melmer

Project Godus: Don't believe his lies

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Ugh, that interview is so difficult to read. There's something really strange about seeing Molyneux swear out of frustration, when his outward persona is so cool-headed. When I read it, I got the same feeling as I used to in my youth on the very few occasions when my dad would swear. The fact that he never did in normal circumstances made it so much more grave and meaningful.

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Hahaha whoa Jesus I was like "the opening question can't be THAT bad can it?" And then I read it.

 

Damn.

 

I like Molyneux. I know that's not the popular thing, but I like the guy a lot. I think he gets in over his head. He has ambitions and isn't necessarily capable of carrying them out. That sucks for him and for us, but... I still really like him. Now I'll read this interview and maybe change my mind. Who knows.

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It's sad to be shown that someone so likeable is also so incompetent, at least at the level he's operating.

Basically he should never have been allowed to rise to the level where he's responsible for anything except game design. He's the perfect embodiment of the Peter principle I think.

Black & White was my rude Molyneux awakening, and I've not bought anything of his since. But the 22 cans story was sympathetic enough that I was willing to throw the kickstarter some money. I mentally wrote it off, and was right to do so, I guess. Unfortunate but there you go.

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I will read that interview later, but I think there should be some settling conventional wisdom about the types of projects you can actually kickstart. Narrow focused "remakes" are actually looking like good decisions, because the people involved should already know what problems need to be solved. 

 

To try and develop a brand new systematic engine with a one time, low cash infusion seems so much more likely to fail. 

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It's a fun read that article. There's something a little less confrontational in The Guardian (UK National Newspaper) but Molyneux basically says the same thing 'I meant what I said at the time' without giving any explanation as to why he didn't deliver on the kickstarted promises or why he thinks it's acceptable to let kickstarted backers down so badly.

To me he comes across as someone who's over exuberance about his own games and his own abilities to deliver on them leaving him Coming up short time and time again. He really should just stick to designing games and leaving the running of companies (and handling of PR) to people much much at it than he is. It's just a highly visible tale of incompetence at the end of the day but he can't say it hasn't been coming.

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The best thing about Molyneux is he's made very few actually bad games. He just delivers less than he initially promises, every time. Godus is obviously garbage, and Fable 3 I've heard terrible things about. Same for Black & White 2. But all of his games that I've played (I've played none of those three), I've very much enjoyed.

 

But because he delivers less than he initially promises... Everybody hates him. I don't though! Nyeahehrher.

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I played Black and White 2 with zero preconception about who he is and what the series entailed other than you get to control this giant creature and build town.  I thought it was fun, like 7 or 8 out of 10 fun.

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i played about 15 hours of GODDUS before the last major overhaul, and I thought it was really fun, and soothing, if a shade simple/exploitative. the clicking had a great tactile response, but there was SO MUCH CLICKING. 

 

either way, i did those 15 hours in like 4 sittings, which is so rare for me. 

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That interview is a tough read. I'm glad Walker put Molyneux on the spot, but they both come across as a bit petulant and childish.

 

"You said this!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes you did!

*fingers in ears* "No, no, no, no, no!"

It is a tough read but I see it as Walker's attempt to establish facts for the interview and hold Molyneux to those facts.  In other words, necessary. 

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It is a tough read but I see it as Walker's attempt to establish facts for the interview and hold Molyneux to those facts.  In other words, necessary. 

 

I don't think that calling him a pathological liar right off the bat was exactly necessary. I think that Walker could have gotten what he was after without being so overly hostile.

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[from interview]
I think Double Fine have gone back and asked for more money because development is a very, very, it’s a very confusing and bewildering time, and it’s very hard to predict what will happen.

 

I don't think DF asked the public for more money on a KS project? 

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They effectively did by selling the first half before the second half was done.

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[from interview]

I think Double Fine have gone back and asked for more money because development is a very, very, it’s a very confusing and bewildering time, and it’s very hard to predict what will happen.

 

I don't think DF asked the public for more money on a KS project? 

Yeah, I think you're right. Although he could have been referring to the slacker backer thing, or more likely their splitting up of the game into two acts to get more funding.

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Yeah, I think you're right. Although he could have been referring to the slacker backer thing, or more likely their splitting up of the game into two acts to get more funding.

