Peter Molyneux Interview: “I haven’t got a reputation in this industry any more”

I'm sure I have too, despite hating it with nuclear rage. The reason is the sort of game it is; a typical mobile time management game, where you have to wait a long time for resources to recharge, and tap every damn resource generator to collect. It's not so much playing as leaving it in the background for an hour to tap for a minute. I've played more interactive movies.

 

Not enough cul-de-sacs.

 

That seems absurd to me, if you dont like the game why would you keep playing it.

 

I give PM a lot of credit for the way he handled himself dealing with such a jerk. This illustrates quite well what is wrong with this world. I am sure the interviewer has a following of little "victims" (everyone is one these days) who squealed and giggled with glee as their champion attempted to slay this bad bad dragon.

On the other hand this thread was useful because I heard about Godus a while back but forgot to check back on its progress. Think I'll sign on as a beta tester.

 

This conversation makes me wonder...

How much chance would a Kickstarter campaign have for success if none of the reward tiers included the product itself?

If all the rewards were things like "You can be part of a streaming session where we're developing stuff" or "Signed pair of my underwear" and not a copy of the game (or other product) itself, would people still care to help make the games they want to see made?

My guess is that it wouldn't even come close to being funded, no matter who was behind it or what the project was. And I think it's because of what people here have touched on: Kickstarter is seen as a pre-ordering system. Not just for video games, but for any of the products featured.

In a way, I think it should almost be in the rules that the end product shouldn't be allowed to be included in the reward tiers. That would totally separate the success of the project from the responsibility of the project owners to properly reward their backers. If it weren't specifically forced in the rules, I think people would balk at the idea of giving money for something and not actually getting that thing, as they would perceive it as lack of confidence in ever succeeding. But if it were part of the rules, I think people would start shying away from Kickstarter altogether.

 

That was my biggest "take away" from that interview (other than a strong impression of the interviewer being an ass). The heart of the matter is expectations. And managing them properly. I think as the general public has hopped on the Kickstarter funding bandwagon their expectations do not align with the premise of Kickstarter. This is a way to invest into the development of a product. Yet many players seem to be looking at it as a way to pre-order a game. They are not pre-ordering anything. There is no guarantee that any product on Kickstarter will actually be completed. PM should have done a better job at managing expectations but reading what he said it looks like he did that as best as he could and even now keeps everyone in the loop as to what the current focus of development is on. People need to learn to view Kickstarter as what it is... a place to find products they wish to support knowing they may never receive the product and if they do it may not be as they imagined.

 

I don't see why games are even allowed on kickstarter, given Unity and friends have democratized the process. It's not like anyone can't pick up a game engine and start making stuff these days.

In any case, KS makes substantial revenue from all this, completely free from all blame of course.

 

I think some new rules are needed there. If you're crowdfunding a game, have something a little beyond a barebones prototype so it at least looks like you may finish. There are too many games which exist only as a concept, which leads to more failure. There are successes, sure, but they're generally from industry veterans.

But a big problem is that the sort of hands-on approach required to avoid the typical Molyneuxmity also requires more manpower from the crowdfunding sites. Nobody can sit there and watch every project for signs of deviating from the promises, which don't seem to be all that binding anyway :/

 

As an original backer of Godus and someone who has been involved in the communities I must say that though the interviewer asked some harsh questions, they are questions that needed asking. If you play nice with Peter Molyneux you will be enchanted with his honeyed smooth voice and colourfull promises of grandeur. It was needed that someone actually called him out on his actions.

For as long as 22Cans exists Peter acts like he is still the microsoft bigwig who has nothing to do with the people that play his game, or even the people that have made the development of this game possible. He has shown absolutely 0 intent of listening to valid concerns the backers have raised, but whenever a journo asks him he says that community interaction is very important to him.

All i can say is, i do not feel sorry for mister Molyneux at this point. I sincerely hope that godus will come close to whatever was promised a long time ago, but i seriously doubt it. Then he'll probably be back to his old shananigans and say that godus was a mistake, but look at this shiny new project The Trail....

 

Which questions did he ask that provided any real insight or other value? Each question seemed to be focused on a personal attack.

Some better questions that may have been asked by a better interviewer:

What are the primary causes of the delay?
What have you already done and what are you in the process of doing to handle these things?
Are you committed to completing this game?
How can players help with the development?

