melmer

Project Godus: Don't believe his lies

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Why? Optimism can certainly be bad in overwhelming doses (ala Molyneux's "lies"), but taken on its own that statement is... "I had faith that I/we could do these things. I was wrong."

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I dunno that statement doesn't read like he thinks it's a mistake he made. It reads like Molyneux doesn't see the issue with how he operates.

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Why? Optimism can certainly be bad in overwhelming doses (ala Molyneux's "lies"), but taken on its own that statement is... "I had faith that I/we could do these things. I was wrong."

I dunno that statement doesn't read like he thinks it's a mistake he made. It reads like Molyneux doesn't see the issue with how he operates.

 

Molyneux states that making games is "almost impossible" to do, only able to happen if one has "a passion and a love" for it (and even then, who knows). He repeatedly implies that his continual misrepresentations of his own games are an inevitable side effect of that love, because love makes you do crazy things, and that it isn't reasonable to expect him to be otherwise, because it'd be "very difficult in [his] personality" to do so.

 

In general, I don't know what to make of Molyneux after that interview. Throughout the course of it, he has the distinct feeling of being upset that his behavior has consequences redounding on him personally. He works hard and believes every word he says, at least at the time, so it has to be the industry's fault, the publisher's fault, the consumer's fault, John Walker's fault that anyone could be mad at him. What am I supposed to do with that, as a onetime fan of him?

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Frankly, when I'm having a "conversation" with someone being as hostile as John Walker, I find it very difficult to remain calm and consistent in my responses. That interview is a fucking terrible way to get any sort of impression of Peter Molyneux. It's a goddamn mess.

 

You can even see Molyneux breaking down and saying "Fine, fine, I'm done," and only then does Walker half-apologize for the "misunderstanding" of his "accidental" hostility. Multiple times! How can you trust anything coming out of this shitfest, besides 1) confirming that, yeah, Molyneux promises more than he can handle, and 2) Molyneux is a human being and stresses out under pressure just like the rest of us? Both of which anyone could've figured out by just reading past interviews or talking to him.

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What Twig said pretty much.  That "interview" was a failure in my view because it failed to reveal anything new other than that John Walker is bad at interviewing people.

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Frankly, when I'm having a "conversation" with someone being as hostile as John Walker, I find it very difficult to remain calm and consistent in my responses. That interview is a fucking terrible way to get any sort of impression of Peter Molyneux. It's a goddamn mess.

 

You can even see Molyneux breaking down and saying "Fine, fine, I'm done," and only then does Walker half-apologize for the "misunderstanding" of his "accidental" hostility. Multiple times! How can you trust anything coming out of this shitfest, besides 1) confirming that, yeah, Molyneux promises more than he can handle, and 2) Molyneux is a human being and stresses out under pressure just like the rest of us? Both of which anyone could've figured out by just reading past interviews or talking to him.

 

I don't exactly see the logic behind things said under stress not being representative of one's genuine opinions. Surely, what you say with preparation and what you say on the spur of the moment are two sides of the same coin that is you? You're almost implying here that Molyneux is saying anything he can to get through the interview, but that's i) incredibly suspicious if true, and ii) definitely not true. Molyneux is quite consistent in his responses to Walker's statements. At no point in the interview does he respond to the stress by changing tack, revising his position, or backtracking on a statement, except when Walker catches him saying something explicitly untrue, like when Konrad joined the company. Instead, Molyneux reiterates his key points over and over, and it's those key points that I find unsettling: it's natural for projects to go over time and budget, so he shouldn't be held accountable for that, and it's natural to overpromise when talking to the press, so he shouldn't be held accountable for that. Sure, Walker is way too hostile at times, especially when bringing up shit like the Mayfair, but he's not some wizard who's tricking Molyneux into saying things he doesn't actually believe.

 

Meanwhile, when Molyneux finally does get around to answering whether he's a pathological liar, which Walker restates as someone who says stuff that isn't true without meaning to, here is his answer:

Like anybody that is in the business of creating something that doesn't exist, I say things that I believe are true, that very often don’t come true and sometimes do come true.