 

The idea that Double Fine "have gone back and asked for more money" is one hundred percent incorrect, and in fact that was the last impression Schafer wanted to make when he split Broken Age in two parts. Double Fine finishes Broken Age on their very own money, and in the end they will probably have pulled 70 or even 80% of the financial weight themselves.

The "slacker backer thing" is also of no real consequence. The Double Fine Adventure was TEH first game Kickstarter, and they didn't introduce a Paypal option during the campaign because they didn't quite understand that they could do that as soon as the original goal was met. So they introduced one later, no problem there.

The point Molyneux was trying to make here however - the unforeseeable cost explosion in game development - couldn't be demonstrated better than by name dropping Double Fine, which are likely developing the most expensive 2D adventure game of all time and have left an ambitious space sim as a core game on Early Access without its many hundred of brainstormed features. : (

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My feelings on Molyneux are super complicated. I've been a fan for the longest time. I've played almost all his games, from Bullfrog to Lionhead and (less so) to Microsoft. Almost every one of them I adore. The last few year though, starting from the Microsoft buy-out era, things have been different.

 

The thing is, he used to dream big and miss the mark and that was totally cool. But now? Fable 3 (and even 2) were not these crazy out-there ideas. Curiosity (which I enjoyed conceptually!) was not either. And Godus is the biggest disappointment of them all, because it's clearly just a crap game. Godus wasn't a matter of being *so ambitious* that something had to go wrong. It was not very ambitious, poorly executed, and well behind schedule.

 

 

As a Kickstarter it gets even worse. The DF reference is really interesting, because Broken Age is really *the* way to run a Kickstarter. I'd call it a perfect Kickstarter precisely because things went wrong. Because yes, things go wrong in game development all the damn time. But they documented it all and kept the backers in on every step of the way. They didn't mince words. And most importantly, they figured out well ahead of time that things weren't going to work out and DID SOMETHING about it.

 

This is the bit that The Internet gets so wrong about the BA Kickstarter: that things went "wrong" with BA is not a bad thing, it's an entirely natural aspect of game development. The important part is that DF caught it (relatively) early on and did some course correction. Godus is how you do it wrong: schedule aggressively, ignore the clear signs that things are amiss, and continue on as if everything is fine.

 

And of course, "this kinda thing" used to be okay back in his Lionhead days... playing with publisher monies is fine. But these are people, normal people who were pitched one thing, and got something entirely different. Note, I'm not saying that 22cans failed to deliver, or the game was delayed or whatever. I'm saying that the end product, even if it was on-time and bug-free was not "The Next God Game from Peter Molyneux", it's a F2P clickfest by DeNA.

 

 

Finally, about that RPS interview. Definitely a painful read, especially as a game developer. And I want to feel scummy about the whole thing, but then reading his interview on The Guardian reminded me why it had to be this way. Because with the latter he just did his usual paper-over-all-the-problems-as-if-they're-minor-issues-or-not-issues-at-all thing. And you'll note, HE'S PROMISED EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE BY EASTER. Spoiler alert: things will not be fine by Easter.

 

 

I feel shitty about this entire thing.

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I too have mixed feeling with this whole thing: While I don´t support Peter actions or how is handling the whole affair... I not sure if that over agressive tone was needed, sure the questions need to be made, but better results maybe could be achieved. Kickstart is a relative new thing while gaming development is often shrouded in mistery, a better tone might helped to shed some light on why and how things get off control. Now while we can make jokes all day about Duke Nukem Forever or failed Kickstarters we might not really know well why this happen and because of that, the same problems and issues could repeat themselves over and over again. There is very few talks about that.

 

Keep in mind: overpromise? anyone can commit that mistake, failure to make a proper budget? again anyone can commit that too, specially new small indie devs that lack budget and experience (which is not Peter case, but could happen to someone else).... turning Peter in to a simbol of something, can lead to misleading idea of "Godus failed only because or Peter(which might not be wrong, but is also not 100% correct), since I am not him, this would never happen to me!" which can lead to even more disasters.

 

By last, what also worries me about the RPS interview is that kind of really agressive tone became "popular", because this could really dangerous stuff that also people will use do dogpile someone else...

