Peter Molyneux

Peter Douglas Molyneux , OBE ( / m ɒ l ᵻ a j U / ; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer . He created the god games Populous , Dungeon Keeper and Black & White as well as Theme Park , the Fable series and Curiosity – What’s Inside the Cube? His new studio 22Cans Currently works on Godus and the brand new hiking resource gathering game, The Trail-A Frontier.

Career

Early career

Peter Molyneux Began his career in 1982 at Distributing and selling floppy disks welke contained video games for Atari and the Commodore 64 . He believed therein waaronder games on the discs mention anything verbeteren sales, and later concluded dat de games ulcers the main selling point. ^[2]

He created The Entrepreneur , a text-based business simulation game about running a Fledgling company. ^[3] “In Those days you Could In English one call a game ‘Space Blob Attacks Mars and sell about 50 million copies. So what did I do? I did a business simulation,” Molyneux later said. ^[2] Molyneux published the game himself at duplicating Hundreds of tapes in 1984 on two Tandy Corporation recorders. After taking an advertising space in a game magazine, he Prepared for the game’s success; he later stated in an interview, “I was utterly convinced dat this game mention anything sell tons. I thought, ‘You know, this letter box is just not big enough. It’s just not going to fit all the envelopes. So I cut – and this is no joke – I cut a bigger letter box “. However, the game RECEIVED only two orders, one or welke Molyneux speculated was from his mother. ^[2] In 2007, a GameSpy reviewer commented dat de economic gameplay mechanics in Molyneux’s Fable II ‘may harbor leg a descendant of The Entrepreneur , stating, “I’m a little Concerned dat it’s Molyneux sneaking in a remix of his first game, Entrepreneur “. ^[4]

Due to the game’s failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impex Limited a company dat Exported baked beans to the Middle East ^{[5] [6]} -with his business partner Les Edgar. Commodore International mistook it for torus, a more Agent company dat produktie networking software , and offered to bieden Molyneux with at ^[5] free Amiga systems to assist in porting “his” networking software. ^{[2] [7]} “… it dawned on me Suddenly dat this guy did not know who we ulcers,” Molyneux later said. “I Suddenly had this crisis of conscience. I thought, ‘If this guy FINDS out, there go my free computers down the drain.” So I just Shook his hand and ran out of that office. ” ^[2] Taurus designed a database system for the Amiga, called Acquisition ^[5] – The Ultimate Database for The Amiga and, after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, the program was released and became a moderate success.

Bullfrog Productions

Using money earned from the database program, Molyneux and Les Edgar founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987. ^{[2] [7]} The company’s first game was a conversion or Druid II: Enlightenment . Molyneux recalled, “I got in touch with a software company called Firebird and Told Them dat I Could program games. Of course I was bull-shitting, but they ‘watch me Druid 2 to convert to the Amiga. You’re very Unlikely to get dat child or break today. ” ^[8]Molyneux Provided that the original concept for Populous , the first god game for the personal computer. Released in 1989, Populous was a major success for Bullfrog and went on to sell over 4 million copies. ^[9]

Electronic Arts , Bullfrog’s publisher , acquired the studio in January 1995. ^[10] Molyneux had Become an Electronic Arts vice president and consultant in 1994, after EA PURCHASED a significant share of Bullfrog. Molyneux’s last project at Bullfrog was Dungeon Keeper , welke was released in July 1997 to high critical praise. A significant innovation of the game was zijn unique combination of first- and third-person perspectives, in the ability to “possess” any one of the Creatures (or “minions”) in the game world, yielding a first-person experience reproducing the physical; characteristics, visual perspective, Gait and voice of the Minion. Molyneux left Bullfrog in August 1997 to found Lionhead Studios . The last title released with the Bullfrog logo were published in 2001, and in 2004 Electronic Arts merged Bullfrog Productions JSON EA UK .

Lionhead Studios and Microsoft

Molyneux came up with the concept for Lionhead’s first game, Black & White , and convinced his small staff to take on the task in late 1997. ^[11] He paid the $ 6 million in development costs himself. ^[12] After three years, in 2001, the game was finally released.

In April 2006 Lionhead Studios was acquired by Microsoft Game Studios . At E3 2006, Peter Molyneux representation verschillende interviews in the press, in one or welke have stated that ‘I think you’re going to see a lot more fantastic games from Lionhead Because of that relationship [with Microsoft]. ” ^[13] On 4 June 2009, he was promoted to Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios, Europe, hoewel de have continued to produce video games with Lionhead Studios.

