melmer

Project Godus: Don't believe his lies

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.... yes? I mean, I really can't think of a fuck-up bigger than being pitched "The Next God Game by Peter Molyneux" and being delivered a click-fest F2P game by DeNA.

Haha okay whatever.

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For me the whole problem here is that he's moved on to some new game. Delays, problems, etc, are to be expected but by abandoning the project, stripping down the dev team and starting some new game, he's sending entirely the wrong message. I guess there's financial pressure but I think this whole thing would go away if he just doubled down and did the damn work. Without it, I don't think The Trial has any chance whatsoever after such an erosion of trust and goodwill.

The way I interpreted the interview, it sounded like only the pre-production crew (visual designers and whatnot) had moved on to the new game, while the coders and gameplay people were still on Godus.

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But the kid doesn't care. And it's not a breach of contract--the article says, "While Bryan is unable to discuss the terms of the deal, Eurogamer understands he was promised a royalty of one per cent of revenue from Godus for the period of his role as God of Gods."

 

Molyneux sold Curiosity as a chance to win a life-changing prize.  If there is no such prize, everyone who paid for Curiosity was defrauded.  It's like selling raffle tickets to win a car when you don't actually have a car to give away.

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Haha okay whatever.

 

Therein concludes another excellent discussion with twig.

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Curiosity contained in app purchases, which is sorta different. It's like if everyone got free tickets to a raffle but you could opt to buy more tickets and increase your chance of winning.

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Just a thought...I think having a contract with the winner of Curiousity to give them a percentage of sales would put the game in violation of the Google and Apple app store terms of service, which both disallow gambling and any prizes with cash value. Obviously, I am not a lawyer, we don't know the specifics of that deal, but it seems that way to me.

 

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#contests

 

https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy.html

 

I think at this point it probably doesn't matter either way, but I wonder if Apple/Google knowingly let that slide or not.

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I backed Godus, not much, only 20$ or so. My reason for doing so is that I like Molyneux and I think he's a game designer with a lot of fun and unconventional ideas, but he lacks restraint. My thought was that while he was at Microsoft and had such massive budgets he easily let himself get distracted. My hope was that with a limited budget and a set list of features he'd focus more and not chase whatever whim or inspiration that hits him.

So much for that. It seems his problems lie elsewhere. What a shame. I was really rooting for him to prove us wrong.

This is utterly trust eroding. I've lost a lot of respect for him.

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Did anyone actually pay for Curiosity?

 

You could pay to shorten, or lengthen, the amount of time that it would take to open the cube. The real wrinkle is that late in its existence, there were some allegations/claims that the cube never had a fixed amount of stuff to remove in the first place, that 22 Cans just made it a finite amount once they were ready to be done with it...which would be hella problematic if that could be proven.

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You agree that it might not be breach of contract, BUT that it would be hard to argue that it was a legitimate contract???

 

Let me break it down for you:

 

In my jurisdiction, I don't think this would be considered a valid contract, because it's structured in a way where one party only gets something if the other party keeps a promise, but the contract does not compel them to keep that promise. Because the contract is then a fancy way of saying 'you actually don't get anything', I think it'd be considered a misleading contract. So the contract hasn't been breached, I agree, but he could probably still sue.

 

 

ANYWAY this is an interesting take, and I think kind of the capper to this situation.

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Therein concludes another excellent discussion with twig.

Okay. You tell me why I should sit here and argue with a virtual crucifixion of an imperfect game developer.

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Okay. You tell me why I should sit here and argue with a virtual crucifixion of an imperfect game developer.

Oh, come on, Twig. It's not a crucifixion to call a man on taking people's money and not delivering on it since I was in diapers. We can all disagree on whether it's right to call someone a pathological liar to their face, but Molyneux has been "imperfectly" describing his games for almost three decades and I have trouble not calling that pathological in some way.

People have a right to be angry because of the choices Molyneux has made with their money as a public figure. I got off the bandwagon with Black & White way back in 1997, because that was such a disappointing clusterfuck, but I have nothing but sympathy for anyone discovering the same emotions now.

