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by victork2 5122 days ago
If there's one rule in gaming it is: "Do not trust Peter Molyneux".

This guy is the biggest bullshitter in the gaming industry. A guy with such claims that the book "On bullshit" perfectly applies to what he says in many cases.

Again this thing looks so pretentious that it gives me nausea just listening to his... uh project I guess. It's the same nausea I feel when I try to listen to artist justifying their performance in "modern art".

Sorry to be so harsh.

3 comments

How is he a bullshitter? He created Populous, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper (and Magic Carpet!) - A pretty good record for a bullshitter. The guy is a legend.

Some of his ideas failed. So what. At least he tried.

What do we have now? Oh yeah, the latest Call of Duty shooter with absolutely horrible plot twists and dialogue. Yeah, a pool of true innovation.

I think Rogert Ebert had it right. Gaming is awfully trite. For every Shadow of Memories and Grim Fandango you have 1'000'000 rotten ideas.

False dichotomy there - there are plenty of innovative new IPs out there, not to mention that Molyneux also fell into the sequel trap in the end. I think it's fair to say that in recent times he has failed to deliver more than he has delivered.
I am not talking about "IPs", I'm taking about games. In the early days, game designers couldn't hide the shallowness of their creations with eye candy and bombastic soundtracks. Game mechanics reigned supreme.

23 years ago we had this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTGneDh-SMY

Now we have this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7GVSx7yMaA

All I'm saying is that you should give that guy some slack.

Again though, you're cherry picking a very innovative game from the past and a not very innovative game from the present. So what? There are plenty of games from 23 years ago that were utterly derivative, and there are plenty of games being made right now that are doing amazing new things.
It is not an understatement to say that he is exceptionally poor at managing expectations. Reading/watching this I realize he is experimenting with ways to monetize Minecraft :-)
>Again this thing looks so pretentious that it gives me nausea just listening to his... uh project I guess. It's the same nausea I feel when I try to listen to artist justifying their performance in "modern art".

You're assuming that it will work in the first place.

No, I'm saying that that the concept, if executed properly, would not make money. Sadly, it probably will.

I'm saying that it just won't work on a technical level. Molyneux has a history of making promises and then not delivering on any of them.

The difference here is that he's promising something eminently achievable. Easy to to achieve, even, and remarkably clear.