Peter Molyneux has a credibility problem

[Pyperkub]

As in, sometimes he's a big fat liar:

During the early afternoon of 26th May 2013, 18-year-old Scot Bryan Henderson tapped on Peter Molyneux's Curiosity cube for the last time. He had won the game.

A tiny message appeared on the screen of his smartphone. It contained an email address for someone at 22Cans, the Guildford studio Molyneux had founded after leaving Microsoft and traditional game development behind.

Bryan, confused but intrigued, followed the instructions. Have I really won, he asked? An email appeared with a link to a video. In it Molyneux, dressed all in black and set against a virtual cube, delivers a message of congratulations.

The prize? In the months before Curiosity's release, Molyneux had hyped it up, promising it would be "life-changing" for whoever discovered it. "Life-changing." Quite the claim, and Molyneux's video message repeats the words. But how? You will become a digital god, Molyneux proclaims in the video, of 22Cans' next game, Godus. And, you will receive a cut of the money made by Godus from the start of your reign to its end.

"That, by any definition of the word, is life-changing," Molyneux says.

18 months later, as Bryan approaches his 21st birthday, he has yet to become God of Gods, he has yet to receive the "riches" Molyneux promised him, and it's looking increasingly likely he never will.

When coupled with the promises for Fable, and the Kickstarter problems with Godus, this guy has become the poster boy for snake-oil salesmen in gaming.

RPS has more:

It’s obviously appalling that it took a journalist approaching the company for them to acknowledge they should have stayed in touch with the winner of their much publicised competition, but it’s even more concerning that it seems to be accepted that there’s no reason Henderson should have yet received any of the “millions and millions” Molyneux boasted the game has made in a video released by 22cans on Monday evening. Henderson’s “clock will start ticking” as soon as they’ve implemented the multiplayer hub that the project’s new lead has already said he can’t see happening.

“I simply can’t see us delivering all the features promised on the kickstarter page, a lot of the multiplayer stuff is looking seriously shaky right now especially the persistent stuff like hubworld.” – Konrad Naszynski

[Chrisoc13]

My brother and I joke about how you can't trust a word to come out of Molyneux's mouth. My first exposure to his erm... exaggerations (being as nice as possible with that word since honestly I just think he is a liar)... was Black and White. Sure the game was interesting but man he talked it up huge. In the end I got bored of the game quickly. He lost absolutely all credibility with me with Fable. I read a lot about it and as such was very disappointed with the game when it came out. My youngest brother knew nothing of the hype stirred up by Molyneux and as a result he really enjoyed Fable 1. Then he bought into the Molyneux hype machine for Fable II and was sorely disappointed.

Basically I don't trust that man. At best he is delusional. At worst... well it isn't good.

[NickAragua]

RockPaperShotgun has a pretty detailed interview.

I recall being pretty bored with Black & White. Fable and Fable 2 were all right, Fable 3 I stopped playing (maybe I"ll go back to it some day). His earlier stuff was super awesome though. Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, etc.

I guess my view of him is less as an intentional liar and more as someone who's not good at project management or PR, but loves to blab to people about how awesome his stuff is. He really needs to just step away from the microphone and hire some professional public relations guys (from the start of a given project, it's too late for this one), and let them manage what features they promise.

[Pyperkub]

RockPaperShotgun has a pretty detailed interview.

I recall being pretty bored with Black & White. Fable and Fable 2 were all right, Fable 3 I stopped playing (maybe I"ll go back to it some day). His earlier stuff was super awesome though. Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, etc.

I guess my view of him is less as an intentional liar and more as someone who's not good at project management or PR, but loves to blab to people about how awesome his stuff is. He really needs to just step away from the microphone and hire some professional public relations guys (from the start of a given project, it's too late for this one), and let them manage what features they promise.

The failure to live up to the promises of Curiosityare pure sleaze though, and not just poor project management, IMHO.

