Project GODUS, the ultimate Peter Molyneux fiasco

[Morgoth]

If Herve does that I'm gonna fucking stomp him into the ground.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Herve is a vulture, feeding on corpses day and night. And the "resurrection" of Black Isle is a first step of ks. You wouldn't think Morgoth that Herve will toss some Fallout Online money for it, would you ? It will be more old-school than old-school, that's for sure.

 

[Blaine]

If the game's good, I'll buy it. That RPS interview is solid gold, though. Ol' Pete bursts into tears, forecasts his own death (at the grand old age of 53), rants about how the world's gone mad, and then:

“I just,” he winced, his voice audibly cracking, “I still believe so much.”

Pretty sure what he still believes is that he'll eventually be recognized as the Jesus Christ of electronic gaming, which may explain his fascination with god games.

 

[Kz3r0]

He loves games. He loves the possibilities they present. He loves his creations. And even if they destroy him, he’s going to keep investing his heart, soul, and reputation into each and every one.

And other people's money.

 

[Metro]

This guy dicked around making the Fable franchise for a decade and just now he's contemplating his mortality/legacy?

 

[evdk]

This guy dicked around making the Fable franchise for a decade and just now he's contemplating his mortality/legacy?

Lot's of people are already contemplating his mortality and he loves leading a crowd after all.

 

[abnaxus]

Molyneux's raking in the cash (will likely double the goal) while Henkel and Hallford are barely scraping by. Fuck Kickstarter.

 

[evdk]

Molyneux's raking in the cash (will likely double the goal) while Henkel and Hallford are barely scraping by. Fuck Kickstarter.

This one is solely on Henkel and Hallford. More botched kickstarter by major devs one would have trouble finding. Molyneux will double his goal because he's a cult leader and the sheep will all donate.

 

[Metro]

Eh, it's no sure thing he'll make it.

 

[Blaine]

Yesterday, Rab Florence wrote an article on Peter Molyneux's GODUS Kickstarter (and others):

They will kill it.

Be in no doubt. These established industry veterans, who could achieve their goals through traditional paths, will kill Kickstarter with their greed.

“Greed” might seem harsh. But here we see Peter Molyneux, as established a figure as you can find in the games industry, asking his audience to take on all the risk associated with his new product. Here is a man who has over-promised and under-delivered for over a decade, asking people like me and you to pay up front for his latest venture.

Do you believe for even one second that Molyneux couldn’t find that financial backing elsewhere? I don’t.

Kickstarter has shown us many cases where creative people who can’t find the funding to realise their unique vision have been saved by like-minded people who want to see those projects happen. That’s a good thing. I’m not talking about those people. Small teams, great ideas, outsiders. That’s all good.

(cont'd. in article)

 

[Blaine]

^ Not sure why that belongs in here, since Molyneux's only being used as an example for a much more generalized issue, but okay.

 

[J_C]

Yesterday, Rab Florence wrote an article on Peter Molyneux's GODUS Kickstarter (and others):

They will kill it.

Be in no doubt. These established industry veterans, who could achieve their goals through traditional paths, will kill Kickstarter with their greed.

“Greed” might seem harsh. But here we see Peter Molyneux, as established a figure as you can find in the games industry, asking his audience to take on all the risk associated with his new product. Here is a man who has over-promised and under-delivered for over a decade, asking people like me and you to pay up front for his latest venture.

Do you believe for even one second that Molyneux couldn’t find that financial backing elsewhere? I don’t.

Kickstarter has shown us many cases where creative people who can’t find the funding to realise their unique vision have been saved by like-minded people who want to see those projects happen. That’s a good thing. I’m not talking about those people. Small teams, great ideas, outsiders. That’s all good.

(cont'd. in article)

I don't know why does every stupid garme journalist thinks that Double Fine, Obsidian, Molyneux, Fargo could easily find funding for their oldschool games elsewhere? Don't they know what is the state of the gaming industry today, where publishers only fund AAA wannabe blockbusters and wouldn't touch an oldschool game with a ten foot pole? I dare them to show me one publisher, who will a fund turnbased isometric hardcore RPG. Or even a real time RPG, which is not about the awesome button. Yep, Molyneux could have found money for his godgame elsewhere, that's why we are seeing so many godgames on the market.

