Peter Molyneux, the mind behind classic games like Fable, Dungeon Keeper, and Populous, is done talking.
Earlier this week, a designer at Molyneux’s studio 22Cans revealed that many of the promises made during its successful Kickstarter campaign for god sim Godus will likely go unfulfilled. Further controversy arose around the failure to keep in contact with Scot Bryan Henderson, the winner of 22Cans’ debut title, Curiosity, who was supposed to become a virtual god in Godus — a role which should have seen him financially rewarded.
Speaking to the Guardian, Molyneux said, “The only answer is for me to retreat. I love my games and I love sharing them with people. It’s this amazing incredible thing I get to do with my life, creating ideas and sharing them with people. The problem is, it just hasn’t worked.”
Molyneux has failed to deliver on big promises in the past, and Godus is suffering from the same fate right now. Konrad Naszynski, who started off at 22Cans as an unpaid intern, took to the Godus message boards earlier this week to share his own frustration with the project.
Above: God’s beachfront property in Godus.
”To be brutally candid and realistic I simply can’t see us delivering all the features promised on the Kickstarter page,” he said “A lot of the multiplayer stuff is looking seriously shaky right now, especially the persistent stuff like Hubworld. Things are just moving slowly. A lot slower than I’d like to be honest; it’s somewhat frustrating. From the minute I played the alpha I could see the direction Godus was heading in, and I didn’t like it.”
For Molyneux, the attention right now is too much, and he says that he’s going to stop talking to the press.
“People get so frustrated with me, so much so that they’ve threatened me,” he said. “They’ve threatened my family, and it just cannot go on; it really can’t.
“I am so honoured to be a part of the games industry, but I understand that people are sick of hearing my voice and hearing my promises. I think honestly the only answer to this is for me to completely stop talking to the press.”
GamesBeat’s own Dean Takahashi interviewed Molyneux during a recent trip to London, and Molyneux expressed concern about the declining industry chances for small developers: “My feeling at the moment is that the days of the true indie spirit that Microsoft and Sony got worried about, it’s fading now. A few of those indies will be bought out by publishers. A lot of them will wither and die as small companies do. Some of them, very few, will go on to build successful companies.”