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.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.
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