 

[Blaine]

There may not be a lot of god games on the market, but then again there hadn't been any (non-Japanese) turn-based tactical squad games either until Firaxis/2k released XCOM. The Civilization series has sold well throughout the 2000s, despite (or more properly because of) each sequel being progressively dumbed down compared to the gold standard set by SMAC. Molyneux's track record is similar; he's been selling Fable games to Asperger's sufferers for the past decade or so. He surely had the clout to greenlight at least one god game through traditional channels, and frankly I don't believe the funding method will ultimately affect how incline/decline GODUS will be. Molyneux isn't interested in , and never has been. He wants as many casuals as possible to buy his product, as demonstrated by the fact that he'll be developing GODUS for mobile devices as well as PC, and would no doubt like to offer it on PSN, XBox Live and whatever Nintendo calls its online distribution service as well.

Unlike Peter Molyneux, who has an "in" to the industry, Chris Roberts, David Braben, Brian Fargo and Tim Schafer have been out of it for years, and their game concepts are mud to AAA publishers. That's why they've been on hiatus from the industry for so long, or else humiliatingly forced to develop casual games just to put food on the table. Unlike the little puzzlers and kid's games Fargo and Braben have been doing, the Fable series is something Molyneux actually wanted to make... something he was passionate about. He believed in it and was upset with the poor reception of Fable III.

If every celebrity game developer gets romantic notions in their head about being an independent maverick supported BY THE PEOPLE, drops out of the evil ol' AAA industry that they could very easily continue working in (and perhaps change for the better), and crowds their way onto Kickstarter to get their share of gamers' wallets and goodwill, the money and goodwill will run out that much faster—thus killing it, as Rab suggests.

How fucking obnoxious is it that people who can't get their games published any other way are now forced to compete with industry veterans who want to be DEVELOPERS OF THE PEOPLE all of a sudden? The industry outsiders have no other option. I can forgive Project Eternity, actually, as I will agree that there was no other way for Obsidian to get it made without omnisexual elf fuk, full voice acting, cross-platform support, and a Cinematic QTE Experience™.

 

[Metro]

I don't know why does every stupid garme journalist thinks that Double Fine, Obsidian, Molyneux, Fargo could easily find funding for their oldschool games elsewhere? Don't they know what is the state of the gaming industry today, where publishers only fund AAA wannabe blockbusters and wouldn't touch an oldschool game with a ten foot pole? I dare them to show me one publisher, who will a fund turnbased isometric hardcore RPG. Or even a real time RPG, which is not about the awesome button. Yep, Molyneux could have found money for his godgame elsewhere, that's why we are seeing so many godgames on the market.

Molyneux has far more clout amongst publishers and probably far more personal wealth than anyone at Obsidian, Double Fine, or Brian Fargo.

 

[evdk]

C'mon, Blaine, you and thousands of others have just donated $5M to a man openly admitting one of the reasons for running a KS campaign was to show to his true investors there would be a demand for the game.

 

[Blaine]

I can sum up my TL;DR post above with several bullet points that differentiate Molyneux's GODUS from every Kickstarter project I'm aware of. This should make it easier for people to present counter-arguments:

• Molyneux has clout in the AAA industry
• Molyneux has significant personal resources (Metro's opinion; I concur)
• Molyneux has been developing casual games by choice
• GODUS will be multi-platform (as opposed to PC-only)

None of these describe Chris Roberts, David Braben, Brian Fargo, Tim Schafer, Obsidian or any other celebrities of the crowdfunding scene.

 

[J_C]

I don't know why does every stupid garme journalist thinks that Double Fine, Obsidian, Molyneux, Fargo could easily find funding for their oldschool games elsewhere? Don't they know what is the state of the gaming industry today, where publishers only fund AAA wannabe blockbusters and wouldn't touch an oldschool game with a ten foot pole? I dare them to show me one publisher, who will a fund turnbased isometric hardcore RPG. Or even a real time RPG, which is not about the awesome button. Yep, Molyneux could have found money for his godgame elsewhere, that's why we are seeing so many godgames on the market.

Molyneux has far more clout amongst publishers and probably far more personal wealth than anyone at Obsidian, Double Fine, or Brian Fargo.

Yes that's probably true. Even than, that guy talked about the industry veterans in general fucking up KS, including Obsidian, Fargo and Double Fine (even though he didn't mention them, but who else did he think of). It's just he explicitly singled out Molyneux as the main "bad guy".

