point is that those networks clearly have an attitude that is different to Molyneux's. I'm making the opposite point of Molyneux. They were successful enough to keep running on those networks. What are you saying, exactly? That we'd be better off without those shows?

(comparing TV shows with games) his primary example, for some bizarre reason, despite sharing little in common with the way games are developed and marketed

Yes, I'm serious. You can't raise an issue with someone comparing TV development with game developemnt and then compare TV with games to illustrate another point... I agree with you that comparing the creative/business decisions involved in making a TV show and making games is bizarre and pointless as they share little in common.

However... on a very high level...

Reading what Molyneux says, I don't see anything particularly shocking about his attitude. Although The Wire ran for five seasons, and although I do believe that the guys at HBO thought it was great, a business can't make decisions for emotional reasons and if HBO was going to LOSE money as a result of producing The Wire, then it would have been cancelled. Period.

Consistently, some of the most interesting, respected, and even successful TV shows have NOT been the ones that were focus tested to hell or determined to be the things most fitting to the current market demands. They are the ones that have to be shopped around to many networks based on the conviction of their creator, usually despite serious doubts by the majority of the networks.

Mad Men is a great current example of that.

Man, you have a seriously romanticized view of Hollywood. Don't look behind the curtain! (The money men live there.) I have no doubt that some of the best stuff has been pushed through by the vision of its creator, but those shows were never greenlit without the belief that they would make money... and good money-men aren't persuaded by an idea they like, especially in these times.

Mad Men wasn't made by AMC because "it was so good, we just couldn't say no". Look at the history of their original programming: Period dramas play a huge part, as does catering to Baby Boomers (ie. people who have fond memories of the 60s). I hate to burst your bubble, but networks and movie studios are ALL about money -- they're businesses.

I'd love to know how you know which shows have or haven't been focus tested, though. (Do you have a list?)

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Nice thing about playtesting: can give some indication about whether or not your game sucks without compromising artistic vision too much. So I agree with Chris on some points. But like with anyting big-budget, you're going to have to make compromises to make everyone happy, in film or outside of it. Focus testing still has its points. It'd be really stupid to make a big budget adaptation of Jane Eyre for this particular day and age.

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I think the problem with Molyneux is that his idea may be levelheaded and reasonable, but the practical application has that unique whiff of Molyneux Crazy. Indeed, it doesn't do to limit the creativity of a team. It can be, and should be, funnelled into something sellable by perhaps a producer, and that's where that good old conflict of interests comes in, whereby there's a constant tug-of-war between creativity and marketability, and that's a great thing. Good stuff can come from that. I don't think you should tell people to limit themselves from the get-go. But it's also not stupid to want to consider if something's going to sell.

From my own opinion, I didn't think what Molyneux said was particularly aggravating, or wrong. And Thunderpeel is right on the money: businesses in entertainment are like all businesses about money. Even Double Fine, even Tim Schafer, at the end of the day tries to make something that sells. It's always a fine balance between doing something for art and doing it for the cash. Ideally, both! And if you look at the games they've made, it becomes obvious. Crazy as they were, the Schafer adventures were very popular and made a lot of money, in their day. Psychonauts may have been a poor seller, but when it was conceived 3D platformers were going strong and were a sure hit (pity development took so long). And with Brütal Legend: the time seems ripe for the game, with Guitar Hero and heavy metal being quite hip. These things don't happen by accident. They come together in a fusion of creativity and market sense.

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So Seven was given many test screenings where the whole audience did not want the head in the box... the reason David Fincher took the script in the first place.

Obviously the correct decision was made and fought for, but I hope everyone would agree you can't possibly have some system where you are trying to constantly only satisfy what your audience is creating.

Not everything should be a "high risk" project, but if no one took risks, you would have no art and no creativity. There's gotta be enough people to stick to their guns, and they say a recession is the perfect time to do that more when every studio around is doing something derivative, which is what audiences will generally crave if their opinion is asked, since that is what is ubiquitous. It's really my belief that just about anyone will get into something that is marketed well, easily accessible, and ubiquitous.

