4 ms·

There's a little too much hero worship in this article for my taste. Molyneux is not some wide-eyed dreamer whose hopes keep getting dashed by the mean nasty wo

There's a little too much hero worship in this article for my taste. Molyneux is not some wide-eyed dreamer whose hopes keep getting dashed by the mean nasty world. He's a serial liar who may have started out simply being too hopeful but has spent the last fifteen years lying to gain investors and happily screwing as many people on the back end as he can get away with. For example, he built the entire premise and hype over his Cube mobile game about having one single winner who could share or keep the prize. Bryan Henderson won it and the prize turned out to be a major role in Molyneux's next game Godus. Except giving out prizes doesn't make Peter any money so he told Henderson to go fuck himself and never contacted him again.

sumtechguy 6y ago
What was interesting was the cube game was actually kinda fun to play in a odd way. They could have kept that going for awhile. Like reset the cube every few months or something. Different shapes etc. Godus started of interesting but went sideways quickly and tried to turn itself into a pay to play game. No whales showed up for that because that is not what people bought. Then the resets of game progress every few weeks and people gave up on it.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  His Cube game was the epitome of dopamine addiction games, all that was wrong with Zynga/Facebook games, the rage at the time. Nothing at all original about that: a total cop-out of game design. When Peter Molyneux gave his insufferably vainglorious keynote presentation of Cube at the Unity3D Unite conference at Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, I chatted him up afterwards and attempted to troll him by guessing that the big surprise in the box was a cow. I don't think he got the point that I was trying to make an ironic reference to Ian Bogost's Cow Clicker, which is a parody of and social commentary on dopamine games. I tried to explain the joke to him, and he still didn't get it. At least Ian Bogost had the self awareness to design Cow Clicker in the service of making a critical statement about game design, and the capacity of shame to be embarrassed when it was an accidental run-away success. Unite 2012 : Keynote - Founders & Peter Molyneux (The BS starts at 1h 8m 21s -- It's been 8 years since I saw this live, and it's much worse than I remembered, especially now knowing how it turned out!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24AY4fJ66xA&t=1h08m21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24AY4fJ66xA&t=1h08m21s >1h 48m 06s, with arms spread out like Jesus H Christ on a crucifix: "Because we can dynamically put on ANY surface of the cube ANY image we like. So THAT's how we're going to surprise the world, is by giving clues about what's in the middle later on." http://www.cowclicker.com/ http://www.cowclicker.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker >In the wake of a controversial speech by Zynga's president at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2010, Bogost developed Cow Clicker for a presentation at a New York University seminar on social gaming in July 2010. The game was created to demonstrate what Bogost felt were the most commonly abused mechanics of social games, such as the promotion of social interaction and monetization rather than the artistic aspects of the medium. As the game unexpectedly began to grow in popularity, Bogost also used Cow Clicker to parody other recent gaming trends, such as gamification, educational apps, and alternate reality games. >Some critics praised Cow Clicker for its dissection of the common mechanics of social network games and viewed it as a commentary on how social games affect