And so forth. This was the perfect opportunity to help both PM and all of the people who have been waiting for the game they imagined. Instead it was squandered on petty personal attacks. I never participated in the funding campaign on KS so admittedly I feel no personal investment or other emotional connection to the game. Just writing based on what I read in the interview and the Steam game page.

 

Read any other Peter interview, these questions have been asked and answered at length. He will blame anything and anyone for delays (except the fact that he has no idea what godus is supposed to be). He will tell you that all is being fixed and mended, he will tell you that he listens to community.

The first question (are you a pathological lyer) hits the nail on its head.

 

I sort of agree with you...but then Unity folks keep telling us to use Kickstarter to buy pro. Part of their democratization IS to use Kickstarter. Even seems official based on the number of Unity folks who have told us to do that.

On the other hand, games are risky and if people misunderstand the concept of Kickstarter, they get angry when it doesn't work out. That can really put a kink in developing games.

 

Frankly I find Kickstarter terrifying. I'm quite a private person as is, so the idea of standing on a stage is bad enough, but the idea of being culpable for any number of things going wrong that I have no control over, and the seeminly infinite number of promises that can get stacked into rewards (really, do you source and cost t-shirts and mugs before promising them? will they be the same price in 6 months time??) seals it for me.

When the first Kickstarter success stories cropped up the inevitable "we should do that!" memos turned up in my inbox. No way, Josay.

 

Well the effect of all this peter M hating is simple: companies are going to be less transparent and start closing doors, as all it teaches (including our company) is that it's just too risky being open with the public who will drag you over hot coals and nail you for every changed or missing feature.

Even though changing a feature or removing one might improve the end product. So less transparency, here we go.

 

You know... I was just thinking the same thing. Transparency is generally seen as a good thing and certainly this example of PM's case seems to indicate that he put some real effort into being transparent. And the problem is the more transparent you are the more fuel is available for some ass out there to use against you. Unfortunately, the good people rarely say anything so all you hear is the complaining and insults. Going undercover in your Secret Underground Game Lab is probably a very good thing.

 

Secret Underground Game Lab is an excellent name for a company.

 

Before you blame transparency, think about what happens when people take money for things that are promised but with no guarantee. I agree that it is an investment and crowdfunding is an amazing creation, but most people do not get it. At least not gamers...they are goal oriented, they pay money for something they will get and if they don't, they are unforgiving. This happens even if you don't take any money at all! Have you ever had to change a major feature and had people stomp off saying they will never play this game? I have and it hurts. Should we have kept it a secret? No, I don't think so.

The issue here is that too many developers use Kickstarter as a crutch. Crowdfunding some guy's hot tub car when all you get in return is the pleasure of knowing you helped him to fulfill his dream is a lot different from crowdfunding a product that people want to buy. I have donated a number of times for books and other tangible items and so far, they have all come through. But books are easier, they have a much more definite time frame. The writer will most likely finish the book and he will send you the finished product, or even an unpolished text document, but basically, you get something.

A game is so different. Who knows what might crop up. Our game is taking twice as long because a key asset that we had counted on for networking turned out to be much less than desired so we had to basically start over. Had we taken money from people, how well would that play out? We depended on a third party and they failed so, sorry, you have to wait longer?

While I agree that one should probably be less transparent in the design and prototype stage, and maybe even into early alpha, I think once you get players in testing, you should be more transparent. One thing you should not do is go into Kickstarter without something substantial. Be patient.

Of course, I say that as one who has other means to fund my Unity habit..I mean hobby.

 

AKA business as usual.

Transparency would have been for Molyneux to explain to backers as early as possible what features were going to be cut and why. Insisting that features are still going to be delivered while simultaneously disbanding the development team and refusing to offer the slightest gesture of good well towards the Curiosity winner (who is still waiting for his life-changing prize) is, at best, spin-doctoring, not transparency.

I think the grand lesson here is that certain game development shops can't operate without a publisher. They need publishers willing to absorb the costs and the blame while sharing the profits and taking none of the glory.

 

Well people want transparency, but game development is about shifting rules and goalposts. Anyone who's finished any game whatsoever will know the pitch never, ever makes it unscathed to the final product. It's normal to drop things, shift things and sometimes reboot it. This is because no crystal ball exists for creative professions.

Trying to get gamers to understand that is futile.

 

Hey, I should try that.

