Interview Peter Molyneux's lack of talent didn't stop him

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Fable: The Lost Chapters

<a href="http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/10-questions-lionheads-peter-molyneux/?biz=1">GameDaily have an interview with Peter Molyneux</a>. It's about how Peter got into the industry amnd what his inspiration was. Here's the first question and answer:
<br>
<blockquote><b>1. What did Peter Molyneux want to be when he was young? What made him decide to go into game development?</b>
<br>
<br>
Well, I always wanted to be rich and run my own company, but beyond that I had no idea what I wanted to be. At school I got the lowest marks of any boy, either before or since. I didn't really have any special talents that shone out. As for games development, that happened by accident. I had fulfilled my dream of running my own company with a friend of mine, Les Edgar. Our company was called Taurus and we specialized in writing computer databases.
<br>
<br>
One day we got a call from Commodore who were just launching the Amiga and wanted to position it as a business machine. They invited me to their offices. So off I went and they kept talking about how they wanted to see my product on their machines – and that to help us do that they would give us ten machines for free. Halfway through this meeting I realised they had called the wrong Taurus. They thought I was from another company called TORUS. I debated whether to explain their mistake to them, but in the end the temptation of ten free machines was too great. Once we had them in the office we were offered the chance to convert Druid 2 from the Atari St to the Amiga and my career in games development began.</blockquote>
<br>
He started with fraud and it's continued through to this day.
<br>
<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">GameBanshee</a>

 

[Fez]

This explains a lot.

 

[Castanova]

Too good to be true.

 

[Trash]

No talent? The guy that created classics like populous, syndicate, powermonger and dungeon keeper? You people really should read up on your computer game history before calling someone a talentless hack.

 

[J1M]

No talent? The guy that created classics like populous, syndicate, powermonger and dungeon keeper? You people really should read up on your computer game history before calling someone a talentless hack.

Created? I would be interested to know exactly what he did for those games.

 

[Trash]

Oh, mostly being the designer, project leader or producer. The guy was a legend in the 90's. And with good reason, he had the guts to try out new things and made some great games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux

 

[DarkUnderlord]

No talent? The guy that created classics like populous, syndicate, powermonger and dungeon keeper? You people really should read up on your computer game history before calling someone a talentless hack.

Lack of talent = beginning of career: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrep ... puter_game)

• Peter Molyneux conceived the game while managing a company dedicated to selling floppy discs; he believed that including games on the discs would improve sales, and later decided that the games were the main selling point.[3] This led to the creation of The Entrepreneur, a text-based simulation about running a fledging company.[4] "In those days you could literally call a game 'Space Blob Attacks Mars' and sell about 50 million copies. So what did I do? I did a business simulation", Molyneux later said.[3]
  
  Molyneux self-published the game by duplicating hundreds of tapes on two Tandy Corporation recorders. After taking an advertising space in a game magazine, he prepared for the game's success; he later stated in an interview, "I was utterly convinced that this game would sell tons. I thought, 'You know, this letter box is just not big enough. It's just not going to fit all the envelopes.' So I cut - and this is no joke - I cut a bigger letter box". However, the game received only two orders, one of which Molyneux speculated was from his mother.[3]
  
  Due to the game's commercial failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impact Systems...
  
  In 2007, GameSpy commented that the economic gameplay mechanics in Molyneux's upcoming Fable 2 are a descendent of The Entrepreneur. "I'm a little concerned that it's Molyneux sneaking in a remix of his first game, Entrepreneur", the writer stated. "I would rather see all the time spent building an economic model of that depth and breadth go into a better combat system, or more locations, or a sensible morality scale".[5]

Populous:

• Peter Molyneux led development and mentioned in an interview that the reason the player could manipulate terrain was that he was too lazy to design the many pre-defined maps that would have otherwise been required.[citation needed] The 2001 game Black & White, also led by Molyneux (but this time at his company Lionhead Studios), has been called the "spiritual descendant of Populous."
  
  Peter Molyneux actually got motion sickness from the isometric view. At the time, he decided the isometric was necessary, but he could not play his own game. Bullfrog created a special cartridge for him to play top down only.[citation needed]

Lack of talent = feature.

 

[Trash]

You call that a lack of talent? You are just being petty and childish. Something that's rather easy and cheap. Here, let me demonstrate. How's that fan made fallout of yours coming along, oh great project leader?

 

[Micmu]

Trash is a Molyneux fanboy lol.

Seriously, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper rocked (haven't played the others).
Too bad he got replaced by a dumb clone. Or was that from the beginning, whatever.

 

[Trash]

Fanboy? Nah, I'm to cynical, bitter and jaded for that. I just think he made a number of awesome games back in the day. In the last years he made some stinkers, but that's far outweighted by the awesomeness that populous and syndicate provided. Shit, I even enjoyed Fable for what it was. I just think it's a bit cheap to start calling someone who's made such classics a talentless hack.

 

[Fez]

I have to wonder how much of the credit for the team's work he can claim for himself though. Ever since Bullfrog dissolved the golden goose hasn't laid anything other than turds. Are we seeing more of him in these newer turds?

 

[Trash]

Fable was a pretty amazing game and a whole lot of fun. The only thing that was really wrong about it was that Molyneux talked too much shit during it''s development. Black and White 1 and 2 were boring shitstains. Personally I never played the movies, but a friend told me that it reminded him a lot of the old dungeon keeper and theme park. He liked it.