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Let me break it down for you:

 

In my jurisdiction, I don't think this would be considered a valid contract, because it's structured in a way where one party only gets something if the other party keeps a promise, but the contract does not compel them to keep that promise. Because the contract is then a fancy way of saying 'you actually don't get anything', I think it'd be considered a misleading contract. So the contract hasn't been breached, I agree, but he could probably still sue.

 

Right, so you agree that it's probably not even a contract... so then why think that anyone have any ground to discuss this as a contract if it's not a valid contract?  Contract laws deal with validity of contracts and then enforcement of valid but breached contracts.  Everything else is out of its scope.  So if you agree that contract isn't breached because it's not a valid contract, then noone can sue for misleading contract cause there was no contract to begin with.

 

Again, I think sweepstake-contest rules are much better fit.

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Edit: silly phone fooling my noodle brain into thinking my post would be the one just after Tegan's.

Never played it. But you had a free amount of taps on the blocks a day before you ran out.

So some people decided to but more uses or faster taps.

Something like that.

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Contract laws deal with validity of contracts and then enforcement of valid but breached contracts.  Everything else is out of its scope.

 

I don't think that's universal: what I'm specifically saying is that as far as I'm aware, in my jurisdiction, contract law also deals with invalid contracts used like valid contracts.

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I'm not going to read that interview, it seems like a long waste of my life for a game I didn't back and wasn't invested in, but couldn't Molyneux just have not done the interview? Especially with that first question setting the tone, he could have said it was over.

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Oh, come on, Twig. It's not a crucifixion to call a man on taking people's money and not delivering on it since I was in diapers. We can all disagree on whether it's right to call someone a pathological liar to their face, but Molyneux has been "imperfectly" describing his games for almost three decades and I have trouble not calling that pathological in some way.

People have a right to be angry because of the choices Molyneux has made with their money as a public figure. I got off the bandwagon with Black & White way back in 1997, because that was such a disappointing clusterfuck, but I have nothing but sympathy for anyone discovering the same emotions now.

I've got no issue with calling a dude out for making mistakes.

 

But this kind of shit?

 

 

I mean, I really can't think of a fuck-up bigger than being pitched "The Next God Game by Peter Molyneux" and being delivered a click-fest F2P game by DeNA.

Like, what the fuck? This is the biggest fuck-up in the gaming industry? Come on. That's going far beyond reasonably being disappointed or upset with Molyneux.

 

So, yes, I don't feel too bad about "exaggerating" some of the shit in this thread (celebrating the John Walker interview? fucking eh) as a virtual crucifixion. Sorry.

 

Also I liked Black & White a lot! It's one of those games I played More Than Anything Else at the time I got it (probably at least a year after it came out, and used and super cheap), so I dunno what "clusterfuck" means. I really, honestly don't. B&W was fun. Fable was fun. Fable 2 was fun! Maybe none of them lived up to expectations because the guy doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. WHATEVER! The games are still fun. Fable 3 was allegedly shit. Never played it. Curiosity is... weird as hell. Godus, now Godus is an obvious example of a clusterfuck. So he's clearly gone downhill, for basically everyone, at least since Fable 2. Great. Be upset! Fine! But the hyperbolic accusations of Peter Molyneux being a pathological liar? Claiming that this is the biggest fuck-up out of all industryfuck-ups? No, no thanks. This thread is gross.

 

(Oh I never played B&W2, either, but I understand that one was also shit. But given the apparently high level of hatred directed at B&W1, I don't even know if I can trust that without playing it myself.)