 

Anyway here is a piece I found about the interview on Gamasutra - http://gamasutra.com/blogs/TylerGlaiel/20150213/236471/Game_development_is_fing_difficult_my_thoughts_on_that_Peter_Molyneux_interview.php

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Moleneux came right out and admitted:

 

"There's this overwhelming urge to over-promise because it's such a harsh rule: if you're one penny short of your target then you don't get it. And of course in this instance, the behaviour is incredibly destructive, which is 'Christ, we've only got 10 days to go and we've got to make £100,000, for f**k's sake, lets just say anything'. So I'm not sure I would do that again."

 

That's pretty damning.  Asking whether he's a pathological liar is just about the most charitable response you could make to this.  Because it sure sounds like he deliberately made false promises in order to get people to give him money.

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Moleneux came right out and admitted:

 

"There's this overwhelming urge to over-promise because it's such a harsh rule: if you're one penny short of your target then you don't get it. And of course in this instance, the behaviour is incredibly destructive, which is 'Christ, we've only got 10 days to go and we've got to make £100,000, for f**k's sake, lets just say anything'. So I'm not sure I would do that again."

 

That's pretty damning.  Asking whether he's a pathological liar is just about the most charitable response you could make to this.  Because it sure sounds like he deliberately made false promises in order to get people to give him money.

Well that quote specifically is Molyneux saying that he gave in to desperation, but he has the ability to reflect back on it.

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This is far from an isolated incident, honestly - this thread is called Godus: Don't Believe His Lies because it was obvious, even when he started the Kickstarter, that Molyneux was going to massively oversell the thing. This cycle's been going on for decades now, and people keep giving Molyneux the benefit of the doubt and he keeps abusing that privilege. No other developer has anywhere near the track record of making shit up about the game they're working on, in part because no-one else gets away with making mea culpas after every game they release.

 

And the reason why it's a problem now is not because Godus is busted, because it is, but because everyone remembered that he promised a kid money and never came through. That's not 'development realities', that's straight-up breach of contract.

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Meanwhile,
 

RPS: You asked for less money on Kickstarter than you knew you were going to need because you didn’t want to ask for too much money.

Peter Molyneux: No, I didn’t say that.

But literally just before that,

Peter Molyneux: Well, I think if you talk to anyone, and this is the advice I have given to people about Kickstarter, is to not ask for too much. You cannot unfortunately ask for the actual amount you need. Because you don’t really know. This is how I based my assumption of what money we needed.

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I don't think that calling him a pathological liar right off the bat was exactly necessary. I think that Walker could have gotten what he was after without being so overly hostile.

 

While I don´t support Peter actions or how is handling the whole affair... I not sure if that over agressive tone was needed

 

I agree that it may not have been necessary, but I don't take that to mean "Walker shouldn't have done it". There's an area of "Acceptable" between "Necessary" and "Not okay". Calling someone a pathological liar is not okay in general conversation, but if Molyneux hasn't earned it, I think we can at least agree he's working towards it.

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There's a fine line to walk when being aggressive (in life in general, but for now I'm talking about as a member of the press) and hostile. I'm still reading through the interview, but Walker definitely crossed over into hostility a couple times. The first was the opening question, and the second was the question regarding the Linux stretch goal. He shouldn't have said, "That was pretty shitty of you."

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The first was the opening question, and the second was the question regarding the Linux stretch goal. He shouldn't have said, "That was pretty shitty of you."

 

That one I'm even more inclined to defend. I'm hesitant to outright say that Molyneux should be called a pathological liar, because to a lot of people that implies intent which of course we can't know is there. However...

 

Peter Molyneux: There is one Kickstarter promise that I am very worried about but all the rest are going to get done.

RPS: Which is Linux. You made it a stretch goal; that was pretty shitty of you, wasn’t it, when you know you couldn’t do it?

 

If Molyneux added a stretch goal he knew he couldn't deliver, that was shitty of him. Just objectively shitty. So he deserves to be called on it. And it really looks like that was the case, given this earlier Molyneux quote regarding Kickstarter:

 

There’s this overwhelming urge to over-promise because it’s such a harsh rule: if you’re one penny short of your target then you don’t get it. And of course in this instance, the behaviour is incredibly destructive, which is ‘Christ, we’ve only got 10 days to go and we’ve got to make £100,000, for fuck’s sake, lets just say anything’. So I’m not sure I would do that again.

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Meanwhile,

 

But literally just before that,

I don't think this is a contradiction. He's saying the conventional wisdom is don't ask for too much, and that he didn't ask for the whole amount he was going to need because it's so very difficult to know what that amount is going to be.

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