So if more publishers stood behind their original IPs, marketed them well, and followed through with enough sequels or ports, they may find the profit coming back exponentially with each iteration. Low risk projects that are derived are for the instant gratification (and profit). They require little to no work in marketing dollars.

This makes me think of what SEGA of America's VP said recently about why Sonic games are the way they are now.

http://kotaku.com/5336675/sega-impossible-to-please-all-sonic-fans-with-one-sonic-game

To understand how Sega thinks about its most famous mascot, one must appreciate how differently people responded to 2008's werewolf version of Sonic, the Werehog.

That creature, who was playable in the combat sections of last year's Sonic Unleashed, "came in for so much criticism," Sega of America's vice president of market, Sean Ratcliffe recalled for Kotaku during an interview with Sega execs in New York earlier this week. "If you read all those things, and we do — maybe not quite every single one, but the vast majority of them — and it's amazing the sort of diatribes you get. But if you sit down with a group of 8, 9, 10 year-old boys, completely different story.

I mean, as long as the 8, 9, and 10 year olds think it's cool, it's okay to put out games that regularly rate a below average score and have sections that are unfinished or unplayable. That's not okay to me.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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Based on Molyneux's own history of releasing pretty fucking risky game concepts I'm reluctant to be too hard on him for this. He did come across pretty badly, but then I think we all know Molyneux's at his best when he's locked away working on games rather than talking to the press.

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Not everything should be a "high risk" project, but if no one took risks, you would have no art and no creativity. There's gotta be enough people to stick to their guns, and they say a recession is the perfect time to do that more when every studio around is doing something derivative, which is what audiences will generally crave if their opinion is asked, since that is what is ubiquitous.

I completely agree, but sadly in a time of financial crisis, they're just as tight with their money as everyone else. I read an interview with Gilliam talking about how the current climate has killed medium-sized movies -- He hasn't even got US distribution for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus yet!!!

It's really my belief that just about anyone will get into something that is marketed well, easily accessible, and ubiquitous.

It's an interesting theory, but... The Wizard of Oz? Gone with the Wind? Heaven's Gate? Ishtar? Howard the Duck? Hudson Hawk? Water World? Planet of the Apes? Speed Racer? The all were marketed well and were everywhere... people just didn't want to watch them.

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Yes, I'm serious. You can't raise an issue with someone comparing TV development with game developemnt and then compare TV with games to illustrate another point... I agree with you that comparing the creative/business decisions involved in making a TV show and making games is bizarre and pointless as they share little in common.

I was "debating" Molyneux on his own terms! I think they're stupid terms, but he brought up an example in cable TV, so I did too. I sometimes feel like you (you specifically) pick arguments with me on these forums about things that go even beyond the scope of what the argument is about in the first place.

However... on a very high level...

Reading what Molyneux says, I don't see anything particularly shocking about his attitude. Although The Wire ran for five seasons, and although I do believe that the guys at HBO thought it was great, a business can't make decisions for emotional reasons and if HBO was going to LOSE money as a result of producing The Wire, then it would have been cancelled. Period.

Okay? I'm not saying it's great for things to lose money. And there are factors that exist other than "emotion" and "money." For example, HBO thought it was worthwhile for the network to have a "prestige" show that wasn't much of a moneymaker but that did reinforces the network's priority of quality and a certain type of programming that is not feasible on the broadcast networks. Obviously they aren't going to throw money down a pit to achieve that, but the show ran for five full seasons and was of incredibly high quality throughout.

Man, you have a seriously romanticized view of Hollywood. Don't look behind the curtain! (The money men live there.) I have no doubt that some of the best stuff has been pushed through by the vision of its creator, but those shows were never greenlit without the belief that they would make money... and good money-men aren't persuaded by an idea they like, especially in these times.

