# Let's all kick Peter Molyneux in the nuts



## fen_boy (Feb 13, 2015)

Interview with RPS here about his failure to deliver Godus amongst other things

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/peter-molyneux-interview-godus-reputation-kickstarter/

I feel a bit sorry for him reading that.


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## Crispy (Feb 13, 2015)

Heck of a thread title


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## captainmission (Feb 13, 2015)

I got godus on a steam sale a while back.

Part way through development they added an in game voice over of peter molyneux the various design decisions and upcoming features. One of the annoying features of the game was how fiddly sculpting the land was and the RSI inducing clickiness of it. This was made infinitely worse by having peter, in his smug home countries accent, tell you what a pleasurable tactile experience it was - "like moving olive oil around a plate" (is that fun?)

The fact they couldn't accept the central mechanic of their game wasn't fun but annoying didn't bode well.


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## elbows (Feb 13, 2015)

I do not feel a bit sorry for him.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus


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## dervish (Feb 13, 2015)

Wow RPS doesn't pull it's punches!


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## Silva (Feb 13, 2015)

Well, at least he's not a gamergater. I think.


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## Chz (Feb 15, 2015)

His "35 years experience" is almost entirely made up of promising more than he can possibly deliver. He's fortunate in that a few of his games are pretty entertaining even when only 65% feature complete, but that doesn't make him a wonderchild.


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## tommers (Feb 15, 2015)

I don't know about that.  Populous,  dungeon keeper,  theme park,  black and white are all stone cold classics.   Even fable had some decent ideas in it (although I don't know if it was him or Bioware that first had the whole morality scale thing and used it to influence your character's appearance etc.). 

Admittedly later stuff like this and that silly cube haven't helped.


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## tommers (Feb 15, 2015)

Kickstarter / early access is notorious for this stuff.  Put your money in at your own risk.


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## agricola (Feb 15, 2015)

tommers said:


> I don't know about that.  Populous,  dungeon keeper,  theme park,  black and white are all stone cold classics.   Even fable had some decent ideas in it (although I don't know if it was him or Bioware that first had the whole morality scale thing and used it to influence your character's appearance etc.).
> 
> Admittedly later stuff like this and that silly cube haven't helped.



He was always better at ideas and hype than actually making games, tbh.  Populous was alright, but Black and White was terrible and Fable should have been much better than it was.


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## ohmyliver (Feb 15, 2015)

To be fair, he does hype more than a Butlins MC on a shed load of coke... but...

Populous invented a whole genre of computer game, Black and white was OK, I really liked the game Powermonger, (which probably is due for a remake because the tech is there to do the idea properly), Dungeon Keeper was good, Fable I also liked, even if it was a bit short...

He's like an early pioneer who scores a big hit and then fails to match it, repeatedly... whilst believing too much of his own hype.


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## Silva (Feb 15, 2015)

tommers said:


> I don't know about that.  Populous,  dungeon keeper,  theme park,  black and white are all stone cold classics.   Even fable had some decent ideas in it (although I don't know if it was him or Bioware that first had the whole morality scale thing and used it to influence your character's appearance etc.).
> 
> Admittedly later stuff like this and that silly cube haven't helped.


I've always found Fable to be kind of average, but Fable 2 and 3 are brilliant games, and some of the best fun I had on last gen consoles.  His problem is that he almost literally promised the world on those games, and as good as it is, it would always fall short. I'm sure when he mentions some groundbreaking feature, that's just something he thought that would be cool but never bothered to discuss with the rest of the design/programming team.

E2A: that was easier to do in the early Bullfrog years, when he was the lead programmer and designer of very small teams, and could pretty much think of a feature and implement it himself with little more than a shout out to the guy doing  graphics on the desk next to him. Much harder to do that now.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 15, 2015)

That interviewer comes across as a proper wanker tbh.


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## Sunray (Feb 15, 2015)

He's never going to say, we're making a game and its shit, don't play it, is he?


