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Peter Molyneux IS BACK - Talks Microsoft, Milo and No Man's Sky

Alienous

Member
I for one am shocked that Sean and Peter are best buddies.

I'm actually genuinely surprised.

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CpiIYiOWAAAn4_9.jpg

I was so sure.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
Some of the replies in this thread are weird. As if Sean Murray knowing Peter Molyneux has some ulterior motive behind it.

Are some of you aware that Simon Carter who was former Lionhead and former Bullfrog Studios is also a Hello Games employee.

Former Sumo Digital devs which is situated out of Sheffield UK, also has folks that work for Hello Games.

Same for Criterion Games of Burnout fame, who are also from Guildford UK (The same studio that Sean Murray originated from)

I could mention Evolution Studios (UK studio) staff working for Codemasters (another UK Studio) in this case as well.

There is no conspiracy theory here folks. It's not out of the norm for UK devs living in UK wind up actually working for other devs studios located in the UK.
 
Some of the replies in this thread are weird. As if Sean Murray knowing Peter Molyneux has some ulterior motive behind it.

Are some of you aware that Simon Carter who was former Lionhead and former Bullfrog Studios is also a Hello Games employee.

Former Sumo Digital devs which is situated out of Sheffield UK, also has folks that work for Hello Games.

Same for Criterion Games of Burnout fame, who are also from Guildford UK (The same studio that Sean Murray originated from)

I could mention Evolution Studios (UK studio) staff working for Codemasters (another UK Studio) in this case as well.

There is no conspiracy theory here folks. It's not out of the norm for UK devs living in UK wind up actually working for other devs studios located in the UK.

I'm pretty sure it's mostly a joke based off of a funny coincidence. Like, people don't need it explained to them that devs get new jobs with new studios.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
I'm pretty sure it's mostly a joke based off of a funny coincidence. Like, people don't need it explained to them that devs get new jobs with new studios.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Considering the amount of allusions made between Molyneux and Murray several NMS threads that have cropped up over the many discussions, I wouldn't be surprised someone was actually convinced there was an actual influencing factor and link and not assume it's just nothing more than UK devs leaving studios to work at another UK based studio.
 
Anyone still willing to pay or play his games is living on a different plane of reality. The man is a crook.
Fable II was fun though...

Also, it's the responsibility of the customer to see what they are getting themselves into. You don't HAVE to give in to hype culture.
 
No Man's Sky, like some of your games, didn't live up to our fantasies about it. Did you have empathy for what Sean Murray and Hello Games went through?

Absolutely. He lives two miles away from me. I worked with his wife on all three of the Fable games, incredibly closely. I went to see him. I really felt for him. People don't realize, for me and for him, it was like an ice-cold dagger in the heart. Every game that I work on, I put so much of my heart into it. And always, it's never quite what it should be.

This reads like an April fools joke.
Amazing.
 
I'm sorry, but what?

I don't mean "console gamer thing" in any negative way. I simply mean that PC gamers are likely to know this guy mostly for Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Populous, Magic Carpet, Black and White etc, whereas console gamers only really got Fable from Molyneux, so of course they'll be more confused about where all the praise for the guy comes from.

And regarding the PR thing, yep, that's always been my concern for the guy, but I've also always understood exactly what he means when he says he can't stop getting excited, can't keep his mouth shut, and that it's a part of his personality. I'm an artist and creative as well, and like Molyneux get the vast majority of that rush of excitement from brand new ideas. Unlike Molyneux, I learned to keep my trap shut about them, but at least he's finally catching on.

Ultimately, gamers are far too quick to forget the 90% of his career that has been phenomenally awesome for us as players and consumers, and too quick to judge him for the mechanics he talked about in later games that never made the final cut. I think a lot of that is to do with most gamers only knowing him from Fable these days, so I can understand that, but then again I also fall on the side of defending No Man's Sky as a mostly brilliant and progressive game despite the lack of talked-up features that are only now starting to be introduced, so maybe I'm just more forgiving than most. Both Fable and No Man's Sky are great games to me though, when viewed for what they are out of context of what was promised, and it's still down to the creative leadership of Molyneux and Murray that these games happened at all. That deserves some amount of respect.
 

OnPoint

Member
Fable II was fun though...

