Peter Molyneux outright admits to lying about Godus features to get paid

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Peter Molyneux outright admits to lying about Godus features to get paid

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Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

I just dug out my old emails with PM personally (thanks gmail) have some :words:

to the man himself

In retrospect I'm just as much of a dick as John Walker, but there you go. Also I'm just a goon on the internet, not some game journalist. I'm surprised he responded to me at all.

quote:

>ME
RPS: Why did you opt to launch Curiosity before securing funding for Godus? Why couldn�t you have made sure that you had that and then launched Curiosity?

Molyneux: That�s a very good question. The truth of the matter, I�ll be completely honest with you, is that being as small a company as we are, and with me leading that company, I just take these insane risks all the time. One of those insane risks was not doing it the logical way. The logical way may have been to launch the Kickstarter first, to get the Kickstarter through, and then launch Curiosity, but it so happened that� The brilliant thing about Curiosity is it solved a lot of problems all in one. One of the problems it solved is that we needed to experiment with the technology that would make the Godus idea possible. Whether that should have come before the Kickstarter or after the Kickstarter is a matter of debate, but at the core and the center of the Godus idea is linking all these worlds together.

That is bullshit and you know it!

>PETER
<ZAPHOD42> Thanks for the email.

Actually its totally completely and absolutely true, in every way and every sense.

I suppose the question is would I do it that way again? The answer is yes, because.
If kickstarter failed, we would have found another way of financing and play testing the game.
Curiosity has some important but risky tech that had to be tested.
Curiosity and kickstarter came out within 2 weeks of each other.
I have been wanting to make Godus for years.
So I understand you may still think what I said is Rubbish, but it is true.

I hope despite you obvious disappointment you will give Godus a try, I hope you will see its a good game.

>ME
I'm honestly shocked you took the time to respond. If you're willing to face criticism that's honorable.

1. But in this situation, the winner of Curiosity would be left with no prize at all for a year or more, would you disagree with that? Do you feel its fair to say "You win! In a year, maybe, if we finish this game, then you can be the god of gods!". Do you feel that is a fair prize to people who spent money and collaborated in the thousands to play your game for months?

You have some fun ideas, but you seem naive about them. You seem to just think you can do things and try experiments and you don't think about the impact that could have on other people, how you could mislead them. You've kinda made a career out of it with the Fable series, promising one thing and then selling another, that's massively disingenuous. And you yourself have admitted to such in interviews, and you kinda hand waved the responsibility away from yourself. That's not fair.

2. Could it not be tested in a free environment? Couldn't you have simply done an alpha or beta test, or made curiosity a free experiment? Had there been no money involved and merely volunteers, then I wouldn't have any criticism to speak of. And then, wouldn't that be a true experiment: What can curiosity, in of itself, drive people to do? Your experiment was more about false hope and greed. Don't you see that?

3. That doesn't guarantee the Kickstarter's success. You were counting your chickens before they hatched. Don't try to rewrite history, in that Rock, Paper, Shotgun you admit of yourself that you were insane, that your actions were illogical. You already said that, you can't take it back. You admit you were insane. Maybe stop and think your actions through better before being insane yet again?

Peter,
if I could, I just really, really want to say one thing to you, if I've really got your time here. (I can't believe that I do).

As an engineer, I saw you tweeting recently that you were proud you'd made your engineers stay up late and work overtime to fix problems. (Can't remember if it was Curiosity or Godus, I think it was Curiosity). The concepts of crunch time are harmful to developers in the game industry, and we've only in recent years taken strides towards better work conditions, towards getting managers who understand the complex design process of software and the nuance of the art that is game development that understand why it must be budgeted and scheduled differently. And then we have you, Peter Molyneux, a known name and a huge figure in the industry, just bragging about how your engineers are up late. That's honestly despicable of you. Were you up late with them? How much code did you write? So you're proud somebody else had to pick up your slack? Why?

>PETER
Gosh he'll of an email to reply to, <ZAPHOD42> but here goes

Sent from my iPad

I have never knowing waved any responsibility ever, I take full responsibility a for my past mistakes, fable 3 especially, I should have pushed for more time, I didn't and I take full responsibility for its failings. I still stand by fable 1, 2 I think they are good games but certainly perfect, actually just about all my games have serious flaws, due in the main part to me as the creative lead. Indeed it is because of the flaws I have started again as an indie developer, I am doing this because I feel truly blessed that people follow me in the quest to make a truly great game.