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## bouncer_the_dog (Feb 15, 2015)

I read that 'interview' and it's an absolute disgrace. It's basically killed RPS for me. I had to look up #gamergate because, even though I am a massive fan of gaming, it had totally passed me by. Irrespective of #gamergate, Molyneux's behaviour, the pitfalls of game development and Kickstarter this was not journalism or an interview. it was a nasty piece of internet bullying.

I find the comments amazing with people saying 'brilliant interview' and 'well done John it was needed'. But this is a group of people who have been whipping up a twitter storm of hate against Molyneux saying he's a liar. So what they are really congratulating John Walker on is being the eye of their rage and calling Molynuex a liar to his face and then humiliating him on Walker's website. That doesn't mean it's a brilliant interview at all.

You can read or watch any news channel on any subject to see how a proper interview is conducted. The journalist job is to ask tough questions, but not abuse the subject and have a row with them. So I don't think that the Walker/Molynuex interview can be counted as a piece of journalism. Not least as he simply bunged the transcript up - which is a massive dick move and simply lazy. He couldn't even be bothered to write it up properly.

So by putting the interview up Walker can feel like he's put the evil Molynuex in his place and struck an anti corporate blow for freedom of video game journalism - whether that has anything to do with this gamergate stuff I have no idea. Except Molynuex is a soft target, he's verbally kicked a computer game legend in the teeth and then attempted to humiliate him via his widely read website. Walker is hero of the anti Molynuex twitter movement - what a prestigious crown to have. And he has done the square root of fuck all for journalism in any form because nothing he did was event remotely journalistic - unless you are one of these people who believes all journalists are cunts.

RPS tends not to bother taking big name computer game releases seriously anyway. I would have thought computer game industry PR's will close ranks on the site after this. At least the chance of 'interviews' that could go as horribly as this could be curtailed. I wonder if smaller outfits will want to give interviews to RPS in the future for fear of this treatment if they fuck their project up.

The Guardian piece is a proper bit of journalism as it would appear the journey had broadly the same kind of conversation with Molynuex and it's properly written up. Not great for Godus or Molynuex - but not a brutal bit of internet bullying either.  http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus


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## kabbes (Feb 15, 2015)

Remember all the hype he whipped up for the original kinnect, with that fake AI boy he could interact with?  That never went anywhere either, and kinnect turned out to be shit.


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## DotCommunist (Feb 15, 2015)

kabbes said:


> Remember all the hype he whipped up for the original kinnect, with that fake AI boy he could interact with?  That never went anywhere either, and kinnect turned out to be shit.


who honestly belived they'd get a good motion sensing widget that cheap. It was a mugs game


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## kabbes (Feb 15, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> who honestly belived they'd get a good motion sensing widget that cheap. It was a mugs game


Who honestly believed that motion sensing would ever produce a good game?  There's a reason that monopoly is more popular than twister.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Feb 19, 2015)

elbows said:


> I do not feel a bit sorry for him.
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus



oh god...  so funny....   this is laura k (that journalist)  talking about the situation on  the jimquisition podcast

https://soundcloud.com/jimquisition/podquisition-episode-12-the-buckfast-problem#t=2:28


aparently  about 5min towards the end of the recording  she  got the email confirming the interview so the release of the podcast had to be delayed giving it consist of them doing silly  voices  and  slagging him off.

really kicks off here
https://soundcloud.com/jimquisition/podquisition-episode-12-the-buckfast-problem#t=9:20


eat your dinner peter!


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 3, 2015)

tommers said:


> I don't know about that.  Populous,  dungeon keeper,  theme park,  black and white are all stone cold classics.   Even fable had some decent ideas in it (although I don't know if it was him or Bioware that first had the whole morality scale thing and used it to influence your character's appearance etc.).
> 
> Admittedly later stuff like this and that silly cube haven't helped.



He lives off former glory, time to move on and stop thinking of him as some legend.


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