 

Beyond just that, Molyneux needs external PR that can filter out what is currently being done to see what the game actually looks like/will look like. From everything I've ever heard about how he develops, it seems like he only knows how to design through experimentation. I always get the feeling that his visions for his games only stretches to about three months, because he's got ten completely experimental things going on that would completely change the game if implemented (but I imagine most aren't).

As far as risk management goes, I can't see many project managers actually staying on for longer than two months, because they would be the destroyer of creative freedom from day one.

 

Argggghhhhh!

Sorry... hit a nerve.

The problem with your statement is that it makes sense, is logical and perfectly reasonable. Gamers on the other hand... not so much.

 

I signed out of one of these mad schemes today. What started off as a sandbox game I could have done with dev or three in three to four months got morphed into an historically accurate history of hemp broken into three entire games, The New World, Prohibition and Rebirth. After going through the thought processes on project management I came to the conclusion that it would be a minimum of 10M USD and more than likely 40 +M USD to develop. As well the person ,who does have a great track record promoting arts and charities, had no idea what a game engine can and can't do. I asked questions and made statements like this..quite reasonable.. and was trolled hard and told to eff off. LOL..They will fail and fail hard.. I wrote..

"Now maybe I am missing something here and you have game mechanics well thought out.. Like I was perplexed how to handle the "Prohibition" module. Is it a city and which one and which era? If it is the whole era then how does one handle the timeline and the changing of whatever city environment. When they come to bust you and you bolt exactly how do the NPC's handle the pursuit and capture.? How does the player handle the evasion or do they just have to get arrested regardless. Can they ever return to their home base if eluding capture and if captured is it game over or do they go to jail and the prison population have to be developed as well. How is the decision made by the game management AI to determine when and how an arrest occurs? What is the interaction between game players? What is the goal or quest of the module?

For the New World module what is the point of modeling the villages they emigrate from if they are getting on a ship and traveling to the New World? This is a waste of artistic resources. Entire state machines will need developing just to handle the boarding.. Do we follow them on their journey across the seas? When they get there how is the forest cleared for farmland and a cabin built? Do they actually chop down trees or is there a button you press that does the whole thing whizbango..and if so is that really gameplay?

I could fill paragraph after paragraph with such questions and they would all have to be answered in detail for a proper game design document to be generated that various team members would be using as their workflow guidance so they are not being paid to twiddle their thumbs or work at cross purposes with the other teams working on other subsystems. They all must mesh together so when their works are combined they perform flawlessly..after the requisite bug squashing round/s. Something of the scope you have in mind would not be well served by just jumping in the deep end without a proper project management assessment and timeline with dedicated budgets. If you want to generate money then why make a project where you have to make tens of millions of dollars just to break even?"

I sent them the wikipedia link on MMORPG's another on costs of such and to this thread.. They read neither, assured in the ability to promote and market this...and told me to never contact them again..LOL!. They got the basics of the idea from me What they want to do is a slow motion documentary with no gameplay. They think a half million KS will fund this..guffaw..

 

It has it's drawbacks.

 

Or the live ops version: "I play your game all the time, so you owe me!"

 

For various reasons I've used a pseudonym and alternate personality for every game I've released since 2002. It's allowed me to have some little bit of separation between the real me and the players of my games, who like a large percentage of game players can be... demanding, childish, and impatient as hell. By shifting the responsibility of dealing with them over to an alternate persona, it's given me an emotional and mental "out" to turn off that persona at will and leave it behind for the day.

The only time anyone ever figured out my real identity (vs. my "pretend" game dev one) was when this woman who is a huge fan of my music wrote to me one day and said, "I know this is really far out, and really strange, but... are you so and so from such and such game?" Total coincidence. She was not only a fan of my music but also a fan of my games, even though they are totally and completely separated. She'd put some various clues together about what she knows about me and what I'd said in my games forum, and incredibly deduced correctly. She later turned out to be a little too into my my music and I eventually got a little freaked out, so I asked her kindly to sort of lay off a little. She was really sweet but it started to get uncomfortable for me.

Anyway... I've always used alternate personae, in music, game development, on a huge horror web site I ran back in the mid-2000s, etc. It's just what I like to do and I find it gives me the distance I need to use my imagination and create freely versus having to be so open as me to the people who I create for. It does certainly have some drawbacks, but it works for me.