Mad Men wasn't made by AMC because "it was so good, we just couldn't say no". Look at the history of their original programming: Period dramas play a huge part, as does catering to Baby Boomers (ie. people who have fond memories of the 60s). I hate to burst your bubble, but networks and movie studios are ALL about money -- they're businesses.

I'd love to know how you know which shows have or haven't been focus tested, though. (Do you have a list?)

My view is not romanticized. My view is that the creative people shouldn't be the cynical ones. There are people whose job that is. The point is for the creative people to fight for their creative vision, and for the money people to fight for their financial interest. Not for everyone to exist in a shitty retarded world where everything is "de-risked." Jesus fucking Christ.

But if you are truly that jaded that you believe it is impossible for anyone involved in a business to care about anything other than money, than I guess I'm sorry and we probably can't discuss this. Thanks for your concern about my bubble, though.

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Howard the Duck?

WAY too many people saw Howard the Duck. It's nearly a tragedy.

(In the UK Lionsgate is distributing Parnassus and Sony has gotten on board to distribute in the US as of a day or two ago)

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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I recently saw Hudson Hawk again. What a goofy movie, but entertaining in its own way!

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I fail to grasp how market research can work within a market where there is no transparency in the products, or in a market where the customers actually don't really know what they want. How can you test a product acceptation/adoption when you don't have the product. Sure, for TV shows you can have pilots. But for a game you don't have a pilot (or demo) until it's very far into production.

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Ususally, a company will have an animatic of the gameplay, a rudimentary prototype with proxy graphics or even just stills and visualisations. There are always ways in which it can be done. In any case, it's not an impossibility of making games, but rather perhaps an impossibility of the current industry. After all, it takes an incredible amount of time and resources to produce a pilot as well. Shouldn't be that much harder to make a prototype for a game for the same amount of money or way, way less.

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But for a game you don't have a pilot (or demo) until it's very far into production.

Well, there's a bunch of thing you can do : it's rarely used but, depending on the concept, you can roleplay a game (i.e. in a dialog with user you simulate the game) or paper prototype it to some people very early in the design phase.

At the beginning of pre-production, bits of fake footage (

) are usually produced - they take more resource than they should, but they convey the flow of the game pretty well - and most of the time, a team spends 4 to 6 months creating an FPP (First Playable Publishable) that shows core gameplay elements.

All of that can happen within the time it would take to shoot and edit a pilot for a TV serie.

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I fail to grasp how market research can work within a market where there is no transparency in the products, or in a market where the customers actually don't really know what they want. How can you test a product acceptation/adoption when you don't have the product. Sure, for TV shows you can have pilots. But for a game you don't have a pilot (or demo) until it's very far into production.

Does the gaming market know what it wants any less than the film or TV market does?

Isn't a pilot just like a tech demo/proof of concept, in the sense that "look what we'll do properly if you give us the money we need"? I guess that only makes sense for the technology / clever game hook part and not the storytelling.

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Someone had to bring up Sonic: Unleashed :shifty:

I liked that game a lot, best 3-D Sonic game since Sonic Adventure 2.

I suppose my mental age must be around the 7-10 year old mark then.

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film an TV is "easier" because it doesn't contain interaction

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But if you are truly that jaded that you believe it is impossible for anyone involved in a business to care about anything other than money, than I guess I'm sorry and we probably can't discuss this.

I'm not jaded, I'm sorry to say that you're a bit naive. Of course it's impossible to run a business if you don't care about money (although I note you've changed your argument to "anything other than money"). The whole function of ANY business is to MAKE money. It's not a pleasant thought, but it's the truth. It is a very romantic notion that companies exist that care about other things besides money... but they don't.

The Co-Operative Bank (here in the UK) pride themselves on being the "ethical" bank: They refuse to loan money to countries run by corrupt regimes. But, guess what, that was a business decision: They're a smaller bank that have captured that smaller segment of the market (they were also never asked to loan money to corrupt regimes -- Yes, I know someone who has worked there for 30 years).