Humm curiosity was a free game we never charge for it indeed the winner Bryan never spent any money on it. We made a total of $70,000 on in app , it cost 200k to make and run, so it was a loss to us ( please keep this to yourself) (oops)

No not insane just risky, we always had contingency. Sure enough a corporate publisher would never do this and may call it insane but an indie should do risky, disruptive things. things that can end up making a difference

No your wrong in how to take the tweet, I was hugely proud of the team pulling together, in fact I forced them out of the office ( as I often have to do) people at 22can work late because they believe in what they do, I have never force people to work late, to me that is counter productive. I was up late with them, I usually work late most nights, because I love what I do. I don't work weekends because I am a parent. Every feature I spoke about has been costed by our engineers, your more that welcome to come to 22cans and Speak to everyone.

I have answered you questions honestly, if you lived nearby I would love you to come and visit 22cans and see how we work, we are a flat company ( there are no conventional hiracial bosses) similar to how valve is run.

He's definitely a character. The RPS article I'm referring to in those emails was from 2013, not the recent ones. It was talking about the active kickstarter for Godus and how Curiosity was handled.

That "Molyneux Cycle" video was on-point. He's constantly apologizing for his last game (while not fully taking responsibility, excuses everywhere) while hyping up his next game.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 20:04

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 11:17

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Ah yes, Curiosity was a free game, of course, how benevolent

quote:

What's in the cube, Peter Molyneux? We may know soon, or we may never know -- that's the "joy" of these in-app purchases. For $0.99, users can remove 10,000 cubelets; $6.99 for 100,000; and $10.99 for 500,000. On the flip side, users with cash to burn can add that many cubelets for the same prices. "We don't know quite what will happen," said developer 22Cans.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 20:37

Liquid Penguins: Feb 18, 2006; by Cowcaster; Grimey Drawer

Peter Molyneux is at best a bumbling moron who should never be given money and at worst a sly marketing man who knows gamers will fall for the same poo poo 20 times.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 20:38

Kurieg: Jul 19, 2012; RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20

CrashCat posted:

Ah yes, Curiosity was a free game, of course, how benevolent

The net result of them providing means to both add and remove cubes for money were people trolling and counter-trolling each other while 22cans raked in the money for no net progress either towards or away from the cube being opened.

And there's the 50,000 pound dlc that just made you better at getting to the middle of the cube.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 20:44

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Kurieg posted:

And there's the 50,000 pound dlc that just made you better at getting to the middle of the cube.

Now I wish some sperg had bought that and won, then took his rear end to court for being a welch on his drat prize. Never mind whether the suit would have a leg to stand on.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 21:00

happyhippy: Feb 21, 2005; Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup; Pillbug

I really loving doubt it takes 200k to make a spinning cube app.

Oh wait, that includes Peter's wages. Nevermind.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 21:11

BlueGrot: Jun 26, 2010

What's really hilarious is that if someone bought that DLC and won, their prize would be to more and more rarely get e-mails from 22cans!

# ? Feb 17, 2015 21:57

SelenicMartian: Sep 14, 2013; Sometimes it's not the bomb that's retarded.

22cants...

Wait, is 22cans a reference to THE baked beans?

# ? Feb 17, 2015 22:07

KiddieGrinder: Nov 15, 2005; HELP ME

happyhippy posted:

I really loving doubt it takes 200k to make a spinning cube app.

Oh wait, that includes Peter's wages. Nevermind.

I was just thinking that. Some lovely app that you tap to break blocks cost almost a quarter million dollars? Holy loving poo poo.

Even if we're talking 22cans staff wages for the time it took to make the game, surely that could have been done in a week or something, right? It's not exactly a AAA blockbuster in terms of scale.

SelenicMartian posted:

Wait, is 22cans a reference to THE baked beans?

I think it's because there's 22 people on the team, and they're a bunch of "cans" as opposed to "can nots", or something. It would have been a lot better if it was in reference to his first scam.

KiddieGrinder fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 22:17

Dandywalken: Feb 11, 2014

Peter Molyneux owns.

He's the Patron Saint of Rogues and Hustlers.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 22:33

Pirate Jet: May 2, 2010

Thirsty Dog posted:

He sure does seem to get over excited and not understand a lot for a guy with his decades of experience when he stands to directly benefit from it in a very real financial sense!