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Also I liked Black & White a lot! It's one of those games I played More Than Anything Else at the time I got it (probably at least a year after it came out, and used and super cheap), so I dunno what "clusterfuck" means. I really, honestly don't. B&W was fun. Fable was fun. Fable 2 was fun! Maybe none of them lived up to expectations because the guy doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. WHATEVER! The games are still fun. Fable 3 was allegedly shit. Never played it. Curiosity is... weird as hell. Godus, now Godus is an obvious example of a clusterfuck. So he's clearly gone downhill, for basically everyone, at least since Fable 2. Great. Be upset! Fine! But the hyperbolic accusations of Peter Molyneux being a pathological liar? Claiming that this is the biggest fuck-up out of all industryfuck-ups? No, no thanks. This thread is gross.

(Oh I never played B&W2, either, but I understand that one was also shit. But given the apparently high level of hatred directed at B&W1, I don't even know if I can trust that without playing it myself.)

Black & White was my one game purchase that year, or rather my parents' one game purchase, and I distinctly remember it as an animal abuse simulator with a fragile-as-glass campaign built around it as justification. It was the sort of game that scanned your computer for your name and the weather, rendered ants in the grass, and simulated your creature's digestive system, but was missing basic checks to see whether the state of your domain on completion of one mission would trigger automatic failure upon beginning the next. I lost three campaigns that way before giving up and selling it to Gamestop. I mean, it was fun as a curio, but a total mess nonetheless.

I don't know, I just don't see a reason to defend Peter Molyneux beyond common decency. He's humorous and a bit avuncular, which gets him incredibly far, but he's consistently unable to say what he will or will not do in a given project after almost thirty years of experience. How is that not the definition of pathological? Even if it isn't, it's still not good for his employees, his customers, and the industry.

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I didn't like that interview too much. It's pretty ironic to open an interview who's central conceit is that the subject is grandstanding, and that is wrong, with some serious grandstanding.

 

Also, I must be defective in the brains, because I updated my Godus today, and played a bit, and still kind of enjoyed it. It's not great, sure, but it's got a nice tactile feedback with the audio cues, and it's pretty soothing. 

 

Game people are just so entitled. If 22 Cans has some revenue source for a new game, of course they're going to move people onto it. I would like Godus to be finished, but we can understand that people aren't going to work for free on something that isn't generating revenue right? We can call it a fuck up, and choose to withhold future money, but realistically what does anybody expect them to do right now? (Ruling out making it 2012 again by science or magic) In that regard, I think the mobile F2P port is clever, because it might mean resources to keep people working on it. 

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I *really* didn't want to say anything more here, but whatever:

 
Twig, my position is clearly more naunced than you make it out to be, and if you took a few moments to actually read everything I put down (or heck, even the paragraph below the one you quoted) that would be very plainly obvious.
 
I'm not bothered to explain it all over, but for the record: I don't think Molyneux is a liar or a conman, but I do think he's an incredibly irresponsible project manager. I'm normally a staunch defender of developers [1], but the handling of Godus goes *well* beyond what I'd consider common pitfalls of software development.
 
Maybe that kind of thing was okay when publishers were involved, I don't know, that would be between Molyneux and his publishers. But taking money from the public, where there are zero checks-and-bounds in place, requires a different level of responsibility that Molyneux clearly did not consider seriously.
 
Anyway, with that said, peace out.
 
[1]: You can look up some old threads, like the Binfinite one, if you'd like.

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Black & White was my one game purchase that year, or rather my parents' one game purchase, and I distinctly remember it as an animal abuse simulator with a fragile-as-glass campaign built around it as justification. It was the sort of game that scanned your computer for your name and the weather, rendered ants in the grass, and simulated your creature's digestive system, but was missing basic checks to see whether the state of your domain on completion of one mission would trigger automatic failure upon beginning the next. I lost three campaigns that way before giving up and selling it to Gamestop. I mean, it was fun as a curio, but a total mess nonetheless.

I played the game to completion and then played with a bunch of mods (mostly just to add various wacky creature skins). I loved that game. I'm not saying it was perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was one of my games and I loved it. I don't think it's a stretch to say it was formative in defining some of my tastes in games.