Also, it's the responsibility of the customer to see what they are getting themselves into. You don't HAVE to give in to hype culture.
I agree it's the responsibility of the customer. That hype culture even pops up around his stuff is completely mystifying to me now.

Ultimately, gamers are far too quick to forget the 90% of his career that has been phenomenally awesome for us as players and consumers, and too quick to judge him for the mechanics he talked about it later games that never made the final cut
No, he's been lying and underdelivering for 15 years or so now. He deserves his reputation, even if he used to make quality products he no longer does. That will only change when he makes something good again. But it's been a long time.
.
 
No, he's been lying and underdelivering for 15 years or so now. He deserves his reputation, even if he used to make quality products he no longer does. That will only change when he makes something good again. But it's been a long time.
.

Then you're saying the Fable series weren't even quality products? I guess that's subjective, but it's a pretty tough line to tow. I'd certainly never praise them as great games (perhaps with the exception of 1 for its ambition) but I'd also never call them bad games. It certainly seems to be a trend to over-react to games that aren't solid 85-90+ metacritic scorers though and suggest the developers are just flat out bad at their jobs. Molyneux should share a beer with the guys at Bioware. They can't catch a break since DA2 either.
 

wedca

Member

Ahahaha, classy!

Kinda seems like Pete has been too rich, famous, and revered for too long. I'm betting he doesn't get a lot of people telling him "no". He could probably drive the production of a great game if there was someone over him evaluating his ideas and crushing the ones that are totally unfeasible so as to avoid wasting effort on futile development and provide realistic expectations about the design direction and goals for the final product.
 

OnPoint

Member
Then you're saying the Fable series weren't even quality products? I guess that's subjective, but it's a pretty tough line to tow. I'd certainly never praise them as great games (perhaps with the exception of 1 for its ambition) but I'd also never call them bad games. It certainly seems to be a trend to over-react to games that aren't solid 85-90+ metacritic scorers though and suggest the developers are just flat out bad at their jobs. Molyneux should share a beer with the guys at Bioware. They can't catch a break since DA2 either.
I personally didn't have fun with Fable but the series does have a quality reputation. However he did a TON of lying about scope in Fable 1, which still paints him as someone who overpromises and underdelivers.

But even if you count Fable as a positive, which is fair I suppose, everything he did after has shredded his credibility.
 

sirap

Member
What the shit? I'm guessing you have no concept of how much money, time, and manpower it takes to create a game.


A bit of quick math:

2,000,000 divided by $80,000 = 25 employees per year


On the outside, $2,000,000 seems like a ton of money, but even when you pay your employees modest salaries, you still have a lot of overhead as a company. Consider then, how long godus took to create, you could basically employ 12.5 people for 2 years, and if development drags on, like it did for godus, your budget just gets thinner and thinner.

A very common dev budget for quality indie titles these days, is about $5,000,000.

Its really not. Just do the math on salaries alone for two to three years of development. Then insurance, business taxes, office expenses. Two million is honestly a tiny amount of money for making a decent sized game.

Ah, I probably should've written a more elaborate post :p I understand development costs, having run my own (modest) studio for a few years. We never got the chance to develop our own IP, but we were responsible for many of the art from AAA titles. I'm just surprised something as bare-bones as Godus was made with that much time, effort and money.

I backed the game back in the day but forgot about it immediately. Never kept up with their developer vlogs, and I always assumed the game was made under a very tight budget with 4-5 people max. Game certainly didn't look like 2 million dollars, so I'm assuming development was poorly managed?

$5,000,000 sounds about right for something like Blow's The Witness, and the gulf between that and something like Godus is...huge. Still trying to wrap my head around what went wrong with that game.
 

baconcow

Member
Maybe he is coming back to finish Godus? It still sits on Steam as an early access game. Not sure I would ever support a developer who cannot complete their projects. Saying that, his earlier games were pretty great (Dungeon Keeper 2, Black & White, and Fable). If he could complete some of his recent gaming commitments, it would be nice to see him return to form in a comeback.
 
Saying he lives next to him makes so much sense.


Peter may under deliver but fable was still great. Enjoyed it more than some of biowares recent efforts

Sometimes I wish gaf banned jerks and such. Stop working off the damn mold and following the hate dick trends so much. You don't know the guy and he has made great games.