 

That is not the opinion of anyone else I personally know working in creative media, no matter what kind of stress they're under. It gives the impression of filmmakers, novelists, designers, and artists being people who lie habitually and occasionally make one of those lies come true. It makes the creation of art seem like it's some kind of dysfunctional pathology, yet it's something that Molyneux explicitly accepts. How is that not revealing in any way? Myself, I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it, as more than a one-time thing, since I quoted an extremely similar statement that Molyneux makes in a different context several dozen lines down. That's the value of an uncomfortably hostile interview like this one for me, the equivalent of Nixon saying, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal," to Frost.

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For those who hate, or are really bothered by, the interview: Would it change your opinion in any way if this were the leaked transcript of an investor chewing Molyneaux' ass instead of a journalist interviewing him?  Essentially the same tone and questions, but different context. 

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For those who hate, or are really bothered by, the interview: Would it change your opinion in any way if this were the leaked transcript of an investor chewing Molyneaux' ass instead of a journalist interviewing him?  Essentially the same tone and questions, but different context. 

 

Do you think people would like it more in that case? I'm thinking exactly the opposite, people with no personal monetary stake in the project would just see a money obsessed asshole chewing out Molyneux because the investor isn't rolling in money. (I don't think that's a fair response but I think that's the way the winds of bias would blow)

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It's not just about stress, Gorm, it's about antagonizing Molyneux into submission.

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It's not just about stress, Gorm, it's about antagonizing Molyneux into submission.

 

Do you really see that happening in the interview, Twig, or is that just how you feel when you put yourself in Molyneux's shoes? Myself, I don't see anything resembling "submission" from Molyneux throughout the interview. He pushes back hard at every negative statement that Walker makes from start to finish (and some positive statements too, like Walker saying that he likes some of Molyneux's games), and it's not as though his initial position is altered at all in the course of it, since he restates at the end that Godus will be right as rain in six months and that is "the absolute truth of the matter."

 

I really don't see how the presence of antagonism invalidates an interview, anyway. If it did, then our entire judicial system is fucked (and it is fucked, but more for other reasons, which is a conversation for the Ferguson or the Social Justice thread).

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Do you think people would like it more in that case? I'm thinking exactly the opposite, people with no personal monetary stake in the project would just see a money obsessed asshole chewing out Molyneux because the investor isn't rolling in money. (I don't think that's a fair response but I think that's the way the winds of bias would blow)

 

I don't think we'd have seen a multi-page argument about the propriety of the interview if it had been an individual who invested a half million pounds in 22 Cans. Some people would still condemn it, but I ultimately think it would have been dropped. Obviously there's no way to test that, but I suspect that's true. I think part of this is a question of whether Walker has the right to talk to Molyneaux that way, in a way we wouldn't ask that question if it were an investor.

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I don't think we'd have seen a multi-page argument about the propriety of the interview if it had been an individual who invested a half million pounds in 22 Cans. Some people would still condemn it, but I ultimately think it would have been dropped. Obviously there's no way to test that, but I suspect that's true. I think part of this is a question of whether Walker has the right to talk to Molyneaux that way, in a way we wouldn't ask that question if it were an investor.

That's interesting and I suspect you're right. It's complicated, but as much as I dislike capitalism I do feel like the investor would have more right to get annoyed because I just don't think that people who kickstarter the campaign have that much stake in it in the grand scheme of things. But maybe I'm being harsh, I've viewed every kickstarter as a risky venture with a potential small reward so it's odd for me to imagine someone getting so heavily invested in a kickstarter.

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Yes,I absolutely do see that in the interview, Gormongous.

I guess we should agree to disagree at this point!

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I think at this point we're just disagreeing on philosophies. I could see why explicit particular promises would come off as more dishonest, but a year+ long media marketing hype blast to purport something as Game Of The Year before it's out bothers me way more... in part because other people aren't as bothered by it.

 

I, on the other hand, see a categorical difference between hype about an existing product you want people to buy and making promises to crowdfunding backers you don't intend to keep.

 

If you pre-order Watchdogs based on Ubisoft's hype machine, shame on you.  You could have waited for reviews. 