people. https://qz.com/34024/life-really-is-a-game-with-a-lot-of-clicks-and-then-you-die/ https://qz.com/34024/life-really-is-a-game-with-a-lot-of-cli... >Life really is a game—with a lot of clicks—and then you die >Curiosity is just the latest in a series of social experiments that rely on user interactions with seemingly no point. Of course, Zynga is the king of this phenomenon, providing games full of sticky and addictive action that encourage more clicks for the sake of clicks. Arbitrary value becomes real value, even when it’s not meant to. Just ask Ian Bogost, who created the satirical social game Cow Clicker that went on to such absurd popularity that he felt compelled to continue developing it, trapping himself in an ironic loop that refuses to end. In Cow Clicker, you literally click one cow every six hours to collect Mooney, which lets you buy other cows to click on.
yreg 6y ago
Henderson didn't receive money since Godus was not profitable — which is not surprising, since it wasn't that good. I don't think it's fair to call a developer a `serial liar` when they say they are working on a great game and then fail. Failing is commonplace.
- Causality1 6y ago
  That is not true. Henderson was promised a role as "God of gods" and one percent of revenue during his tenure. Molyneux simply decided not to implement the role of God of gods in the game and gave Henderson nothing. In his BAFTA acceptance speech he admitted he "makes up game features on the spot to keep game journalists from falling asleep". Peter Molyneux is so full of shit his eyes are brown.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  It's totally fair, and Causality1's GP comment is spot on and unfairly downvoted. See the links in my other post. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24380281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24380281
LoSboccacc 6y ago
yeah, he had great ideas and vision, but delivery was often shoddy, inconsistent or resulted in outright annoying mechanics/sections (guildmaster combat multiplier suggestions on repeat) I wouldn't outright call them lies tho, probably more like he was asking a little too much from that age technology.
whereistimbo 6y ago
I read the interview in rockpaperscissors and he seemed like a good faith person. The Godus game, well he put it in Kickstarter, and he actually filled most of the promises, but as you should expect from Kickstarter, any pledge should be viewed as bet. People that know Molyneux better won't give pledges as he loves overestimating and overhyping things. Nevertheless, the interview teached him to be more careful when making estimates and promises.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Nope, he didn't learn a thing. >Feb 3, 2016: Serial over-promiser Peter Molyneux promises to stop over-promising. Designer breaks a year of self-imposed press exile with reflective interview. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/serial-over-promiser-peter-molyneux-promises-to-stop-over-promising/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/serial-over-promiser-... He should have kept his earlier promise from a year earlier, and never spoken to the press again: >Feb 13, 2015: Peter Molyneux interview: 'It's over, I will not speak to the press again'. The veteran game designer is at the centre of a raging controversy over his new game Godus. He says he is finished with the press. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-mol...
b0rsuk 6y ago
He's completely right about hero worship. The article is titled "Bullfrog after Populous", but it leaves an impression Bullfrog was one person. Literally not a single other employee is mentioned by name! There are around 36 paragraphs in the article* and 9 do not contain the word Molyneux. Sure the guy was talented, but quite possibly a credit-hogging narcissist too. And an effective one. * not counting blockquotes by you-know-who