I think that as games are being made on larger budgets and with huge studios and teams behind them that old geezers like Peter Molyneux and Richard Garriot just can't fit in. These guys started out in a time when most games fitted on one or two floppy disks and when designing a game took a few weeks and the only people responsible for it where they and perhaps a handfull of others. Gaming has grown up, and it has it's good and bad points. Still doesn't mean that you have to call the oldies from way back when talentless hacks though.

 

[Claw]

Oh well.

At the time games like Populous and Syndicate came out, I didn't know the name Molyneux. I only knew Bullfrog was making great games.
Later I heard some dude called Molyneux was responsible for those games, but when Bullfrog dissolved, the magic disappeared.
As far as I am concerned, Bullfrog made great games, not Peter Molyneux.

RIP Bullfrog.

 

[Fez]

The Movies was crap. I really like the DK games (and the Theme games) and revisit them on occasion, but The Movies was a big disappointment just like Evil Genius was to me. I tried ever-so hard to like it and persevered for some time, but there just wasn't anything there worth it in the end. Maybe it was close to being something good (like Evil Genius), but it was a failure in the end.

I didn't really enjoy Fable when I tried it.

If he's making shit games now and charging more than ever for them then I'm happy to sit back and watch the shit fly in his direction until he makes a game worthy of his reputation. If he was making gold and true classics like the old team used to then I'd be happy to join in on his defence.

I suspect he'll keep making games like B&W and hyping everything instead though.

I don't know if it is this "old dinosaur" syndrome that he and others are suffering from and causing this distinct lack of greatness. Perhaps being forced to work in such an environment instead of with the old buddies in the old smaller team is causing the vision to be watered down or the newer co-workers there lack the "magic" needed to steer his vision into a genuinely playable game rather than a mess of ideas and hype (B&W) being splattered out of the anus of his imagination.

Richard Garriot is a nutjob though and from what I heard he was well on his way to ruining the Ultima games with his own plans. Peter might talk a lot of shit sometimes, but he's not a LARPing loon.

 

[Trash]

Yeah, Garriot always has been a pit funny. Still, these guys are extreme nerds. What can one expect?

 

[Brother None]

You call that a lack of talent? You are just being petty and childish. Something that's rather easy and cheap. Here, let me demonstrate. How's that fan made fallout of yours coming along, oh great project leader?

I think you're calling out the wrong people.

A bunch of internet guys calling Molyneux talentless would never really hurt his status.

However, the fact that rather than retiring he has continued to release a bunch of uninteresting games while spouting meaningless hype and senseless drivel has hurt his status. Rather badly.

If you want for people to start respecting Molyneux, best thing to do is to convince him to retire.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Populous rocked hard. Populous 2 was pretty good also. Syndicate was awesome. Dungeon Keeper was great as well. Warmonger was a nice lark. However, you could kind of see Bullfrog declining there towards the end when they made things like Populous: the Beginning which was basically just an RTS.

Bullfrog was fantastic when they were developing for the Amiga, but it seemed they lost their way once the Amiga disappeared.

 

[St. Toxic]

You call that a lack of talent? You are just being petty and childish. Something that's rather easy and cheap. Here, let me demonstrate. How's that fan made fallout of yours coming along, oh great project leader?

Don't let your lack of talent stop you from realizing your dream DU! Remember Molyneux! :memento:

 

[LCJr.]

At school I got the lowest marks of any boy, either before or since.

This guy's so awesome he even fails beyond the abilities of mortal men.

 

[the gayest baby]

Populous:

• Peter Molyneux led development and mentioned in an interview that the reason the player could manipulate terrain was that he was too lazy to design the many pre-defined maps that would have otherwise been required.[citation needed] The 2001 game Black & White, also led by Molyneux (but this time at his company Lionhead Studios), has been called the "spiritual descendant of Populous."
  
  Peter Molyneux actually got motion sickness from the isometric view. At the time, he decided the isometric was necessary, but he could not play his own game. Bullfrog created a special cartridge for him to play top down only.[citation needed]

Lack of talent = feature.

[citation needed]

 

[J1M]

I honestly don't think this guy is anything more than a businessman who takes credit for other people's work.

I have never watched or read about one of his game design talks and agreed that anything he is discussing is actually a good idea or more than him deciding to do something industry standard and calling it innovative. If you look at his track record Populous is a statistical anomaly.

 

[Trash]

Theme Park, Syndicate, Powermonger, Dungeon Keeper. All innovative and brilliant games that he worled on. That's a lot of statistical anomalies. Go look at his track record again.

 

[Kingston]

Theme Hospital was great too (don't know if Molyneux had much to do with it though).

 

[J1M]

Theme Park, Syndicate, Powermonger, Dungeon Keeper. All innovative and brilliant games that he worled on. That's a lot of statistical anomalies. Go look at his track record again.

Did he really have a hand in developing them? Or are they sufficiently far in the past that we can't really know what he actually did for them? I also would question the greatness of your list there given I have only heard of one game on that list before and I'm one of the most 'hardcore' gamers I know.

 

[Trash]

Theme Park, Syndicate, Powermonger, Dungeon Keeper. All innovative and brilliant games that he worled on. That's a lot of statistical anomalies. Go look at his track record again.

Did he really have a hand in developing them? Or are they sufficiently far in the past that we can't really know what he actually did for them? I also would question the greatness of your list there given I have only heard of one game on that list before and I'm one of the most 'hardcore' gamers I know.

Sure you are kiddo. Nevermind.