 

I must confess that our GDD's are like crap. I hold most of the world in my head and heart and know exactly what it will be, and so does our creative director. We both know this game. The game knows what it wants to be, and we only provide the means to make it happen. There are several GDDs we actually have, and we do use them, I'm just saying they're a bit crappy overall (even if it's hundreds of pages) - it's constantly evolving.

We see the GDD as a historical document in a lot of ways, given the flexible way we design. Perhaps all GDDs are in a sense historical, because not everything must be allowed to go to plan.

 

GDDs often end up the same way as flowcharts: You write them after the fact as a form of documentation of what you did

 

Dang, I wish I'd realized! I'll just start my dream project right now. No matter that I can't afford an art team, designers for the areas that aren't my strength, a music guy, a sound effects guy, and two or three other coders for two years.

Unity has democratized development, and therefore money doesn't matter...?

 

Side note... why is it always music guy, audio guy, sound guy? As a musician, producer, and occasional game audio person, that just... It's like.. how would it fly if game developers were called "game girls" or coders were "code chicks" by default? [/tangent]

 

Well, I wouldn't care in the slightest, personally. Wait, not true - I'd probably appreciate the breath of fresh air. And, I have indeed read a few articles lately (software and otherwise) where the default gender specifiers were indeed female.

Unless we want to expand everything out to titles ("music composer") or "person" we kind of have to pick one, because English doesn't have a colloquial, short, genderless specifier.

 

Sure if you want your magnum opus to be your first title. Usually you'll self fund and do the first game for penuts and that'll fund the more ambitious projects. Worked well for me so far.

 

The fact that you, a single, solitary guy wouldn't mind doesn't negate the fact that a massive number of women and girls do mind. As a guy, almost everything in the world defaults to you, so a few little things here and there might not bother you. If it became pretty much everything, then that might be a different story.

Also, on a subtle note, let's say you saw that someone was putting a team together, and the description of what they were looking for said "We're a fun loving bunch of girls making kick ass games, and we're looking for a sound girl, a programmer, an artist, etc." Would you apply? ... Would you apply as the "sound girl"? Or would you assume that the job looking for something other than you? Let that sink in.

Person works just fine for me, personally. Short, genderless, and easy to spell.

Anyway, I'm totally off topic now so that's it for this line of posts for me.

 

Where did I imply otherwise?

If I wanted the job, absolutely. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're not being (intentionally) sexist and were using language loosely, just as I was above.

It's easy to find problems if you're looking for them. That's not to say that things like this shouldn't be addressed, but if you're going to address it by attacking people then expect them to get defensive and reactive rather than receptive and proactive.

 

You know better than that. As someone for whom the approach you described has worked you're speaking from a position of high privilege. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but the fact that it's worked well for you doesn't mean it can be assumed to work well for everyone.

Plus, plenty of people are well past their first title and still wouldn't have the capital as an individual to do a large game without some form of backing. Otherwise big development studios wouldn't be dependent on publishers after their first game. I see no issue with crowd funding as an alternative to that.

 

One of the main problems with Kickstarter and other crowd-funding: Games sometimes cost so much money to make that, as Peter M. pointed out, it would be stupid to ask for the entire amount on Kickstarter. People wouldn't pay that much, and you won't get anything from the whole campaign if you're even a dollar shy of your goal. Instead, you should be asking for enough to supplement whatever other funds you're putting into the game. That assumes that you have other funding, though. Most companies and individuals don't. So you promise the world to get some money, and it's not even how much money you actually need, and it catches up to you.

The side effect is that every-day people get this idea that en entire professional quality game can be made for very little money, and in very little time, because that's what they're being lead to believe. That way lies disaster.

 

That's one of the frustrating things about this, that someone touched on earlier too: having high-profile people set unrealistically low budgets impacts other people who then want to set realistic budgets by making them look greedy rather than practical.

Having said that...

... it shouldn't matter what the goal is to an individual backer. It seems to, but I don't know why. If you're backing for $10 then you're only putting $10 at risk, whether the project is asking for $10k or $1m. When I backed Wasteland and, later, Planetary Annihilation, I paid not attention to the goal other than to see if I thought it was high enough.

High goals are good. For starters they reflect an attitude akin to "do it right or don't do it at all". Secondly, they probably also reflect a more realistic outlook on how much it will actually cost. Finally, there are practical benefits.

