Nachimir

Molyneux interview about 22 Cans

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Develop have a very good interview with Peter Molyneux up this morning:

http://www.develop-online.net/features/1617/Molyneux-This-is-my-last-chance

I have been harsh on Molyneux before, but there's little hype in this and he comes over as a genuinely sweet and lovely man.

(tl;dr: He's not just promising interesting games; he sees problems with the ways businesses and projects are set up to produce games, so is doing interesting experimental things with those first).

This bit especially:

We’ve spoken to a lot of Lionhead staff since you announced your departure. They’ve all said they love you.

[Holds emotions] It’s amazing. But I frustrated them. My leaving is the best thing for them. I was this glass ceiling. Now that’s broken, great people will emerge. I love them and hope they do.

Respect!

and this:

Lionhead and Bullfrog were both major, long-established businesses. Is 22Cans your final stretch?

Well I’m 52 years old. I have a strange attitude to life. I consider it a marathon that you’ve got to keep pushing yourself through. I just hope I’m coming near the end of it. I couldn’t do another 26 miles. I’d like to think I’m coming into the stadium now. Just a couple of laps around the track, and I’ll be done.

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The last game I really truly actually worked on was Black & White.

and i still haven't forgiven him for my dissappointment at it.

I don't know what it is, i just can't get behind him and his ideas.

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I've always liked him. To an outsider looking in, I always remember the games like Populous and Syndicate, Magic Carpet etc. and never knew the insider gossip that seemed in some quarters to turn him into a bit of a laughing stock. I never played Fable, as I could never be bothered - it came out when I was feeling really jaded about games. The Movies was his last game that I played I think - and it was great.

So the later stuff when he was this 'hype-machine' as he is always described as, I avoided, and reading stuff on here, I felt a bit sorry for him. He always got this bad press and looked like a bit of a lost child, bewildered as to where it all went wrong.

Great article Nach, and it's good to see he's not finished yet.

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I've always been fond of Molyneux. He's a little like a child in that he gushes on about his ideas and gets really over-excited, but it's all very innocent and is simply a true creative who loves his job.

I can see why those who hang onto every word he says and expect his games to be the second coming of Christ might be disappointed upon actually playing them, but I've been very careful to avoid listening to him talking about his upcoming games and as a result I absolutely loved the Black & White and Fable games — I had no expectations, and really enjoyed them for what they were. :tup:

Plus let's not forget that this is the man behind Theme Park, one of my absolute childhood favourites. :woohoo:

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I've always liked Molyneux, but I remember him mostly from his "glory days"... Black & White was insanely ambitious, and incredibly exciting, but it was less interesting to actually play. After that, things haven't been as exciting.

I've always loved the fact that he's pushing the boundaries, though. That's what makes him interesting and relevant. It doesn't matter to me if he fails, it matters more that someone is trying.

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Though I have never loved any of the games he's designed, I really love the character of Peter Molyneux. Even though he's often portrayed as maybe cynically over-selling his games, I genuinely believe he's just super-excited and unable to control himself when speaking about them. For example, when describing the whole Milo thing as this super-advanced quantum leap in AI technology, when it obviously wasn't, I'm sure Peter Molyneux was really talking about what he imagined and wanted to make.

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Yeah, he really is all about giving people a new experience — and that's a wonderful thing. Black & White was a brilliant game in my opinion, a crazy fusion of various things I've always enjoyed (simulation, puzzles, Tamagotchi). It saddens me that kind of game will probably never happen again, especially when taunted by things like From Dust.

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Even though he's often portrayed as maybe cynically over-selling his games, I genuinely believe he's just super-excited and unable to control himself when speaking about them.

Yeah, I don't think he ever did that cynically. I think he would be a very good bikeshedder, except for the fact he actually gets stuff made.

That interview and his present plans make me think that a big studio was quite possibly not the best place for a man like him, though going through the 90s and 00s, it was the only place for most game developers until relatively recent times.

I'm pretty excited about what he might do by hiring outside of the industry. Those are the kind of influences that indie games should be able to admit, but often can't for one reason or another (i.e. architects tend not to wake up and think about making games).

Keita Takahashi was a sculptor before he became a game designer, and Katamari Damacy rekindled my interest in games at a time when I was looking at the rest of the industry and thinking "Fuck this."

At the same time, I think Molyneux is putting an awful lot of pressure on himself to make something great rather than good.

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I'm pretty excited about what he might do by hiring outside of the industry. Those are the kind of influences that indie games should be able to admit, but often can't for one reason or another (i.e. architects tend not to wake up and think about making games).

Yeh, it was this bit that made me sit up. It's a simple idea, and might spawn something marvellous. Pretty brave too.

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Absolutely. Katamari Damacy was 2004, and as far as I can tell, Keita getting hired by a big publisher as game designer was a massive fluke that nobody quite understands. Ever since, the industry has seemed pretty closed off to that kind of thing (and not without good reason, when the skills required to make games are so deeply technical).

It's pretty exciting that someone with the funding and reputation to make it happen is doing so :tup:

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Excellent interviews (I read the ones on Eurogamer and GI.biz). Very honest and interesting.

It's brave to leave the safety of MS/Lionhead after 15 years and start something completely new. I wish him all the best.

Industry luminaries pondering how many more games they've got left in their career still feels new and strange. Miyamoto and Warren Spector were talking about this recently too. It will be very interesting to see what this pioneering generation of designers decides to do in a bunch of years when they get closer to retirement age.

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Chair-fixing-lady confirmed as final boss in Molyneux's new game.

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