[Isgrimnur]

"I think honestly the only answer to this is for me to completely stop talking to the press."

[TiLT]

"I think honestly the only answer to this is for me to completely stop talking to the press."

Proving once again that Molyneux doesn't really understand what he's doing wrong.

I've always defended the guy. There was always a handy excuse (publishers!) for when things didn't go quite as planned, and I learned to keep his promises at arm's length from my enthusiasm. However, once someone dabbles with crowdfunding, they stake their personal reputation on the success or failure of their project, and it's extremely hard to get away from that.

Let's look at a different project and different high-profile developer that got into the same situation as Godus and Molyneux did: Broken Age by Tim Schafer. Tim is also known to be horrible with estimates and project management (to the point where Bobby Kotick of Activision went public about it, something he rarely does), but he also gets people excited because of his great ideas and talents, and his appealing personality.

Broken Age ran out of money before it was complete, just like Godus. The big difference is that while Molyneux is saying "oh well, shit happens. I guess I learned something today," Schafer actually took responsibility when things went pear shaped and made a plan that, while it changed some of the expectations people had for the timeline and the look of the final product, seems to be resulting in a game that is both larger and better than what was originally promised.

There's no way back from this for Molyneux. He gambled with his reputation and lost. Any new crowdfunding attempts of his won't stand a chance unless they're extremely modest. Even worse, he takes no real responsibility for it, instead choosing to shed crocodile tears and present himself as the victim.

I say fuck him. He should have known better. At this point, he's best off never again taking the leadership of a company, instead remaining in a designer position, mostly invisible to the public.

[Pyperkub]

The thing is, he really has no business being the final say, because he definitely seems to have some sort of ADHD/Creativity/SHINY!/mania-type thing about him which doesn't appear to allow him to actually follow through on his business obligations and/or take responsibility for them.

The Curiosity game is a huge example, the way he has treated the Kickstarter backers is another. The appearance that he's already moved on from Godus to work on The Trail (his new SHINY!) is the latest.

He seems to get bored and/or frustrated and just moves on to the next toy.

[Zarathud]

Molyneux is a salesman of dreams. It's just that ideas are cheap, execution matters.

In the early days of Bullfrog, he sold product that a talented design team at Bullfrog could deliver. Now that he's a gaming celebrity and the gaming development world has become more complex, he can't assemble a team who can deliver. He doesn't have the stamina or imagination to find a way to deliver, he's willing to dump it on someone else. Molyneux doesn't understand and won't learn the necessary tools to do anything to fix this problem.

[Daehawk]

I never liked Molyneux or his games but I felt in the minority when I said something from all the hate spewed back.

[TiLT]

I never liked Molyneux or his games but I felt in the minority when I said something from all the hate spewed back.

Well, you won't find all that many people who'd agree with that particular opinion, so that figures. Molyneux has been behind some absolute classics in gaming, and all his mistakes in later years can't change that.

[Smoove_B]

Exactly. He was at one point someone in the industry that was well respected. However, he was clearly being managed well by others or balanced by much larger team efforts. It was only after his projects started experience monumental success that he was able to break from being part of a team and head out on his own. At which point he apparently believed he was the end-all-be-all in game design and project management. I mean, Dungeon Keeper was/is a classic and you really can't take that from him. Magic Carpet, Populous - before my time, but still well respected. I enjoyed The Movies, but it wasn't a game as much as it was a tool.

Regardless, I absolutely agree with the premise of the thread and can't really say I've enjoyed anything he's done since Dungeon Keeper. I've played a few of the Fable games and thought they were half baked. The Movies was fun, but not game-y enough. Black and White? I think I spent a few hours with it and then became bored. How he managed to leverage his late 1980s and early 90s successes into still being worthy of Kickstarter money in 2012 I have no idea.

[Daehawk]

I went back and looked at a list of his credits to be sure I had the right dev and I was almost right. Had the right guy and do dislike most everything he made but there are 4 he did that I did like....