Yeah he said some exaggerated ideas but he isn't so bad and he is a person after all.
 

OnPoint

Member
Yup. It's a very good interview with Peter pretty much admit his mistakes, but people here just shitposts without reading the interview. The quality of discourse has never been lower.
Should people not take umbrage with his continuing lies about Milo in this very interview? Or his odd answer about screwing the Godus winner? I agree he seems to be more down to earth in sections of the piece, but he's still off in other spots as well. It's not just one or the other, there are shades of gray.
 

Ein Bear

Member
Saying that Bryan definitely recieved his prize, only to then go on to explain how he received absolutely fuck all within the same paragraph is peak Molyneux. What an absolute wanker he is.
 
Should people not take umbrage with his continuing lies about Milo in this very interview? Or his odd answer about screwing the Godus winner? I agree he seems to be more down to earth in sections of the piece, but he's still off in other spots as well. It's not just one or the other, there are shades of gray.
You can do it without being mean about it.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
But he only mentioned letter, numbers and shapes.
That's not a lot of voice work.
He never said Milo would recognize everything you showed him.

What do you think the big P M would have sold? He all but did go on record comparing it to interacting with a child and wanting to give that experience to people.

edit:
Based on the article, he wasn't capable of recognising any image. He asked the player to draw a specific image "Draw me a boat" and then he just had to tell if the player complied with his request or not. And you're right, that E3 demo was staged, they also talk about that (and why) in the article.

You know, I feel really sheepish saying this, but I thought I'd read the article when it came out, but I'd only actually read the first few paragraphs and then filed it away for later reading. I'm really interested in projects like these regardless of the outcome so the article (as LTTP as I am) is pretty great.
 

Mezoly

Member
Should people not take umbrage with his continuing lies about Milo in this very interview? Or his odd answer about screwing the Godus winner? I agree he seems to be more down to earth in sections of the piece, but he's still off in other spots as well. It's not just one or the other, there are shades of gray.

Milo never released so who cares? Maybe it caused some people to buy Kinect but I doubt it was a big reason. The Godus winner situation seems complicated and over. Regardless, discussing those issues is not what I was referring to as shitposts.
 
You can do it without being mean about it.

Is there a rule for that or...

Milo never released so who cares? Maybe it caused some people to buy Kinect but I doubt it was a big reason. The Godus winner situation seems complicated and over. Regardless, discussing those issues is not what I was referring to as shitposts.

As a consumer, if a company continuously does not deliver, what do you expect buyers to do? And the Godus situation wasn't complicated. Even in the interview, it was clear he just didn't give a shit about the kid until he was approached by the media and they "reminded him". Nothing about that was difficult or hard - he just flat out didn't do it.
 

OnPoint

Member
You can do it without being mean about it.
Please point out where I was mean?

Milo never released so who cares? Maybe it caused some people to buy Kinect but I doubt it was a big reason. The Godus winner situation seems complicated and over. Regardless, discussing those issues is not what I was referring to as shitposts.
So a lie is ok so long as the product in question never comes out?

I'm not trying to shit post, and don't think I have been. Just saying the guy is a liar thick and through and has been for nearly two decades.

When he releases his next thing we can see how he holds up against his pre-release claims again.
 
Yes, Molyneux is a guy who is unable to stop chatting shit but at the same time he's a genuine legend and the games industry would be worse off without him.
 

elyetis

Member
Molyneux has made mistakes but he's still achieved more in his career than I bet every one of the bitter assholes that berate him. Like a pack of wolves. Really, distasteful, sorry wolves.
If achievements were a shield to criticism Trump threads would be very boring.
 

legend166

Member
Why is he trying to make it sound like he slept with Sean Murray's wife? What a completely bizarre way he phrased that answer.
 

SystemBug

Member
Are you going to hide behind the ambiguity of your statement, or will you actively try and host a discussion on why you feel that way? I'm guessing it's the former.

I mean I could but I don't like discussing empathy with people who have very little of it
 

hobozero

Member
molyneuxnotonrails530pxheaderimg.jpg


I always regarded PM as sort of a hopeless dreamer, reach-exceeds-his-grasp type guy... right up until the Godus winner revealed that not only did he never receive a cent, but that Peter's studio hadn't even spoken to him in months and wasn't returning calls.

