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Peter Molyneux’s next game is more of a “hobby” and involves making things

Helios

Member
https://www.pcgamesn.com/peter-molyneux-22cans-legacy
Peter Molyneux may have gone into a self-imposed exile to avoid further controversy about his big ideas and his ability to deliver on them, but he’s still out there making games with ambitious concepts. His latest, Legacy, is a sort of tinkering sim – you start out building stuff in a little workshop, sell your creations, and fund an expanding business empire.
Inspired by his own father’s home workshop, Legacy features a robust building component where you can slap together parts in just about any configuration. That lets you build everything from phones and teddy bears to guns stacked on top of skateboards. Once you start selling, your business evolves, and that means hiring workers, building factories, and growing into a full industrialist – and deciding whether you’re going to be a good or evil boss along the way.

While Molyneux’s next game was first mentioned years ago, the designer – probably wisely – thought it better not to discuss Legacy in detail. The official reveal, courtesy of the latest Levels documentary from Red Bull, doesn’t provide many specifics, but it does offer some insight into the big picture ideas at the heart of Legacy.
True to Molyneux’s reputation, those big picture ideas are indeed quite big. “What I really want to create is a hobby. I want to make you feel creative. I want you to experience what it feels like to be successful. To be appreciated. Those are all the things that I want from a game. That is what I want from Legacy.”

If that sounds a little too much like the old Molyneux, he’s aware of what happens with those grandiose statements. “I think some people justifiably felt that everything I said was a promise, especially when I would do a lot of press. I didn’t really make that connection until it was far too late.”
But still, Molyneux doesn’t want to get caught up in worrying that those ideas are too grand to work. “When you’re thinking about starting something new and fresh, all those risks bubble around your mind. But in the end you say ‘ah, fuck it.’ Can I say fuck it? I’m just going to do it, and I’m going to go on this grand adventure, and we’re going to see where it takes me.”

We’ll see whether or not Legacy is able to live up to those plans – eventually. In the meantime, here’s hoping that it’s a little more Fable 2 and a little less Godus.
 

Geki-D

Banned
He should make a game that Involves making things up. It could be a Peter Molyneux simulator.

Seriously though, sounds like a neat little game, I guess. Not my thing, seems more like it might be at home on phones rather than anything else and if I just wanted to make stuff I'd rather look towards Dreams but plenty of people seem to like the whole "micromanage your virtual whatever" games.
 

Sentenza

Member
Calm down. Dudes makes games. Not always successful, mind, but games nevertheless.
We could argue this for a long time.
Admittedly, my absolute dislike for Molyneux's dishonesty and all the apologetic bullshit people said in his defense (ignoring how deliberately he does it) goes back more than a decade.
 
You know what is about to happen. Don't do this to yourself AGAIN.

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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
It's sad to see what Molyneux became, but sadder still to see what that cunt at RPS did to him.
 
...mentioned years ago... ...doesn’t provide many specifics... ...ideas are indeed quite big... "...What I really want... ...I want to make... ...I want you to experience... ...all the things that I want.... ...That is what I want... ...everything I said was a promise... ...thinking about starting... ...I'm going to do... ...I’m going to go... ...we’re going to see..."

Summarised it for you.

You can't teach an old game designer new tricks.
 
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Ramzy

Member
Why does Molyneux continue to receive press coverage and general attention? The guy is a total hack and hasn't produced anything remotely noteworthy since Black & White / Fable. He's shown himself to be a pathalogical liar and egomaniac.

Hopefully we'll finally get Godus 2. Can't wait.
 
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Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
No offense to Peter, but after that phony Natal demo..

He's left me traumatized.

It's gonna take a lot for me to take him seriously at this point.
 
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It's sad to see what Molyneux became, but sadder still to see what that cunt at RPS did to him.

Molyneux deserves another chance at a big game. He likes to dream big and his promises often fall short, but he's proven that he's got it in him to make some truly magnificent games. If anything, the gaming industry needs more visionaries, not less.
 

iconmaster

Banned
I think some people justifiably felt that everything I said was a promise

If you say your game is going to feature certain things, the buying public tend to take those statements are more than idle musings. A promise does not actually require the words "I promise."

Sean Murray had to learn this same lesson, so I guess there's a certain type of person who just struggles with this.

(I struggle with what to call this phenomenon. It's not lying, really. It's more of casual disregard for future potentiality versus present actuality.)
 
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Can you explain this?

https://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-much-1537352493

“I was wondering what the hell’s going on—I’m just importing, exporting baked beans,” Molyneux said. “They gave me all these new machines. And it turned out they got the wrong Taurus—they thought they were getting ‘Torus’ which was a networking company. And I just lied—and I ended up with all these machines. And I thought, ‘Right, now that I’ve got these machines, I can program a game.’”
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Molyneux deserves another chance at a big game. He likes to dream big and his promises often fall short, but he's proven that he's got it in him to make some truly magnificent games. If anything, the gaming industry needs more visionaries, not less.

I'm kinda conflicted. You're right that we need more visionaries, I do have doubts about whether he's got it in him anymore, and in part I think that may be because he's had the stuffing somewhat knocked out of him. I absolutely loved Powermonger back in the day, it was such a refreshingly different take on war games, a genre I really wasn't that into. To this day, the only games of that type that have really enthused me are Powermonger, Black & White and Mega-Lo-Mania. I never played populous back in the day but playing it more recently it's a bit of a mobile clickfest in some ways, which I didn't expect (Godus was closer to what it actually WAS rather than what people remembered, which is always a mistake).

