The Assassination of Peter Molyneux | RPS Interview

It's good to see the heat turned onto developers who fail to uphold their promises. Molyneux may be one of the most high profile figures but he is not the only one who has been skipping out on projects when the cash is already in the incentives have dried up.

About three quarters of the "Early Access" games available on Steam have never been completed. Now, I am all for alternate business models but Valve needs to shut that gooseberry fool down right away because, going from the limited success rate, the entire project has more or less failed in its goals. Even if one or two good games emerge from it we can probably guess that they were produced by diligent people who would have finished their work anyway.

Ballsy move to keep repeating how "new" and "original" and "different" Godus is going to be given everything else He never learns. Part of me wants the game to never come out just to teach him a proper lesson.

Dandy Kong wrote:

Ironhide wrote:Molyneux just sets himself and his teams extremely ambitious goals for their projects, there's nothing dishonest about having to later scale things back when realising that some things can't be done.

One would expect him to learn from his past experiences, though.

He did. He learned that setting extremely ambitious goals and scaling them back was the way to do business.

Does Peter Molyneux need to be taken to task over some of the things he has promised and failed to deliver? Yes.

Does that make the RPS interview good or justifiable? No.

I enjoyed the Eurogamer piece, it was an interesting follow up to something that was pretty big news at the time. Somebody standing over a fallen champion and chanting "you're gooseberry fool and you know you are" over and over is not entertaining.

Shame it wasn't a real assassination or a real shotgun.

He's a strawberry floating conman at this point, his intent barely matters now that he's taken to swindling via crowdfunding rather than at the point of sale

I think he he comes off quite well in that interview, but maybe I'm bias as I've always liked Molyneux and have huge respect for him (except when I applied for a job and they didn't even acknowledge my email ).

The guy who won Curiosity definitely deserved to be treated better. As a backer of Godus I was annoyed by some of the decisions they made, particularly with the focus on Mobile versions, but at the same time they have responded to feedback with the Alphas and changed the game quite significantly. So I don't think Molyneux himself deserves such a harsh tone in the interview, RPS just want to cause a stir and get some clicks.

There is being harsh and then there is being a dick.

I actually think the corrupt banker analogy isn't a million miles off. Molyneux took half a million pounds of people's money and delivered... Essentially nothing. A broken early access game and a shitty mobile title. Add to that 22cans treatment of the Curiosity winner and you have someone who's gone from the dear old hyperbolic uncle of gaming to someone who is rapidly approaching Fred Goodwin status.

I wonder if he could lower my coffin at my funeral. That way he can let me down one last time.

Lucien wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:I actually think the corrupt banker analogy isn't a million miles off. Molyneux took half a million pounds of people's money and delivered... Essentially nothing.

Not to let him off, but the people who funded him should have known better. It'd be like Dr Dre asking rap fans for money to release an album, or Paul Anderson asking for money to make a good film.

Thing with Godus is it was meant to be Molyneux going back to the start. He evoked Populous and with the passion he put into that you would think that he wouldn't sell out to F2P garbage or leave the project behind before it was even close to finished. So not only was it meant to be a rebirth for him but also going back to his first big success to bring it back in style. The kickstarter was played out to convince people of these things and that it would be different from his past.

satriales wrote:I think he he comes off quite well in that interview, but maybe I'm bias as I've always liked Molyneux and have huge respect for him (except when I applied for a job and they didn't even acknowledge my email ).

The guy who won Curiosity definitely deserved to be treated better. As a backer of Godus I was annoyed by some of the decisions they made, particularly with the focus on Mobile versions, but at the same time they have responded to feedback with the Alphas and changed the game quite significantly. So I don't think Molyneux himself deserves such a harsh tone in the interview, RPS just want to cause a stir and get some clicks.

They acknowledged my email.

I have met some of the RPS guys and they certainly seem vocal and very passionate in their views, tend to be on the defence quite a lot, but that is what stands them out.

This whole thing contains a valuable lesson for any game devs with a less than sterling reputation. Don't give interviews this time of year. It's kind of a slow news month for gaming.

Well, like most of us I guess, I didn't realise that the cube winner hasnt got even a single thing out of winning. That is an absolute disgrace, considering how much hype it all got; how the winner's life would be changed etc.

To get absolutely nothing - wow! Not legally, I realise, but morally what happened to that poor guy is damned right fraud. PM should be pulled out in every single interview from now on and asked if he has given any of the proceeds of godus to that guy yet. It should be the first question of any interview until he actually does it. PM should be thoroughly ashamed of himself - this isn't just promises about what a video game will or won't do, it's a promise about changing a persons life. That is a promise that should not allowed to be passed by. It's a step too far.

Tafdolphin wrote:I actually think the corrupt banker analogy isn't a million miles off. Molyneux took half a million pounds of people's money and delivered... Essentially nothing. A broken early access game and a shitty mobile title. Add to that 22cans treatment of the Curiosity winner and you have someone who's gone from the dear old hyperbolic uncle of gaming to someone who is rapidly approaching Fred Goodwin status.

Are they not legally obliged to deliver everything they promised in the Kickstarter? I'm pretty sure that is a major part of the Kickstarter ToS.

Not at all on the project, that's pretty much one of the main points of using over the traditional business model.

But RPS was saying that apparently you are obliged to deliver the stretch goals of art books and so such since they paid extra specifically for those. That's what RPS was saying should be refunded if they wont be given out after all this time.

EDIT:

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/ki ... ref=footer

Who is responsible for completing a project as promised?

It's the project creator's responsibility to complete their project. Kickstarter is not involved in the development of the projects themselves.

Kickstarter does not guarantee projects or investigate a creator's ability to complete their project. On Kickstarter, backers (you!) ultimately decide the validity and worthiness of a project by whether they decide to fund it.

EDIT THE SECOND:

Turns out they updated their T&A, you now have to complete things, but you didn't have to before:

Updated Oct 2014 (so after he started his KS, so Molyneux is covered by the old T&C):

https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4

When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.

....

The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

Shalashaska wrote:I wonder if he could lower my coffin at my funeral. That way he can let me down one last time.

That's not a growth wrote:Turns out they updated their T&A, you now have to complete things, but you didn't have to before:

Updated Oct 2014 (so after he started his KS, so Molyneux is covered by the old T&C):

https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use#section4

When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.

....

The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

Seems like a very reasonable change if this was happening quite often, although I have never heard of kickstarters not producing content myself.

Cribs wrote:Are they not legally obliged to deliver everything they promised in the Kickstarter? I'm pretty sure that is a major part of the Kickstarter ToS.

Molyneux had a valid point about the 'making of' book, you can't release that until the project is done.
If he fails on delivering the Linux stretch goal then he should offer refunds to those Linux backers. Fairest way would probably be to allow any backer who hasn't downloaded the game yet to claim a refund if they want to.