On 7 March 2012, Molyneux announced dat he mention anything be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft – after the Completion of Fable: The Journey – to start work at a company founded by former Lionhead Studios CTO Tim Rance called 22Cans . ^{[14] [15]}

22 Cans

To date, 22 Cans has sold early access on multiple titles waaronder Godus, Godus Wars and The Trail. As yet, on Despite three years of development and quoted a large Kickstarter ^[16] for Godus, no projects port left early access. ^{[17] [18]}

In the media

As one of the industry’s leading and best-known figures, Molyneux has Appeared on many television shows and video gaming news discussion or documentaries. He has leg repeatedly interviewed for shows dat include Game Master , Games Wars , Gamezville , Bad Influence! , Gamer.tv , and Games World . He’ll be made an appearance in the Scottish web series Consolevania . More Recently, Molyneux was featured binnen an episode or Godus alongside The Yogscast.

An episode of G4 ‘s games retrospective series Icons was devoted to im, prolongation zijn third season. More Recently, a uitgebreid two part interview was filmed or im prolongation the 2006 Brighton Games Developer Conference at leading UK website Eurogamer . ^[19] He was ook featured in the fourth episode of the Discovery Channel mini-series Rise of the Video Game alongside Will Wright and Sid Meier , fellow developers or simulation titles. Molyneux was accredited in the “Top Ten Game Creators” Countdown to GameTrailers . ^[20] He has bepaald keynote addresses and ghosts extensively at conferences worldwide, zoals Games Convention , Games Convention Asia , Develop , and the Game Developers Conference .

On Despite the success of his games, zowel critical and financial, Molyneux has acquired a reputation for issuing over-enthusiastic descriptions of games under development, welke are found to be some what less ambitious als released. This goes back to Black & White , though the musts well-known case of this was with Fable, released in 2004 without many of the features TALKED about by Molyneux in press interviews prolongation development. After the release, Molyneux Publicly apologized for overhyping the game. In February 2014, he was quoted as being “ashamed of the final product Fable 3 and I never because to work with Microsoft again.” ^{[21] [22]} In February 2015, Peter Molyneux stated prolongation interviews in gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun and British newspaper The Guardian dat he will “never speak to the press again.” Both publications ulcers under the impression dat ze ulcers Conducting the last interview. ^{[23] [24]}

Awards and recognition

Molyneux was inducted into tje AIAS Hall of Fame in 2004 and was honored with an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list announced on 31 January 2004. He was Awarded the title of Chevalier de l’ Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in March 2007. In July 2007, he was Awarded an honorary degree or Doctor of Science at the University of Southampton . In March 2011, he was Awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards ^[25] and has RECEIVED a BAFTA Fellowship at the 2011 British Academy Video Games Awards. ^[26]

Games

Pre-Bullfrog

• The Entrepreneur (1984) (designer / programmer)
• Druid 2

Bullfrog Productions

• Fusion (1987) (designer / programmer)
• Populous (1989) (designer / programmer)
• Powermonger (1990) (designer / programmer)
• Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods (1991) (designer / programmer)
• Syndicate (1993) (producer)
• Theme Park (1994) (project leader / lead programmer)
• Magic Carpet (1994) (executive producer)
• Hi-Octane (1995) (executive producer)
• Magic Carpet 2 (1996) (designer)
• Genewars (1996)
• Dungeon Keeper (1997) (project leader / designer)
• Dungeon Keeper 2 (1999) (uncredited)

Lionhead Studios

• Black & White (2001) (concept / Lead designer / programmer)
• Fable (2004) (designer)
• Fable: The Lost Chapters (2005) (designer)
• The Movies (2005) (executive design)
• Black & White 2 (2005) (lead designer)
• The Movies: Stunts & Effects (2006) (executive design)
• Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods (2006) (lead designer)
• Fable II (2008) (lead designer)
• Fable III (2010) (lead designer)
• Project Milo (formerly known as The Project Dmitry ) (tech demo) (lead designer)
• Fable: The Journey (2012)

22cans

• Curiosity – What’s Inside the Cube? (2012)
• Godus (2014)
• Godus Wars (2016)
• The Trail (2016)

References