Peter Molyneux | |
|---|---|
 Molyneux at theUniversity of Southampton in 2007 | |
| Born | Peter Douglas Molyneux (1959-05-05)5 May 1959 (age 66) Guildford, Surrey, England |
| Occupation | Video game designer |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Known for | |
| Awards |
|
Peter Douglas MolyneuxOBE (/ˈmɒlɪnjuː/; born 5 May 1959)[2][3] is an English video gamedesigner andprogrammer. He created theFable series;god gamesPopulous,Dungeon Keeper, andBlack & White; as well asTheme Park,Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube?, andGodus. In 2012, he founded22cans, a video game development studio.
In 2009, he was chosen byIGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.[4]
Peter Molyneux began his career in 1982 by distributing and selling floppy disks which contained video games forAtari and theCommodore 64. He believed that including games on the disks would improve sales, and later concluded that the games were the main selling point.[5]
He createdThe Entrepreneur, atext-basedbusiness simulation game about running a fledgling company.[6] "In those days you could literally 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.[5] Molyneux published the game himself in 1984 by duplicating hundreds of tapes on twoTandy 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 that this game would 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 of which Molyneux speculated was from his mother.[5] In 2007, aGameSpy reviewer commented that the economic gameplay mechanics in Molyneux'sFable II may have been a descendant ofThe Entrepreneur, stating, "I'm a little concerned that it's Molyneux sneaking in a remix of his first game,Entrepreneur".[7]
Due to the game's failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impex Limited—a company that exported baked beans to the Middle East—with his business partnerLes Edgar.[8][9]Commodore International mistook it forTorus, a more established company that producednetworking software, and offered to provide Molyneux with ten[8] freeAmiga systems to help inporting "his" networking software.[5][10] Molyneux later said "it suddenly dawned on me that this guy didn't know who we were. 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."[5] Taurus designed a database system for the Amiga calledAcquisition – The Ultimate Database for The Amiga[8] and, after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, released the program to moderate success.
Using money earned from the database program, Molyneux and Les Edgar foundedBullfrog Productions in 1987.[5][10] The company's first game was a conversion ofDruid II: Enlightenment. Molyneux recalled, "I got in touch with a software company calledFirebird and told them that I could program games. Of course I was bullshitting, but they gave meDruid 2 to convert to the Amiga. You're very unlikely to get that kind of break today."[11] Molyneux provided the original concept forPopulous, the firstgod game for the personal computer. Released in 1989,Populous was a major success for Bullfrog and went on to sell over 4 million copies.[12]
Electronic Arts (EA), Bullfrog'spublisher,acquired the studio in January 1995.[13] Molyneux had become an Electronic Arts vice-president and consultant in 1994, after EA purchased a significant share of Bullfrog.
Molyneux left Bullfrog in July 1997 to foundLionhead Studios,[14] shortly after the release ofDungeon Keeper. According to Molyneux, his choice to leave the company was a result of a chain of events from a night of drinking with his friend Tim Rance (who would later co-found Lionhead) around 1997. Molyneux had already been contemplating his departure (in 1996 the gaming news media reported "rumors" that he was unhappy at EA and would be leaving onceDungeon Keeper was completed),[15] and, while discussing this with Rance, Rance suggested he write out his resignation letter to EA. Molyneux typed out an email to EA's CEOLarry Probst, and before Molyneux could stop him, Rance had sent the email. Though he quickly explained the situation to EA, the event caused tension in his relationship with EA, with EA asking him not to come into the office any more; according to Molyneux, EA feared that he would pull many of the other developers at Bullfrog along with him should he be present. EA threatened to pull support forDungeon Keeper, which was still in progress, but Molyneux insisted they allow him to complete it, most of which he did from his own home.[16] A significant innovation of the game was its 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.[17]
Bullfrog continued to develop games through 2001, and in 2004 EA mergedBullfrog Productions intoEA UK.[18]
Molyneux came up with the concept forLionhead Studios' first game,Black & White, and convinced his small staff to take on the task in late 1997.[19] He paid the $6 million in development costs himself.[20] Despite his acrimonious departure from Electronic Arts, he opted to give them the publishing rights, explaining that EA were more reliable and had better worldwide distribution than any other publisher.[21] After three years, in 2001, the game was finally released.