Anyone who still believes that poor Peter is just a naive guy who gets ahead of himself is willfully kidding themselves.

I'm not saying you should give him any money, because you really shouldn't. I've never paid for a Molyneux game. The only one I've ever played was Fable 2, back when Microsoft accidentally made it free on XBL a few years ago, and I actually quite enjoyed it - probably because I didn't pay any attention whatsoever to the pre-release hype or the rest of the games in the series.

Basically all I'm trying to say is

Liquid Penguins posted:

Peter Molyneux is at best a bumbling moron who should never be given money and at worst a sly marketing man who knows gamers will fall for the same poo poo 20 times.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 23:48

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

So that whole bit about how he offered to livestream everyone so people could see that they were really working, yes sir!!!

Looks like he actually fulfilled that promise. :psyduck:

# ? Feb 18, 2015 16:59

happyhippy: Feb 21, 2005; Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup; Pillbug

Kyrosiris posted:

Looks like he actually fulfilled that promise.

The better the chair, the more important you are.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:08

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Kyrosiris posted:

So that whole bit about how he offered to livestream everyone so people could see that they were really working, yes sir!!!

Looks like he actually fulfilled that promise.

I feel bad for that one artist with his screen facing the camera. :ohdear:

I hate when people watch me work.

Of course Molyneux himself is nowhere to be seen.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:17

happyhippy: Feb 21, 2005; Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup; Pillbug

Kyrosiris posted:

Looks like he actually fulfilled that promise.

They are showing twitter hashtags to who I assume are those two guys in front.
Must....resist....trolling...

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:24

KiddieGrinder: Nov 15, 2005; HELP ME

Zaphod42 posted:

Of course Molyneux himself is nowhere to be seen.

Um hello, you don't think the King would hang around his peons do you?

He's probably somewhere in the back listening to relaxation music, drinking some herbal green tea, and coming up with brilliant ideas for his next game.

edit: and scheduling interviews because he's a pretty hot topic right now.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:29

Postmastergeneral: Jan 11, 2005

Black and white was

Black and white 2 was sold to EA and replaced "creature behavior learning" entirely with "sliderbars" And turned it into some bullshit Command and conquer game with an animal.

Perhaps it wasnt EA, but Molyneux himself that boned everything good out of the sequel.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:31

JFairfax: Oct 23, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Ahahaha I think the one on the right is looking at LinkedIn - probably searching for another job!!!1

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:43

KiddieGrinder: Nov 15, 2005; HELP ME

Even my desk is cleaner than those, what dirty poo poo lords.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:47

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

Postmastergeneral posted:

Black and white was

Black and white 2 was sold to EA and replaced "creature behavior learning" entirely with "sliderbars" And turned it into some bullshit Command and conquer game with an animal.

Perhaps it wasnt EA, but Molyneux himself that boned everything good out of the sequel.

Ironic as Godus was also ruined by EA

# ? Feb 18, 2015 17:56

Chairman Wao: Mar 5, 2013; go star

KiddieGrinder posted:

Even my desk is cleaner than those, what dirty poo poo lords.

Who has time for cleaning when you're working so hard to deliver on over the moon promises?

# ? Feb 18, 2015 19:25

Control Volume: Dec 31, 2008

KiddieGrinder posted:

Even my desk is cleaner than those, what dirty poo poo lords.

its like the fat dudes desk in jurassic park

# ? Feb 18, 2015 19:52

Trapezium Dave: Oct 22, 2012

KiddieGrinder posted:

Even my desk is cleaner than those, what dirty poo poo lords.

Looks pretty normal for a game developer, although there's a lack of action figures.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 21:58

Broken Cog: Dec 29, 2009; We're all friends here

KiddieGrinder posted:

Even my desk is cleaner than those, what dirty poo poo lords.

Same. It shouldn't be possible, but here we are.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 21:59

Dre2Dee2: Dec 6, 2006; Just a striding through Kamen Rider...

Where are the nerf guns, the think geek chotchkies? This whole thing seems a little off :raise:

# ? Feb 18, 2015 22:02

happyhippy: Feb 21, 2005; Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup; Pillbug

Makes desks quicker to clear when shitcanned/quit.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 22:04

KiddieGrinder: Nov 15, 2005; HELP ME

Trapezium Dave posted:

Looks pretty normal for a game developer, although there's a lack of action figures.