Populous (1989) (designer/programmer)
Powermonger (1990) (designer/programmer)
Syndicate
Dungeon Keeper

And out of those my biggest favorite is Powermonger. I played it and Populous on consoles.

[LordMortis]

I went back and looked at a list of his credits to be sure I had the right dev and I was almost right. Had the right guy and do dislike most everything he made but there are 4 he did that I did like....

Populous (1989) (designer/programmer)
Powermonger (1990) (designer/programmer)
Syndicate
Dungeon Keeper

And out of those my biggest favorite is Powermonger. I played it and Populous on consoles.

Never played power monger but the other three set standards and did something unique/original and fun.

I was excited over the hype of Black and White. I don't think I've bought one of his game since.

[Pyperkub]

Looks like he got some sense knocked into his head, and has someone to provide a bit of oversight to make things right:

Many will say Peter only has himself to blame for many of his company's failings. Phillips agrees, and told Peter so. But he insisted all was not lost. "All that stuff you've done wrong is quite easy stuff to fix and should have been done, and yes, you f***ed up and should have done all this stuff, but we can sort that out," he told the designer.

"But you need to get back into designing games. Don't try and do everything. Don't try and glue it all back together because it's just going to crumble down. You need to make games. That's what you enjoy. I quite like business. I'll do the business. And it seems to be working quite well so far."...

...We know that because we've got this trust problem. But occasionally we'll get a couple of positive things. Let's engage with the positive feedback and start going, that's cool. We are actually working on this stuff. We know you think we're not. That's our problem. We created this problem. But let's keep doing this and make the game right, and keep talking to the community.
Slowly we'll feel there's this, 'Deliver me something good, and then we'll talk as customers.' Okay, fine. I can do that. That's a fair trade in my opinion. It's small steps to build trust. All we can do is deliver a good game at the end of it. That's the ultimate goal. It's going to take a lot of time....

...Amid the February furore, Molyneux vowed to never again speak to press. Most doubted the claim, but he's so far stuck to his guns. When it comes time to hype The Trail, though, he'll need to step back into the limelight. And of course, he'll face questions over what went wrong with Godus. Phillips knows this, and so he's, well, had a word.

"If he wants to talk to press, that's absolutely fine," Phillips says. "No-one's got a problem with you talking to the press, but make sure you're comfortable with what you're saying. Everyone loves the fact you wear your heart on your sleeve, but just make sure what you're saying is right. He gets that. We talk about it a lot."

Most who've worked for Molyneux will tell you he has a habit of telling press about features that exist only in his head. This, Phillips says, must stop: "If you'd asked him two months ago what the plan was for Godus, he probably would have given you his idea of a plan, but it wouldn't have necessarily been the plan, because there wasn't a plan.

"Let's make sure we all understand what the plan is - properly understand it - not like, one guy thought about it this morning when he's cleaning his teeth and he's gone and told the press. Let's make sure production know the plan, QA know the plan, the coders know the plan, the artists know the plan, everybody knows this f***ing plan."

A step in the right direction. Perhaps he's reached acceptance that he (Molyneaux) isn't the best personality to lead (and speak for) a company, and that he should stick to being extremely creative.

[Holman]

It's the auteur paradox: what makes you brilliantly creative (pushing boundaries, thwarting convention, ignoring expectations) makes it impossible for you to present a finished product. This is why most great authors and directors have benefited from having good editors and producers.

Kubrick is rare.

[Turtle]

His latest works haven't been creative at all, pretty exploitative honestly.

It doesn't take much creative effort to make a game about clicking on a tile, or yet another of a million games about clicking on bubbles to gain resources so you can click on more bubbles.

Even with Fable, despite not delivering on the vast majority of what was spoken about or promised, he still delivered a series of fun and beloved games. Now he just seems fixated on cashing in on these barely-game mills.