The God Delusion: How Peter Molyneux Became the Villain

When I was 13, I was hooked on a game called Black & White. I was intensely familiar with video games as platformers and shooters, but Black & White was very different; Players took on the role of a faceless, nameless god, and could freely influence the lives of civilisations through their own choices. You could shape societies through your vengeful or merciful rule which would eventually influence all life on Earth and create an open-ended gaming experience.

The game is considered one of the progenitors of the modern simulation game genre and influenced a wide range of titles such as The Sims, Spore and Darwinia.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/crossmediaweek/ 

Enter Peter Molyneux, the charismatic and popular game developer who in 1989 created Populous, which is considered to be the first god game. Since then, Molyneux created many other titles including Black & White 1 & 2, the Fable series, Dungeon Keeper and Gene Wars. But as his work grew, his reputation within the industry began to change rather drastically, a perception which would ultimately end in disaster.

It is considered to have begun with the first title in the Fable series released in 2004. Molyneux talked during development at conferences and press interviews about a wide range of features to be included in the game; these included ambitious promises such as the ability to have children and watch them grow, or the famous claim that upon planting an acorn an entire tree would grow over the course of the game. Once the game was shipped it was discovered that many of these features were actually not included within the game. This eventually forced Molyneux to make a public apology for overhyping the game. It seemed like an innocent mistake at the time, as if he’d gotten ahead of himself and ended up in a tangled web of creative mess, all of his own doing he insisted.

The only problem is it didn't stop there. For every great title Molyneux made, controversy eventually followed. Fans begun to tire of the grandeur and wanted straight answers about the games Molyneux was making. A new project for the Xbox motion sensor technology Kinect was promised which was ultimately never delivered upon, and Fable 3 was eventually disowned by Molyneux after claiming publisher Microsoft forced him to remove certain aspects of the game, a claim which was later proved to be untrue and resulted in the Molyneux leaving his development company Lionhead Studios.

His biggest controversy arrived after he formed his new studio 22cans, which announced it was seeking funding via Kickstarter to create a new god-game named Godus. People were wary after Molyneux’s history of over-promising and under-delivering, yet the project managed to raise £526,563 from over 17,000 backers. This was in November 2012, and two and a half years later, many of the promises made during the fundraising campaign are yet to be delivered upon.

In its current state, Godus is unfinished, although the Kickstarter promised the game would be finished in between seven and nine months, making the game almost two years late. The crucial multiplayer elements are far from complete, the development team has been severely reduced and Molyneux is once again under fire, this time for soliciting donations based on false pretences.

Normally, companies and organisations which seek backing through crowdfunding are subject to regulatory measures to ensure they deliver on their promises, including financial auditing and the implementation of budgeting and forecasting software; so far, nothing suggests Molyneux and 22cans went through these appropriate channels, which leaves backers feeling as if they have been misled. Fans are understandably angry, as developers have now claimed that they “simply can’t see us delivering all the features promised on the Kickstarter page”, alongside this, Molyneux has already announced a new mobile title named The Trial which suggests Godus is no longer the focus at 22cans, despite not having actually completed the game to a sustainable level.

In a final twist of irony, Molyneux gave interviews to the Guardian and Rock, Paper, Shotgun, in which he claimed both would be his final interview and that he would never speak to the press again, leaving both under the impression they were conducting the final interview.

This made me wonder; is Molyneux a compulsive liar, or is his tendency for dramatic prose completely innocent? In the internet age where everything you say is recorded on Twitter or on a message board, it has become much harder for people like Peter Molyneux to pass off every idea as completely set in stone.