 

[Blaine]

C'mon, Blaine, you and thousands of others have just donated $5M to a man openly admitting one of the reasons his running a KS campaign was to show to his true investors there is a demand for the game.

$6.2m, and that's a misrepresentation of the situation. Chris's private investors weren't willing to provide the funding necessary to develop Star Citizen as Chris envisioned, even if they hadn't wanted the crowdfunding campaign as proof of demand; without any crowdfunding, Star Citizen wouldn't have been able to deliver half the features or technological envelope-pushing Chris is aiming for. Do you really think a Kickstarter/RSI website campaign could have garnered $10m+? In point of fact, the two sources of funding were (for lack of a better term) symbiotic. The private investors paved the way for Star Citizen's impressive tech demo, and encouraged crowdfunders with the knowledge that the budget for Star Citizen would be much higher than donations alone. The donor response obviously reassured private investors that there's demand for a space sim and that they aren't wasting their money.

Each side has reason to be glad for the other... as I said, symbiosis. I'm quite glad Chris will have more than twice what was pledged to work with, and obviously the private investors are happy with that $6.2m figure.

 

[Dexter]

Double Fine/Obsidian didn't have the money, since both were just about to lay off people (or did lay off people) for a lack of projects, as you remember Microsoft had just cancelled an Obsidian project and they had laid off a few dozen people: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/14/report-obsidian-hit-with-layoffs-south-park-team-affected-fut/
Tim Schafer said in some Interview that KickStarter came just at the right time for the same not happening to his company, he had an Interview about "routine layoffs" at studios recently: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/10/lionhead-layoffs/

Fargo obviously didn't have the money or he would have produced the game, he was bitched around by Bethesda previously with Hunted: Demon's Forge.
But I really really don't like the lessons he has taken from his campaign, as he said himself he'll do what it takes to market his games, even if he has to get "creative".
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-10-29-fargo-succeed-or-fail-ill-return-to-kickstarter

Speaking to GamesIndustry International at this year's Unite conference in Amsterdam, Fargo explained that the benefits that a platform like Kickstarter offers are too powerful to disregard, even if you have money in the bank.

"Yeah, I still would [return to crowd-funding]," Fargo said. "It allows us to give things to people that they can't get from just buying a product. Some people want to be an NPC, or they want a shrine in their honour in the game, or they want a boxed copy, or a novella. These things aren't just gimmicks; they add real value."

"It's also a great way of vetting the product in general. I like having that communication, because when people put their money down they're more invested emotionally. And when you have this army of people who are a part of it, when you do launch you don't need a big marketing campaign."

Molyneux I don't really see a way in which he doesn't have the money put away after selling out two studios to EA/Microsoft in the past. After all he founded that new studio all by himself and produced that first game on his own, he probably just doesn't want to risk it and hey... free money after all.

As a bonus, I remembered a story where Molyneux said he was nearly stabbed by one of his animators because he wanted anatomically correct penises for the creatures in Black&White: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...onster-Penis-Almost-Got-Peter-Molyneux-Knifed
Reminds me of Cleve's story xD

Spoiler

Specifically, they reminded him of the creature's penis.

Now, if you've played Black & White, you probably know that the creature didn't actually have a (visible) Sgt. Peppy. No, this monstrous wangerdoodle was only in an early prototype of the game: "I for some reason had this obsession to make them anatomically correct. So the first version of this giant ape had this sort of beautifully physically correct - I'm going to say the word - penis dangling between its legs."

And in case the mental image in your head wasn't bad enough, said member "morphed depending on how excited your creature was."

That sort of thing would never fly in a game, of course, and Molyneux knows it. "I don't know what was going through my mind. I wasn't even on class A drugs! It was this bizarre thing," he says, and don't think we didn't notice that "class A drugs" qualifier, Peter. "It was this bizarre thing. Especially in America! Even if you show nipples they go insane, rating it under-the-counter product. It just goes to show you just how rubbish I am as a designer, really."

Nevertheless, Molyneux initially persisted, and the poor modelers working at Lionhead had to create the creature's morphable schlongalong. "The artist that modeled it ended up going completely insane. [He] threatened to knife me ... absolutely true story. He went on to found Media Molecule. Chap called Mark Healey."