I'd love for banks NOT to be involved in that sort of business anyway; I wish it were illegal for them to do it, but you know what: I still bank with the HSBC, which is something I can't really be proud of if I want to look down on them.

Again, the German company, Bosch, have an amazingly awesome environmental record. They're often used to show how a big company can create consumer appliances and minimise their impact on the environment. But guess what, as great as I think that is, they save money through these processes (something that environmentalists who with work big companies - like my ex - have a big problem trying to get them to understand) and they boost their public image. If they were to lose money through this process, they wouldn't do it.

Even if a media company does something for the "prestige", it's still only because by having "prestige" they will earn more money in the long-run by maintaining the quality of their brand. If there was zero financial benefit, they wouldn't do it.

It's seems like a horrible world we live in sometimes, but that's truly how it is.

So yes, I completely agree that something created through the business process will invariably be shite (designed by committee and all that), but businesses themselves are all about money.

As for the creative types, they can't be immune to business pressures either, sadly:

A TV show pitch is put together by some passionate creatives. The idea is pitched to a network or production company. If the network/pc think it will earn some money for them, they'll commission a pilot. Once the pilot episode is made, it's tested. If it's received well by the test audience they order more episodes. If the expected audience figures are low, the show is cancelled -- often mid-season. It sucks for everybody, except the money-men.

Consider yourself to be the creative director of a show that's been commissioned for 22 episodes... After the first 7 episodes doing really well there's a big drop in your viewing figures. Do you a) Try and figure out why the audience doesn't like your show anymore, what's changed, and try to tailor it to their tastes, or B) Keep going on the path you imagined was the best one and almost certainly get cancelled/ruin your dreams of working on your own TV show.

There wonderful exceptions to this rule in things like The Wire, but that was made in a totally different environment. HBO can afford (thank God) to keep a TV show going that doesn't have immediate rating successes if it feels that it will do well on DVD and/or in foreign territories (it did MASSIVELY well here in the UK). Because of their stable business environment (thanks to subscribers instead of advertisers) they can play the "long game"... On a network, if there's a drop in ratings, then the advertising space isn't worth as much and they lose money immediately.

Molyneux wasn't saying that he should design by committee, he was simply saying that he's found it helpful that design decisions are tested before moving forward. That doesn't mean that his creative decisions should become sterile or uninspired... because he still has to come up with a concept that excites and interests people. That's the creative challenge.

My view is not romanticized. My view is that the creative people shouldn't be the cynical ones. There are people whose job that is. The point is for the creative people to fight for their creative vision, and for the money people to fight for their financial interest. Not for everyone to exist in a shitty retarded world where everything is "de-risked." Jesus fucking Christ.

Peter Molyneux runs Lionhead, he's its CEO. If he makes the wrong decision he loses his job, and so does everyone else at Lionhead. If he makes a game no-one buys then he fails at what he does for a living... but I don't think he was even talking about that.

"Risk" is a business term that factors in many things, including the previous successes of the team in question, and it's something that investors use when assessing whether or not they should invest in something. It's THEIR term, not his.

He's not saying that you have to produce the most vanilla game possible in order to make the most money, he just saying that you've got to do all you can to prove to your investors that they'll make their money back -- otherwise you won't be able to make your game in the first place.

His weirdness about how Dexter was made into a success sounded like he was trying to say that you can take an insanely crazy idea (hero serial killer) and still manage to prove to the money-men that it's a viable option... His point being that they've found a system that allows creatively risky ideas to get past the money-men. I don't believe he was trying to say: "By designing everything through customer research you can get great commercial ideas".

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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His weirdness about how Dexter was made into a success sounded like he was trying to say that you can take an insanely crazy idea (hero serial killer) and still manage to prove to the money-men that it's a viable option... His point being that they've found a system that allows creatively risky ideas to get past the money-men. I don't believe he was trying to say: "By designing everything through customer research you can get great commercial ideas".