 

But if a developer runs a Kickstarter and says, "If you give us X amount of money, we will deliver A, B, and C" then they've got to make every effort to deliver A, B, and C.  Maybe A, B, and C will suck, that's the chance you're taking when you back them.  But they should expect some harsh questions if they just throw up their hands and say, "Well, that was never going to be enough money to do B, C, or more than half of A."

I don't think backers are entitled to get their money refunded, but I don't think it's out of line for them to tell Molyneux in pretty harsh terms that what he did is not okay, and is in fact damaging to the entire idea of crowdfunding.

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I, on the other hand, see a categorical difference between hype about an existing product you want people to buy and making promises to crowdfunding backers you don't intend to keep.

 

If you pre-order Watchdogs based on Ubisoft's hype machine, shame on you.  You could have waited for reviews. 

 

But if a developer runs a Kickstarter and says, "If you give us X amount of money, we will deliver A, B, and C" then they've got to make every effort to deliver A, B, and C.  Maybe A, B, and C will suck, that's the chance you're taking when you back them.  But they should expect some harsh questions if they just throw up their hands and say, "Well, that was never going to be enough money to do B, C, or more than half of A."

I don't think backers are entitled to get their money refunded, but I don't think it's out of line for them to tell Molyneux in pretty harsh terms that what he did is not okay, and is in fact damaging to the entire idea of crowdfunding.

 

I think that's an overall good perspective but it does get murkier when promises are so outrageously impossible.

 

Like say, I ask you for $60 and promises to give you a full vacation trip to the moon, you give me the $60, I don't deliever... clearly I would be to blame (I did lie) but more outrageous the offer gets, the less scummy it seems and more shame to the person who fall for it?

 

Obviously $60 for moon trip isn't in the same ballpark as lot of these kickstarter budgets, but so many of these projects under-sell their budgets by ridiculously impossible margin (really obvious example is Yogsventure, the scope of the game and pricepoint they were asking for was absurd, anyone who expected it to work out were completely obliviously to labor involved in making games), I often ask, doesn't the potential backers have some, even if very slight, responsibility to give these things some thought?

 

As scummy as under marking the cost of the project just to get some of the money, it's also baffling how mindlessly these things are funded.

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But there's always the possibility that the developer is only asking for the portion of funding they need. Maybe they've got other funding (or maybe they intend to donate a bunch of their own time to the project) and they really only need $X additional Kickstarter funding to achieve A, B, and C, even if $X would be ridiculously too low by itself to make A, B, and C happen.

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I think people are being too hard on John Walker. While I can agree that might not have been the best way to open an interview there's a fundamental honesty to it. He told PM how the whole thing was going to go. He put his feelings and intentions out on his sleeve. It reads like an interrogation rather than an interview, and that's hugely uncomfortable, but it's not an interrogation. PM is sat in his own studio for two hours talking on his phone, and it's JW who winds it up at the end. He could at any point have hung up, politely, abruptly, or anywhere in between, and no one would have blamed him for doing so. He talks because he wants to, or perhaps because he has to because of who he is. Note also that the interview is presented as a transcript, and seems to be unedited. There's no deception or spin from RPS.

 

I don't mind PM overpromising on gameplay features. I don't mind delays, up to a point. I didn't mind Curiosity, as strange and pointless as it is. The whole thing with the God of Gods and revenue sharing I don't know what to think of. i do mind when 22cans takes a great deal of backers money, promising a PC-focused development without a publisher, and within months is apparently focusing on mobile and getting a publisher (source Rich Stanton's Eurogamer article). This isn't about the vagaries of game development. This is deception at worst or disregarding promises at best. 

 

I also take issue with PM claiming that creative projects are these wild, unpredictable things, that cannot be tamed by budgets or schedules. It's true that things happen, things don't work out and things run over. But good project management isn't invalidated by these things, it mitigates them! His attitude disregards the countless excellent games, movies, TV shows, books, whatever, that release on time and on budget, or that run over and get back on track efficiently.

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If you pre-order Watchdogs based on Ubisoft's hype machine, shame on you.  You could have waited for reviews. 

 

But if a developer runs a Kickstarter and says, "If you give us X amount of money, we will deliver A, B, and C" then they've got to make every effort to deliver A, B, and C.  Maybe A, B, and C will suck, that's the chance you're taking when you back them.  But they should expect some harsh questions if they just throw up their hands and say, "Well, that was never going to be enough money to do B, C, or more than half of A."

