Peter Molyneux

"the games equivalent to a rockstar"

Oh dear.

I suppose he says this sort of thing enough times some journos might start spreading it around.

I remember when Molyneux described "The Movies" as something the likes of which we had never seen before. It was a Theme Park style micro-management game with a fun little movie-making aside.

I remember when Molyneux said that Black & White was totally original. He got it on the front page of Edge and everything. It turned out to be an okay RTS with a humourous giant animal sidekick that you could either completely ignore or use as an organic Mammoth Tank.

When will the media stop letting Molyneux use them to advertise his mediocre games?

The last great game he made was Populous...

Come on Jimmer, since when has the term 'rockstar' meant a necessarily good thing? Jon Bon Jovi's a rockstar for goodness sake.

Cheers

Tim

But games journos have been massaging this guy's enormous ego since the early 90s!

I know people who have worked for him and other "rockstars" like Braben and the gruesome twosome who started Codies. Seems their huge egos pretty much ensure that everyone who works for them is deeply unhappy and overworked, while the games they put out are largely overhyped b******s.

They are dinosaurs from the Speccy/C64 age who should have stepped aside after the Amiga/ST.

/rant

I could agree less. And I do. Peter is good for the games industry. So he gets excited, and over-eggs the pudding sometimes... but it's always out of enthusiasm rather than cynical marketing lies. And while his days of making extremely innovative games may be lost to the sands of time, that's because there are and have been far more games since then, and being original is harder to do... but at least he still tries, unlike some. And he's never produced a real stinker, unlike most. So overall, I think he's good for gaming.

I also know several people who have worked for him, none have a bad word to say about him. I know people who have worked for other gaming companies, and many of them were overworked and unhappy.

Sadly I think this is true of most people in the industry...

Are you back in games yet Jimmer? What's Maff, any ideas?

Cheers
Tim

No, I am still jobless and starting uni full-time in September. Hopefully supplement my meagre loan with a bit of web design.

Maff is doing web design stuff with another of the senior artists from Piv. I understand they are doing okay.

I am very cynical about the games industry (in case you hadn't noticed). There were moments when it looked like my dream job but then the passion was quickly snuffed out by asshole producers and publishers with no vision or faith in the team.

It actually got to the point where there was a producer for every designer! They would come round throughout the day to see what you were up, the ultimate in micro-management. A real shame. I get the impression it is like this at a lot of studios, although apparently not all (thankfully).

You should definitely write us a feature on this... drop me a mail at tim@spong.com

Cheers

Tim