This is what's confusing to me. Iit's right what syntheticgerbil says about Molyneux not really knowing the TV industry and therefore not knowing what he's talking about because the shows he brings up as being successes of the TV machine are all completely atypical examples of how most TV works. HBO and Showtime are famous for their lack of studio interference and willingness to take risks and almost all of their shows are written by one crazy guy up in the woods. None of the stuff he mentions would make it to network airwaves precisely because of all the babble he spouts about market research and writing by committe.

I think if he was going to make that statement, he should've used Big Bang Theory or Lost or any of the more traditional TV-industry shows that are successfull. Of course, that's a harder job because that process is terrible.

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I'm not jaded, I'm sorry to say that you're a bit naive. Of course it's impossible to run a business if you don't care about money (although I note you've changed your argument to "anything other than money"). The whole function of ANY business is to MAKE money. It's not a pleasant thought, but it's the truth. It is a very romantic notion that companies exist that care about other things besides money... but they don't.

A company is nothing but people. People are not perfect money-making machines. Why does somebody start a particular business? By that I mean, why do you start a business in one field rather than another, particularly in an entertainment field? Because you enjoy or love or have an interest in it, right? Let's take Double Fine. What does that "company" want? You think that "company" exists purely as a money-wanting entity and nothing else? Would you really care to back that up? Double Fine--that is to say, the people who comprise Double Fine, since the company itself only exists insofar as the people who make it up does--has multiple goals: to make money, to continue existing, to make video games, and beyond that to make video games its people actually care about and want to make. A company does not make decisions. The people who comprise the company make decisions.

The Co-Operative Bank [...removing some text here because this post has exceeded the character limit...] If they were to lose money through this process, they wouldn't do it.

I'm not going to have this argument about banks. I can't believe you'd get on my ass about using another television example, and then start bringing up banks, which are so preposterously far from the topic of this conversation it's not even worth addressing.

Even if a media company does something for the "prestige", it's still only because by having "prestige" they will earn more money in the long-run by maintaining the quality of their brand. If there was zero financial benefit, they wouldn't do it.

Why are they running their business that way rather than a different way? Is that the only way to run a network? Are there not people at that network who see some intangible value in attempting to make a successful network that can make money operating in that fashion, rather than operating in a different fashion? Do you care about nothing but money? At your job, do you care about nothing but money and nothing else? At what point does somebody go through this transformation that the only thing that matters is money? Is it a one-step process? How many steps is it? How high up at the company do you have to be before it happens?

It's seems like a horrible world we live in sometimes, but that's truly how it is.

I don't need you to lecture me about the world.

So yes, I completely agree that something created through the business process will invariably be shite (designed by committee and all that), but businesses themselves are all about money.

Businesses run an incredible range of purposes, sizes, goals, and methods of operation, from non-profit, to privately held for-profit, to privately held for essentially vanity's sake with no expectation of profitability, to publicly-owned, and many more.

As for the creative types, they can't be immune to business pressures either, sadly:

A TV show pitch is put together by some passionate creatives. The idea is pitched to a network or production company. If the network/pc think it will earn some money for them, they'll commission a pilot. Once the pilot episode is made, it's tested. If it's received well by the test audience they order more episodes. If the expected audience figures are low, the show is cancelled -- often mid-season. It sucks for everybody, except the money-men.

Consider yourself to be the creative director of a show that's been commissioned for 22 episodes... After the first 7 episodes doing really well there's a big drop in your viewing figures. Do you a) Try and figure out why the audience doesn't like your show anymore, what's changed, and try to tailor it to their tastes, or B) Keep going on the path you imagined was the best one and almost certainly get cancelled/ruin your dreams of working on your own TV show.