Chris Roberts is the biggest hoaxster of them all, he could have banked this exact game through a publisher, in fact as far as I know he was even approached by some, including EA who wanted him to work on a new fully licensed Wing Commander, but he apparently declined because "he wanted to do it on his own" (rake in all the money on his own, he even tried to circumvent KickStarter in his greed and nearly managed to derails his campaign early on). Not only did he sell people on buying his game before it is done, but he managed to make a bunch of idiots buy into his Pay2Win-scheme before it even exists and put down hundreds of dollars on (for now) imaginary virtual ships before they even know what the deal with all of it is. And he doesn't only plan to make money by selling his game, but he plans on keeping it trickling through various Macrotransactions and Exchange for "Galactic Credits". He is exactly the type of person the article is talking about.

 

[Blaine]

That's some pretty astonishing spin-doctoring, Dexter. I could fill the Grand Canyon with crucial details you've conveniently forgotten in your quest to illustrate what a sucker I am. The most obvious one is that working with EA or really any other AAA publisher requires you to support consoles—and that necessarily means appealing to casual gamers, developing your game for ancient hardware, implementing a huge, simplified interface, and ensuring one console controller is sufficient to control the game. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a cutting-edge space sim! Good thinking, you fucking simpleton.

You'll note that these factors don't apply to Molyneux's game. It will be designed for mass market appeal, it will be technologically simple enough to function on mobile devices, the control scheme and UI must therefore also be quite simple, and he could even fund it entirely with his own money, assuming all the inherent risk. His game won't actually require independence from the AAA industry to produce. He's quite frankly just an arrogant cunt whose ego is stroked by the idea that THE PEOPLE will support his amazing ideas.

 

[evdk]

Blaine should be awarded an "Ask me about Star Citizen" custom title.

And I believe we were talking about how developers who could have gained the funds necessary elsewhere are using KS and stealing thunder from well deserving indie projects. Mind you, I believe that this is butthurt bullshit, but IMHO Chris would fit this mold the best right after Molyneux.

 

[Blaine]

It's not my fault people constantly resort to Star Citizen-related ad hominem attacks against me rather than producing legitimate counter-arguments. To be fair though, a lot of the well known crowdfunding projects have been dragged into this discussion to serve as examples.

I'd love to see someone successfully refute the following:

The most obvious one is that working with EA or really any other AAA publisher requires you to support consoles—and that necessarily means appealing to casual gamers, developing your game for ancient hardware, implementing a huge, simplified interface, and ensuring one console controller is sufficient to control the game.

I'll be waiting.

 

[Destroid]

Yep it sucks that people who could fund the games themselves gobbling up hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, while indies struggle for 25k. But honestly, what small to medium sized studio is going to turn down the opportunity to get no (or minimal) strings attached funding, while not having a publisher looking over their shoulder and being able to bank the full proceeds themselves? This is all on the pledging public, not on those studios taking advantage of a new funding method.

 

[Dexter]

It's not my fault people constantly resort to Star Citizen-related ad hominem attacks against me rather than producing legitimate counter-arguments. To be fair though, a lot of the well known crowdfunding projects have been dragged into this discussion to serve as examples.

I'd love to see someone successfully refute the following:

The most obvious one is that working with EA or really any other AAA publisher requires you to support consoles—and that necessarily means appealing to casual gamers, developing your game for ancient hardware, implementing a huge, simplified interface, and ensuring one console controller is sufficient to control the game.

I'll be waiting.

I haven't seen much of an interface at all, if he's gonna do one that isn't "simplified", he hadn't yet for the prototype. Which was mostly built with the help of CryTek in Germany btw.
Further he was not only approached by EA for Wing Commander but apparently by other publishers for this exact project, they've been generally banking MMOs for a while now which are PC only and introducing Macro- and Microtransactions and they start panting for more.

Another obvious thing regarding ancient hardware would be that the "Next Generation" of consoles will be out next year and this game won't be out for another two at least. I wouldn't even be surprised if he ports the game to make more money given it is successful in its initial run. He wouldn't be relying on gullible people to bankroll him anymore at that point.

 

[Fat Dragon]

Man, that RPS interview with Peter was an embarrassing read, man sounds like he's having one hell of a midlife crisis. He's spent the past decade ruining his credibility and reputation and now he's finally getting worried because it's come back to bite him in the ass.