Peter-Molyneux
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Peter Molyneux's orgasmic delight
Conrad over at Joystiq has posted an interview with Lionhead's Peter Molyneux. There's a lot of good stuff in there and I won't attempt to recount it all. I will, however, relate this little tidbit to whet your appetite:"You know in those days that's what it was like, I smoked more cigarettes, drunk more and did disastrous things to my body. I was a total introvert, the world outside of what I did on my computer became dim, almost psychotically so. But, there was, and I apologize for using this words, there was this orgasmic delight in physically creating something."Good stuff. Conrad and Peter talk Fable, Fable 2, Pete's "secret project", and more. Head over to Joystiq and check it out.
Joystiq interviews Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios
Yesterday at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Jennie and I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with the founder of Lionhead Studios, Peter Molyneux. We chatted about the issue of hype, frustrations surrounding PC gaming and Peter's early days in the industry, amongst other topics.Fable was pretty much portrayed as one of the most open games of all time, but in terms of hype, it failed to meet the high expectations that you gave the game. There was even a forum post where you apologized about this: why did it get to that level?Well, it started with this fatal line that I made and that was that I wanted to make Fable the greatest role playing game of all time. I kinda still defend that because I honestly don't see the point in making a game that you don't honestly believe has a chance of being the greatest game of all time. I meet the press quite a lot, every 6-8 weeks there's some sort of press interview. The way I work then is to get a system in, play around with it, polish it, make it better. Sometimes I leave it as it is and sometimes I throw it away.
A few Fable scraps
The Lionhead Times has be updated with a few bits of info regarding Fable 2. Most of the info is just general development stuff, but there are a few interesting things to point out. For instance, the story of Fable 2 takes place 500 years after the events of Fable and The Lost Chapters, giving the game a richer history from which to build the story. The story is also planned to be longer than the original, which is definitely good news. Somewhat more cryptic, it's also revealed that the story could take a turn that will "shock" players. Another little tidbit, the Fable 2 team now has to make "milestone" builds of the game in order to showcase the game's progress to the suits at Microsoft. The upshot of this is that we should get some insight on the game's progress as well. Fable 2 is one of the 360's heavy hitters so, rest assured that we'll keep you posted.
Molyneux's Fable 2 dance recital at E3
Lionhead Studios founder Peter Molyneux addressed the media at E3 this week, where he discussed his company's acquisition by Microsoft and the highly anticipated Fable 2. Unfortunately, the sequel to one of the Xbox's bestselling games is not quite demo-ready, and Molyneux wasn't exactly forthcoming on development details. Instead, he chose to focus on the importance of emotional engagement in Fable 2, one of the stronger elements in the original game.Molyneux did hint at the possible inclusion of an Xbox 360's friends list feature for his next action RPG, and is intrigued by Microsoft's new Live Anywhere technology, but again, he confirmed nothing. Throw us a friggin' bone here, Pete! At least we have a pretty trailer to look at.Lionhead's other games include The Movies and Black & White 2.See also: Molyneux predicted a Revolution...in '04
Molyneux predicted a Revolution ... in '04
During a demonstration of Fable, his then-upcoming RPG, at 2004's DICE conference, Peter Molynuex predicted that game controllers needed a revolution -- so to speak -- to accomodate the shift in game design. He said: I reckon, and this is a real personal point of view, the greatest innovation in hardware won't come from the next graphics processor, or the next processor, or the next console, or even the next PC. Someone, somewhere will come up with an input device that enables us to do games that we haven't even imagined before ... somewhere, someone is going to come up with a second-generation controller because, I would argue, the controllers we have now were designed to actually move around 2D worlds, and they've been hybrided for 3D worlds, and they're still not good enough, and the number of times you have to go through and re-jig your game because of the controllers. Sounds like the sagacious Molynuex would have loved to make a title using Nintendo's new controller; although, with last week's announcement that Microsoft finally bought Molyneux's Lionhead Studios, it looks like it ain't gonna happen. [Thanks, k2switch]
Microsoft's Lionhead acquisition official
The GDC rumour mill had its finger on the pulse where Lionhead and Microsoft were concerned; Microsoft has acquired the British developer, beating out rumoured competition from EA and Ubisoft. It looks as though Microsoft were especially keen to grab Peter Molyneux -- they'll be putting his innovative approach to gaming to use on the Xbox 360 and Vista platforms. This is good news for the struggling Lionhead, although whether it will help Molyneux's games sell any better is yet to be seen. As far as the UK games industry is concerned, international acquisitions like this (and Rare's before it) are interesting -- while there will always be smaller guys going it alone, there's a short supply of big-name British developers who are staying home-grown.
Molyneux's Lionhead cuts staff, axes projects
Lionhead has confirmed recent job layoffs, downsizing its total staff from 250 to 200. The cutbacks also signal the end of some of the studio's current projects. Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux told remaining employees that only two titles, both for next-gen consoles, will continue to be developed. The sequel to Fable—said to be in development for the past year—is expected to be one of those games.Analysts have cited poor sales of Lionhead's most recent PC titles, The Movies and Black and White 2, as primary causes for the decision to resize the studio. Activision, publishers of The Movies, dropped the title last month, destroying hopes for a console port. In addition, rumors have begun heating up that Molyneux is again seeking to sell Lionhead. Microsoft and Ubisoft are the most prominent potential buyers. Although, Microsoft is likely wary of offering the big bucks given Rare's poor performance since the Xbox-maker acquired that studio for $375 million back in 2002.[Thanks, The1]