There wonderful exceptions to this rule in things like The Wire, but that was made in a totally different environment. HBO can afford (thank God) to keep a TV show going that doesn't have immediate rating successes if it feels that it will do well on DVD and/or in foreign territories (it did MASSIVELY well here in the UK). Because of their stable business environment (thanks to subscribers instead of advertisers) they can play the "long game"... On a network, if there's a drop in ratings, then the advertising space isn't worth as much and they lose money immediately.

So, what you're saying here is that different business models and different ways of producing things that can allow for different types of art to reach an audience in different ways. And that there are profitable companies, such as HBO, that can afford to run their businesses in ways that allow for different types of creative expression, and that it's not all one homogeneous process. Good. I'm glad we agree on that point.

Molyneux wasn't saying that he should design by committee, he was simply saying that he's found it helpful that design decisions are tested before moving forward. That doesn't mean that his creative decisions should become sterile or uninspired... because he still has to come up with a concept that excites and interests people. That's the creative challenge.

Peter Molyneux runs Lionhead, he's its CEO. If he makes the wrong decision he loses his job, and so does everyone else at Lionhead. If he makes a game no-one buys then he fails at what he does for a living... but I don't think he was even talking about that.

Molyneux has had an amazing number of both failures and successes, and has always continued to be a well-funded and prominent member of the game development community. If you don't think things like self-promotion and notoriety and reputation can be just as important as actual dollars made, you don't pay much attention to how things work.

"Risk" is a business term that factors in many things, including the previous successes of the team in question, and it's something that investors use when assessing whether or not they should invest in something. It's THEIR term, not his.

So you're specifically talking about publicly-owned companies here? What about privately owned companies? Because Molyneux was not saying "in the context of Lionhead," he was addressing the industry as a whole. I am not responding to Molyneux's comments with respect to how Lionhead operates, I am responding to his comments with respect to his belief that this is how the entire industry should operate.

He's not saying that you have to produce the most vanilla game possible in order to make the most money, he just saying that you've got to do all you can to prove to your investors that they'll make their money back -- otherwise you won't be able to make your game in the first place.

All you need to do is convince the investors of that. It's their responsibility to decide whether it's actually going to happen or not. If you can convince somebody to let you make your crazy game idea, fucking do it. Maybe it doesn't end up being a hit, but fucking whatever, if you can keep the studio going and you've made an amazing thing, then great. This industry needs more of that, and less of the big focus test-fest.

His weirdness about how Dexter was made into a success sounded like he was trying to say that you can take an insanely crazy idea (hero serial killer) and still manage to prove to the money-men that it's a viable option... His point being that they've found a system that allows creatively risky ideas to get past the money-men. I don't believe he was trying to say: "By designing everything through customer research you can get great commercial ideas".

The whole point is ridiculous because there are tons and tons of things that have huge amounts of customer research that fail miserably. There are also tons of things that have huge amounts of research that are successful. My point is that there IS no system that's going to actually figure that out, as much as there are lots of people who would like to believe there is. Obviously, those practices can help "de-risk" projects. But I'd still rather see somebody push through a project that hasn't been de-risked. Some of my favorite works across many forms can be described that way. I'd like those things to be commercially successful, but I'd rather they exist and not be big hits than not exist at all. And, fortunately for me, there are consistently creators across many forms of entertainment who feel the same way and are willing to push for that. Those people, even more than me, would love all of those projects to be big successes, but--again, fortunately--in many cases their desire to get those works made frequently at least partially compensates for those concerns.

I guess, by the way, you'd be chiding Terry Gilliam for making too risky a project if you could have a face to face conversation with him, based on your mention of his latest project and the arguments you've espoused in this thread?

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Obviously, those practices can help "de-risk" projects. But I'd still rather see somebody push through a project that hasn't been de-risked. Some of my favorite works across many forms can be described that way.

I think you have somewhat different understanding of what Molyneux meant by de-risking than Marek or Thunderpeel (or I, although I'm certainly not agreeing with everything Thunderpeel said). I think he specifically meant de-risking a project in the eyes of the investors, not de-risking the content.

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