Oh no I've seen game devs desks, they do have loads of crap all over them. Action figures, statues, stuffed animals, all sorts of goofy poo poo. It's fine because it livens up their desk and gives it some personality, and that's great.

These guys however, it looks like it's just a lot of trash and food products that shouldn't be left at their desk. It looks like there's a jar of nutella, bottles of drink, bags of crisps (or chips if you prefer), etc. To be fair the guy on the right does look pretty clean, I guess the guy on the left is the dirty git of the office.

edit: I bet the guy on the right brought that bin in that's between their desks specifically for the guy on the left because he's lazy. No wonder Godus is doing so badly. :chord:

KiddieGrinder fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Feb 18, 2015

# ? Feb 18, 2015 22:04

Szmitten: Apr 26, 2008

Stopped streaming but was curious to see if they were working into night.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 22:58

Tei: Feb 19, 2011

Some people need one hour to "get in the flow", and they don't want to break the flow to eat, so they eat while looking at the monitor, lost in their things. Maybe is not a tidy thing, but it makes people happy when their time result in productivity.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 00:28

Some of the Sheep: May 25, 2005; POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?

Forget the desks, look at all that poo poo on the floor.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 01:24

DOMDOM: Apr 28, 2007; Fun Shoe

# ? Feb 19, 2015 02:12

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Ahahaha, Tim Schafer spent some time in a video announcing the Broken Age Pt2 beta giving Molyneux a big shoutout & called the reaction "unfair".

If broken age is finally done, they must be getting ready for their next big kickstarter. Sure wouldn't want everybody thinking about kickstarter disasters and broken promises in the run-up to that. We should all just be happy with what we've got, no need to dwell on the bad experiences where your money just vanished. :sweatdrop:

# ? Feb 19, 2015 10:08

KiddieGrinder: Nov 15, 2005; HELP ME

Klyith posted:

Ahahaha, Tim Schafer spent some time in a video announcing the Broken Age Pt2 beta giving Molyneux a big shoutout & called the reaction "unfair".

If broken age is finally done, they must be getting ready for their next big kickstarter. Sure wouldn't want everybody thinking about kickstarter disasters and broken promises in the run-up to that. We should all just be happy with what we've got, no need to dwell on the bad experiences where your money just vanished.

Yeah he apologized, what more do people want?

# ? Feb 19, 2015 13:22

DOMDOM: Apr 28, 2007; Fun Shoe

Gee I wonder why he's defending molyneux

# ? Feb 19, 2015 14:23

Kortel: Jan 7, 2008; Nothing to see here.

dMastri posted:

Gee I wonder why he's defending molyneux

Vanguard of the old ways of game development obviously.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 14:28

CrashCat: Jan 10, 2003; another shit post

Kyrosiris posted:

So that whole bit about how he offered to livestream everyone so people could see that they were really working, yes sir!!!

Looks like he actually fulfilled that promise.

Welp, looks like people don't like how fast the game is being made! What should I do? Oh I know, put a couple peons on constant monitoring so they get paranoia and quit their jobs, then use the time to wonder about my next game!

Of course this is what happens when you insult a boss, he just pays it downward. :sigh:

# ? Feb 19, 2015 14:38

sharts: Jul 3, 2008; aÌ¸ ÌsÌ¡crÌ§eamÍiÍ ngÍ ÍskÍuÌ¢lÌ¨l iÌ¡s yÍoÍ¡uÌ¨r oÍ¡nÍlÍy Í¢compÌaniÌ¡oÍnÍ

tim schafer more LIKE SATAN gently caress YOU

# ? Feb 19, 2015 14:43

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

KiddieGrinder posted:

Yeah he apologized, what more do people want?

This is loving priceless. :lol:

# ? Feb 19, 2015 17:36

CharlestonJew: Jul 7, 2011; Illegal Hen

lol "I just got totally grilled in an interview about how im an rear end in a top hat and Microsoft Project is loving poison to me, I need some way to show off my credibility. I know I'll just slap a camera on my ~~unpaid interns~~ loyal employees to show everyone how hard they're working. welp time to fly to another country to talk about The Trail, poo poo's gonna be great"

# ? Feb 19, 2015 17:46

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 11:17

Pondex: Jul 8, 2014

Now I'm kind of curious about how he hyped those games that were actually good, back in the day.
What did he promise Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper would do that they didn't?

# ? Feb 19, 2015 20:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Peter Molyneux outright admits to lying about Godus features to get paid

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