I personally think implicit promises are categorically worse because they're still persuasive marketing arguments but in the aftermath people don't have concrete reasons to point to how they were deceived. I also think it's not fair to say Molyneux had no intention of delivering things, he wanted to release the game and make it a success. There's no way he would devote years of his life to a project if he didn't intend to finish it. He knows he asked for too little money, but that's clearly a recurring kickstarter theme even with successful kickstarters.

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But there's always the possibility that the developer is only asking for the portion of funding they need. Maybe they've got other funding (or maybe they intend to donate a bunch of their own time to the project) and they really only need $X additional Kickstarter funding to achieve A, B, and C, even if $X would be ridiculously too low by itself to make A, B, and C happen.

 

Unless it's been explicitly stated, that's not an assumption you should make about any of these projects, and you should look at low budget goals as sign of either poor planning or deception.

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Unless it's been explicitly stated, that's not an assumption you should make about any of these projects, and you should look at low budget goals as sign of either poor planning or deception.

Yeah I agree, you can't hold people responsible for assumed rationalisations you made instead of actually assessing the situation.

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I also take issue with PM claiming that creative projects are these wild, unpredictable things, that cannot be tamed by budgets or schedules. It's true that things happen, things don't work out and things run over. But good project management isn't invalidated by these things, it mitigates them! His attitude disregards the countless excellent games, movies, TV shows, books, whatever, that release on time and on budget, or that run over and get back on track efficiently.

 

Yeah, for all the talk in the episode thread about nothing useful coming out of the interview, this was the biggest takeaway for me, too. Molyneux states several times that creative projects are "almost impossible" to bring into being and that he can't really be held responsible for what he has to say in order to make one happen. He says both of these things at the beginning and near the end of the interview, so it's not something he just pulls out of his ass in response to a specific question. Either it's true, and he has no business running a video game project, or it's false, and he's just lying to make himself look sympathetic. In both cases, I know now not to have any more dealings with Molyneux, and I also have somewhere to point people like two of my friends, who were impressed by Godus during a Steam sale, having no awareness of Molyneux' history or reputation, and ignored my advice to wait and see.

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I think what bothers me about this whole thing is the Curiosity cube prize not being fulfilled seems... illegal? Maybe it's not in the UK, but I feel like that was played off as a sweepstakes and there's a 1% profit margin involved that the winner will now never see since it seems doubtful multiplayer will ever be finished. However, I can't seem to find anything in U.S. law that indicates that prizes are required to be fulfilled so I don't know.

 

Although even in my hypothetical that it is illegal in the U.S. to go back on a contest winner (and presumably the U.K. has similar if not harsher laws), maybe Curiosity would never count as a sweepstakes or contest anyway because the prize was never announced ahead of time.

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My understanding of the Curiosity prize was that it was made clear from the beginning that the profit share would occur during his reign as God of Gods which is a specific thing, so it is technically on the up and up since they were under no obligation to create the feature that would turn on the profit share (putting aside the issue of using a lottery to hand out cash prizes, which I imagine they're getting away with only because the enforcers of gambling laws neither understand nor care).

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I think what bothers me about this whole thing is the Curiosity cube prize not being fulfilled seems... illegal? Maybe it's not in the UK, but I feel like that was played off as a sweepstakes and there's a 1% profit margin involved that the winner will now never see since it seems doubtful multiplayer will ever be finished. However, I can't seem to find anything in U.S. law that indicates that prizes are required to be fulfilled so I don't know.

 

Although even in my hypothetical that is is illegal in the U.S. to go back on a contest winner and the U.K. has similar if not harsher laws, maybe Curiosity would never count as a sweepstakes or contest anyway because the prize was never announced ahead of time.

 

That last bit reminds me of pachinko parlors, which are prevented by Japanese law from giving out prizes with monetary value. Instead, they give out explicitly non-monetary tickets, which can incidentally be exchanged at the booth outside or at the shop next door for actual prizes. I wonder what loopholes exist in US and UK for gambling and lotteries?

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