sumtechguy 6y ago

What was interesting was the cube game was actually kinda fun to play in a odd way. They could have kept that going for awhile. Like reset the cube every few months or something. Different shapes etc. Godus started of interesting but went sideways quickly and tried to turn itself into a pay to play game. No whales showed up for that because that is not what people bought. Then the resets of game progress every few weeks and people gave up on it.

DonHopkins 6y ago
His Cube game was the epitome of dopamine addiction games, all that was wrong with Zynga/Facebook games, the rage at the time. Nothing at all original about that: a total cop-out of game design. When Peter Molyneux gave his insufferably vainglorious keynote presentation of Cube at the Unity3D Unite conference at Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, I chatted him up afterwards and attempted to troll him by guessing that the big surprise in the box was a cow. I don't think he got the point that I was trying to make an ironic reference to Ian Bogost's Cow Clicker, which is a parody of and social commentary on dopamine games. I tried to explain the joke to him, and he still didn't get it. At least Ian Bogost had the self awareness to design Cow Clicker in the service of making a critical statement about game design, and the capacity of shame to be embarrassed when it was an accidental run-away success. Unite 2012 : Keynote - Founders & Peter Molyneux (The BS starts at 1h 8m 21s -- It's been 8 years since I saw this live, and it's much worse than I remembered, especially now knowing how it turned out!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24AY4fJ66xA&t=1h08m21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24AY4fJ66xA&t=1h08m21s >1h 48m 06s, with arms spread out like Jesus H Christ on a crucifix: "Because we can dynamically put on ANY surface of the cube ANY image we like. So THAT's how we're going to surprise the world, is by giving clues about what's in the middle later on." http://www.cowclicker.com/ http://www.cowclicker.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_Clicker >In the wake of a controversial speech by Zynga's president at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2010, Bogost developed Cow Clicker for a presentation at a New York University seminar on social gaming in July 2010. The game was created to demonstrate what Bogost felt were the most commonly abused mechanics of social games, such as the promotion of social interaction and monetization rather than the artistic aspects of the medium. As the game unexpectedly began to grow in popularity, Bogost also used Cow Clicker to parody other recent gaming trends, such as gamification, educational apps, and alternate reality games. >Some critics praised Cow Clicker for its dissection of the common mechanics of social network games and viewed it as a commentary on how social games affect people. https://qz.com/34024/life-really-is-a-game-with-a-lot-of-clicks-and-then-you-die/ https://qz.com/34024/life-really-is-a-game-with-a-lot-of-cli... >Life really is a game—with a lot of clicks—and then you die >Curiosity is just the latest in a series of social experiments that rely on user interactions with seemingly no point. Of course, Zynga is the king of this phenomenon, providing games full of sticky and addictive action that encourage more clicks for the sake of clicks. Arbitrary value becomes real value, even when it’s not meant to. Just ask Ian Bogost, who created the satirical social game Cow Clicker that went on to such absurd popularity that he felt compelled to continue developing it, trapping himself in an ironic loop that refuses to end. In Cow Clicker, you literally click one cow every six hours to collect Mooney, which lets you buy other cows to click on.

yreg 6y ago

Henderson didn't receive money since Godus was not profitable — which is not surprising, since it wasn't that good. I don't think it's fair to call a developer a `serial liar` when they say they are working on a great game and then fail. Failing is commonplace.

Causality1 6y ago
That is not true. Henderson was promised a role as "God of gods" and one percent of revenue during his tenure. Molyneux simply decided not to implement the role of God of gods in the game and gave Henderson nothing. In his BAFTA acceptance speech he admitted he "makes up game features on the spot to keep game journalists from falling asleep". Peter Molyneux is so full of shit his eyes are brown.
DonHopkins 6y ago
It's totally fair, and Causality1's GP comment is spot on and unfairly downvoted. See the links in my other post. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24380281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24380281

LoSboccacc 6y ago

yeah, he had great ideas and vision, but delivery was often shoddy, inconsistent or resulted in outright annoying mechanics/sections (guildmaster combat multiplier suggestions on repeat) I wouldn't outright call them lies tho, probably more like he was asking a little too much from that age technology.

whereistimbo 6y ago

I read the interview in rockpaperscissors and he seemed like a good faith person. The Godus game, well he put it in Kickstarter, and he actually filled most of the promises, but as you should expect from Kickstarter, any pledge should be viewed as bet. People that know Molyneux better won't give pledges as he loves overestimating and overhyping things. Nevertheless, the interview teached him to be more careful when making estimates and promises.

DonHopkins 6y ago
Nope, he didn't learn a thing. >Feb 3, 2016: Serial over-promiser Peter Molyneux promises to stop over-promising. Designer breaks a year of self-imposed press exile with reflective interview. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/serial-over-promiser-peter-molyneux-promises-to-stop-over-promising/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/serial-over-promiser-... He should have kept his earlier promise from a year earlier, and never spoken to the press again: >Feb 13, 2015: Peter Molyneux interview: 'It's over, I will not speak to the press again'. The veteran game designer is at the centre of a raging controversy over his new game Godus. He says he is finished with the press. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-mol...

b0rsuk 6y ago

He's completely right about hero worship. The article is titled "Bullfrog after Populous", but it leaves an impression Bullfrog was one person. Literally not a single other employee is mentioned by name! There are around 36 paragraphs in the article* and 9 do not contain the word Molyneux. Sure the guy was talented, but quite possibly a credit-hogging narcissist too. And an effective one. * not counting blockquotes by you-know-who