To me, after Black and White and The Movies he rather disappeared, obviously this was when he went to console-land and did Fable, which I don't have any experience of. So much of what he spoke of upon returning to the PC was horse-shit though, the whole 22 cans debacle was an absolute shitshow. In some ways I wonder if actually those older games were successful because of that magic combination of a madman trying to do too much and saner powers telling him "no fucking way but we can do this". That tension between creativity and restraint, people of Peter's type always lose the plot when fully let off the leash (usually after straining at that leash for years) and the challenge is to find that balance again. If he self-imposes it, it won't work, because he'll lose that creative juice. It needs the conflict between him and higher-ups who can tell him to fuck off.

Hope that makes some kind of sense.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
If you say your game is going to feature certain things, the buying public tend to take those statements are more than idle musings. A promise does not actually require the words "I promise."

Sean Murray had to learn this same lesson, so I guess there's a certain type of person who just struggles with this.

(I struggle with what to call this phenomenon. It's not lying, really. It's more of casual disregard for future potentiality versus present actuality.)


It's not understanding what can and can't be done in a game - some things sound like great ideas but suck to play, some things are just flat-out technically impossible.
 
He legit made a game so I don't see how that's conning his way into the industry.

Did you hear the story of how Nintendo lied to convince US retailers to sell the NES?

He lied to a company to receive free assets to bolster himself and get his foot in the door. Lying is what the man has become infamous for. He is a con man by definition.

I haven’t heard the story of Nintendo. Can you provide some reading to get me through the last hour of work?
 
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Zog

Banned
He lied to a company to receive free assets to bolster himself and get his foot in the door. Lying is what the man has become infamous for. He is a con man by definition.

I haven’t heard the story of Nintendo. Can you provide some reading to get me through the last hour of work?
Yeah, due to the crash in the early 80's retailers wanted nothing to do with video games or computers so Nintendo told retailers that the NES was a toy instead of a video game console. They designed ROB the robot for that purpose. It was designed as front loading device for this purpose as well.
 
Yeah, due to the crash in the early 80's retailers wanted nothing to do with video games or computers so Nintendo told retailers that the NES was a toy instead of a video game console. They designed ROB the robot for that purpose. It was designed as front loading device for this purpose as well.

Funny you mention that, I just ready about this in the game console book a couple days ago. It never made mention of trying to deceive retailers, more so that it was included by Nintendo so retailers could market it as a toy instead of a deticated console.

Do you have any links on the full history of this? The book I have isn’t very verbose, it was only a paragraph.
 

Zog

Banned
Funny you mention that, I just ready about this in the game console book a couple days ago. It never made mention of trying to deceive retailers, more so that it was included by Nintendo so retailers could market it as a toy instead of a deticated console.

Do you have any links on the full history of this? The book I have isn’t very verbose, it was only a paragraph.
I don't, I just remember the story.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Peter Molyneux falls in the same category as Cliffy B for me. There are just some director/developers who I avoid like the plague. Not necessarily because their games are bad, but based on principle. Peter doused the flame that was the kinect when it was doing well. I personally liked the Kinect. I had 1.0 and 2.0...still do. I think if people like him didn't unwarranted dump on the peripheral...maybe developers would have taken it more seriously.

Cliffy B, developed Gears, which for me was always just an ok game. Gears 1 was awesome for it's time, but that formula became immediately old for me ever since Gears 2. Yet somehow I still bought 3 and 4, although at an extreme discount. However it was really the Lawbreakers fiasco that put Cliffy B in the dirt for me. the PR catastrophe leading up to the game's release and his ridiculous comments after followed by that terrible BR game. It would take some small miracle for me to buy either one of their games again.
 

WaterAstro

Member
Is this game "How many times can you lie without getting caught"? Actually, that works out to be his hobby as well.
 
The first ever pseudo-developer in the history of video games, and yet, people actually spend time hating on Kojima. What a stupid world we live in.
 
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Melter

Member
can someone please explain to me why I often see (or saw) articles about this guy?

Peter Molyneux does this... Peter Molyneux announces that...

I played some of his games. Some of the were good, some of them bad. Nothing he has done has struck me as a revelation that warrants him getting media coverage every time he works on a new game.

I don't get it.
 

Sentenza

Member
Molyneux deserves another chance at a big game. He likes to dream big and his promises often fall short, but he's proven that he's got it in him to make some truly magnificent games. If anything, the gaming industry needs more visionaries, not less.
You are falling for the scam.
He's not "a visionary" with ambitions crippled by technical limitations; he's someone premeditatedly lying to people, knowing very well most of the features he goes musing about have exactly zero chances to make into a final product and were never worked on to any extent.
He's a snake oil salesman who incidentally across the years happened to cross his path with a bunch of actually talented and respectable developers (he lucked out on this, especially in his early days with Bullfrog, where these people were a far rarer commodity).
He also gave hell to most of them, apparently.

It's sad to see what Molyneux became, but sadder still to see what that cunt at RPS did to him.
One of the very few moments where I can say I almost liked John Walker.
 
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