Also making the press sign a whiteboard saying "Its not on rails" before they watch a demo of his very much on rails game was... weird? Fucked up? Like, I don't honestly know how to classify the guy anymore.
 
If achievements were a shield to criticism Trump threads would be very boring.

The criticism is fine. It's the tone of it that's not palatable. Guy over promises and under delivers so he deserves a bit of flak but some of the tone of it borders on pure nastiness which I can only assume comes from jealousy or some other dark place.
 
I mean I could but I don't like discussing empathy with people who have very little of it

So you resort to namecalling and taking potshots from afar, making sure to comment when you had no real intention of engaging in the discussion at all.

Doesn't seem like you would have added much, to be honest.
 

TheRed

Member
It's pretty funny that he actually has a real connection to Murray. They probably had a celebratory feast for how many people bought their games they completely lied about because it's what they dreamt of having even though they damn well knew it wasn't there or getting there.( I still kinda like No Man's Sky a little bit )
 
We all know Milo was a faked demo, I thought those that worked on it even admitted to the fact? And yet here he is doubling down on selling the concept...I was interested in what he was doing when opening this thread but as soon as I read that it felt like Peter got worse somehow
 

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
I feel bad for PM, now that Randy Pitchford has taken his place as the industry's biggest liar.
 
We all know Milo was a faked demo, I thought those that worked on it even admitted to the fact? And yet here he is doubling down on selling the concept...I was interested in what he was doing when opening this thread but as soon as I read that it felt like Peter got worse somehow

Yeah, I don't get this:

Yes, it does. Milo was an incredible piece of technology. You could draw something on a piece of paper, and then Milo would look at it, recognize it, and show it back to you. It was magical. He could recognize numbers, and letters, and shapes.

Because he literally said the exact opposite happens, due to the issues involved. Even down to Milo not actually showing what was on the paper (because you probably drew something crude). He was very up-front about Milo being smoke-and-mirrors, which I appreciated at the time. But now he's back to "it was magical and it all really worked"?
 

rhandino

Banned
molyneuxnotonrails530pxheaderimg.jpg


I always regarded PM as sort of a hopeless dreamer, reach-exceeds-his-grasp type guy... right up until the Godus winner revealed that not only did he never receive a cent, but that Peter's studio hadn't even spoken to him in months and wasn't returning calls.

Also making the press sign a whiteboard saying "Its not on rails" before they watch a demo of his very much on rails game was... weird? Fucked up? Like, I don't honestly know how to classify the guy anymore.
please, tell me this is not about that flop fabke game that was pretty much on rails

Ugh.
 

RuhRo

Member
The original Black and White was really intriguing and had a ton of potential. Hopefully he bounces back.
 
I still kinda like him, he's mad but he seems to believe the things he says and he remains passionate about games.

I always remember reading an article about his regular board games night with Ian Livingstone and a few others. They even bothered to print a regular newsletter with the latest standings and suchlike.
 

Solid Raiden

Neo Member
I can't understand people still giving this man the benefit of a doubt because he 'seems sincere in parts of the interview' despite the fact that this has been a part of his act for years now. He apologized for fable 1, and promised the features which were missing from that game after he had talked them up and which he promised had been in development were going to make it into fable 2. Only they didn't. And so he apologized for fable 2 and promised these features would be in fable 3. Only they weren't. And so he continued the cycle and continued to tell lies, and lie about features that would never make it into the game all the way up until release, as if a month from release he didn't know these features would not be in the game. He then turned to kickstarter where he scammed people out of their money with more lies and still has yet to finish the game despite going on to complete other work. How can anyone defend this? The man lies, feigns remorse while never taking all of the blame and all the while continuing to lie to people in the same damn interview. The man deserves no sympathy regardless of if he's made playable products. Those products were sold on lies and false marketing all the way up until release for over ten years now and the only reason he disappeared for the last two years is so that you people would forget these things. It seems some of you have. We also have Trump as president....So, yeah...
 

SystemBug

Member
So you resort to namecalling and taking potshots from afar, making sure to comment when you had no real intention of engaging in the discussion at all.

Doesn't seem like you would have added much, to be honest.

kind of like the people who are taking potshots but at the other side? I don't see you going after them for not having a discussion.
 
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