 

Also worth noting is that I played this game long before I even knew who the hell Molyneux was. My first experience with him as a personality was Fable 1 Hype Fest, and I didn't play THAT game until years later, and only got it cheap in a bundle of other games (with B&W2, funnily enough), and then that was the only game I ever actually played out of that bundle. And I loved it, despite totally falling into the "oh that Molyneux fucker making false promises" even before having owned the game.

 

The dude over-promises. Yes okay fine. But so do a ton of people in the industry, when given the opportunity. AND! Godus is by no means the only Kickstarter to fail. Fuck, some Kickstarters don't even produce a product! They just give up. At least something came out of this, as allegedly garbage as it is! And they're still working on it, although of course there's no blaming you or anyone else if you just lack the faith. I certainly do.

 

EDIT: I wonder, is pathological optimist more applicable than pathological liar? I don't even think that's a real thing, but I think it describes the situation a lot better. He seems to genuinely believe that he CAN do these things, rather than believe he can't and make the promises, anyway. It's still harmful, of course, because the end result is essentially the same. I'm not denying that. But I think it's more accurate...

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I enjoyed B&W2 I remember browsing through Dad's collection of Mac Addict and seeing adverts for the precious few games coming out for Macintosh back then and Black and White really caught my eye. 

I never got to experience it for myself but I really loved the concept and I think it became a favoured setting for daydreams for a while.

When I did play B&W2 a lot of the enthusiasm was still there. There were a few problems and it really lacked a needed sandbox mode but it was still really fun! Fun enough to sink 50 hours into across multiple playthroughs. I mean that's a mark of a good game right? At least in terms of just playing the damn thing.

 

As for shifting in house staff into the development of a new IP I totally get it! I mean honestly its smart to not let your pre production staff leave and have them instead work on a new IP. Right?

As for building things on mobile. Yeah I understand its a major bummer for a lot of people. Heck I wasn't invested in GODUS at all and I still felt like that would surely kill my interest in the game for a while. But it makes sense as a revenue booster without having to completely rely on a publisher or more crowdfunded investment money.

 

In a way there's a similar change of direction in another studio I know called Unknown Worlds. Both studios are relatively recent. Both were seen as one game companies.  But after trying to find revenue streams within the existing player base they found that they had to start working on a new IP to bring in more revenue to the studio.

I know it's not the most overlapping of stories but both studios tried to find income while just working on the one game their player base expected them to and both found that their customer base was not big enough to sustain that focus.

The backlash was mildly similar as well but of course UW doesn't have a big name like 22cans. Still players felt like they were being left with a broken game that was alienating half of the original fanbase due to platform requirements and the state of the builds. UW has attempted to smooth the issue over by taking on a Community Development Team and in a way 22Cans has done a similar thing in a much smaller capacity (but UW's CDT is unpaid).

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I don't think that's universal: what I'm specifically saying is that as far as I'm aware, in my jurisdiction, contract law also deals with invalid contracts used like valid contracts.

 

It is not universal. Common law systems seem to have different rules regarding what is considered a contract than civil law systems. In the UK/US (and maybe AUS, but I don't know) a contract needs 4 parts. What is missing in this contract would be consideration (ie. what one party does/gives in exchange for the money.) In Some other European countries (like the Czech Republic) there are "gift contracts" where no consideration is required and it is still considered a valid contract. Common law has other kinds of agreements (Deeds, for example) that do similar things, but are not considered contracts. 

 

also, generally promises are not able to be contested in court, unless (i think) it can be proven that there was intent to enter into a legal agreement even if there wasn't one specifically laid out.

 

The point about contracts and no contracts, if a contract is considered invalid (if it was signed by someone who does not have legal capacity like a minor for instance) it is generally considered that there was no contract to begin with. A breached contract is only considered breach if there was a valid contract to begin with.

 

In this situation, it gets tricky because it is dependent on what kind of rules were made and agreed upon and while it might be able to contest it in court, it would ultimately be up to the judge/jury but it is not so clear that it is a done deal. 

 

this is my (very) unprofessional opinion by the way.  

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