You're more likely to get nothing for your $10 if the goal is low compared to the goal being high. A high goal is no risk to me as a backer, because I don't lose my money unless it's reached. Then if it is reached and I pay my dollars the project is more likely to succeed. How is that anything but a win-win?

(And going back to risk management, if not enough people back your project to meet its budget then you've failed to validate that particular market for that particular product and should behave accordingly. That could mean modifying your pitch, but whatever you do you shouldn't get caught up by the Sunk Cost Fallacy.)

 

This is why I bowed out. I do not want to be the target of anybody's wrath thank you. I have a pretty good life ahead of me and the original idea was work hard a few months and enjoy the gravy. Then I get hit with..work 18/7 for a year/s and then run out of cash and have to start back at ground zero with the entire gamer community knocking your notches down..for somebody else's lame assed, politically motivated dream game. Slave is not in my vocational agenda. Got my own games I would rather do thanks... I have done 3 KickStarters for others and turned down about 10 so far.. i know the reality of them and see the lambasting the gamers can lay on your butt as evident from the Mr. M fiasco. I don't wanna be him any day of the week, year or decade.. And I am not one to take such snippy little lapdog yapping at me lying down. Drooldonkey the interviewer would not like to suffer my scathing tongue when I get on a roll. I would be in full out troll killer mode and adrenalin hyped and have to go to a cave somewhere in remote mountains to recover.

 

Just felt this was worth saying twice..so I quoted it for posterity. I was simply being realistic and got lambasted for it. I dished it back and that bridge is burned forever.

 

It shouldn't but it does. Psychologically, people are more likely to pledge into in a crowd-funded project if they think it has a chance of succeeding, and are less likely to pledge into one that they think won't reach its goal.

So if I put a project up that's super wicked cool looking, just simply amazing, and I ask for $15,000 I'm much more likely to get that original amount plus more than if I put it up with a more realistic goal of $50,000 or $100,000 or a million.

It's just how people think about money, even though it makes no logical sense. Very little of what we do as humans ever does, come to think of it.

 

Haha, what? They'd love that! Just imagine how loud and long that would echo around gaming news channels!

 

Absolutely not.

I am completely inept at audio. Although, if I am being honest, I don't look too bad in a skirt.

 

pics or gtfo

 

Very nice, very nice. I like the one where you're holding that big pole.

 

Danged if yer avatar don''t resemble the real you

 

Totally agree.

 

Yup, I get this all the time with my game. I built up a following of over 15.500 on Facebook and they can be brutal. Demanding refunds, calling me all the names under the sun, demanding release dates. I get the same questions over and over again. "When's the update coming out?" even just after an update, people report bugs in the comments of a post I made months ago.

Part of me misses being anonymous and releasing my game without being so open, but unfortunately, I feel the way to success is to use social media as a way to create awareness of the game I'm working on. It wouldn't be anywhere near as successful if I didn't open that Facebook page and people started liking it.

 

It is just a shame there are so many people like this out there always hounding, complaining and attacking. We can definitely see the "mob mentality" at work even in a virtual environment. That is interesting. The transparency works both ways like working inside a bubble or glass room. While they can see in you can also see out and there are a lot of crazy critters out there. Lol Oh no the glass is starting to crack...

 

Today feels like my last day of school. I released my latest game in January and since then have been working non-stop to get the first major updates out. I'll be releasing the last of them tonight some time, and after that I'm going to let the game simmer while I go off to do other things besides game development. I'll probably sell the rights to this game within the next three months or so (par for the course for me: I build up games and then sell full rights to them later when they're making good money).

Once this latest game is gone that's it for me (I think. Unless I get the bug again, which I don't really see happening). So yeah, finishing up today, full of hope, full of that last day of school feeling, and wow it's been a long, long run. 20+ years in games. Too long. I'm happy to move into the next phase of my life and leave all the bickering, demands, and toxic behavior behind. Things aren't what they used to be, that's for sure.

I'll slowly disappear from this forum, since there's not much else I can contribute to the discussions. I've grown fond of this community but my "grizzled old veteran" schtick isn't really the attitude I'm sure a lot of people want (or need) to hear. Game development should be about hope and excitement and hunger and dreams. That's what it was to me when I started. So... out with the old, in with the new. I wish all of you a very successful, joyous, and long career in game development. Live your dream and have a good time.