In April 2006, Lionhead Studios was acquired byMicrosoft Game Studios. At E3 2006, Peter Molyneux gave several interviews in the press, in one of which he stated that "I think you're going to see a lot more fantastic games from Lionhead because of that relationship [with Microsoft]."[22] On 4 June 2009, he was promoted to Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios, Europe, although he continued to produce video games with Lionhead Studios.
On 7 March 2012, Molyneux announced that he would be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft—after the completion ofFable: The Journey—to begin work at a company founded by former Lionhead Studios CTO Tim Rance called22cans.[23][24]
To date,22cans has sold early access on multiple titles includingGodus,Godus Wars, andThe Trail. Despite years of development and successfulKickstarter financing for Godus,[25] the game never leftSteam Early Access.[26] As of December 2023, bothGodus andGodus Wars were removed from the Steam store.[27][28][26]
In October 2023, Molyneux announced he was working on a new game, code-namedProject MOAT, which was to be set in Albion, the setting of theFable games.[29] The project was officially unveiled on 20 August 2024, duringGamescom 2024, as agod game with the official nameMasters of Albion.[30][31]
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 been repeatedly interviewed for shows such asGamesMaster,Games Wars,Gamezville,Bad Influence!,Gamer.tv, andGames World. He also made an appearance in the Scottish web seriesConsolevania. More recently, Molyneux was featured within an episode of Godus alongsideThe Yogscast.
An episode ofG4's games retrospective seriesIcons was devoted to him, during its third season. More recently, a comprehensive two part interview was filmed of him during the 2006 Brighton Games Developer Conference by leading UK websiteEurogamer.[32] He was also featured in the fourth episode of theDiscovery Channel mini-seriesRise of the Video Game alongsideWill Wright andSid Meier, fellow developers of simulation titles. Molyneux was accredited in the "Top Ten Game Creators" Countdown byGameTrailers.[33] He has given keynote addresses and spoke extensively at worldwide conferences, includingGames Convention,Games Convention Asia,Develop, and theGame Developers Conference.
Despite the success of his games, both critical and financial, Molyneux has acquired a reputation for issuing over-enthusiastic descriptions of games under development, which then struggle to meet expectations. This goes back toBlack & White, though the most well-known case of this was withFable, released in 2004 without many of the features talked about by Molyneux in press interviews during development. After the release, Molyneux publicly apologized for overhyping the game. In February 2014, he was quoted as being "ashamed of the final productFable 3 and I never want to work with Microsoft again."[34][14] In February 2015, Peter Molyneux stated during interviews in gaming blogRock, Paper, Shotgun and British newspaperThe Guardian that he will "never speak to the press again", after being personally attacked for not fulfilling all game promises, which ended in Molyneux announcing that he will not conduct further interviews.[35][36] At the same time, gamers and game developer veterans began to question the intentions of those publications, such asTim Schafer calling it "out of proportion" and a media hunt, saying "I'm not saying that developers like Peter and I shouldn't be responsible and accountable to deadlines. I'm just saying the reaction to recent events and the tone of that reaction is really way out of proportion to the seriousness of the events themselves."[37]
Molyneux received an honorary doctorate fromAbertay University in 2003.[38] He was inducted into theAIAS Hall of Fame in 2004 and was honoured with anOBE in the New Year's Honors list announced on 31 December 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 ofDoctor of Science by theUniversity of Southampton and that same year an honorary doctorate by theUniversity of Surrey.[39] In March 2011, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by theGame Developers Choice Awards[40] and has received aBAFTA Fellowship at the 2011 British Academy Video Games Awards.[41]
| Title | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|
| The Entrepreneur | 1984 | Designer/programmer |
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Druid II: Enlightenment | 1988 | Programmer | Amiga port |
| Populous | 1989 | Designer/programmer | |
| Flood | 1990 | Designer | |
| Powermonger | 1990 | Designer/programmer | |
| Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods | 1991 | Designer/programmer | |
| Syndicate | 1993 | Producer | |
| Magic Carpet | 1994 | Executive producer | |
| Theme Park | 1994 | Project leader/lead programmer | |
| Hi-Octane | 1995 | Executive producer | |
| Magic Carpet 2 | 1995 | Designer | |
| Dungeon Keeper | 1997 | Project leader/designer |
| Title | Year | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Black & White | 2001 | Concept/lead designer/programmer |
| Fable | 2004 | Designer |
| Fable: The Lost Chapters | 2005 | Designer |
| Black & White 2 | 2005 | Lead designer |
| The Movies | 2005 | Executive designer |
| Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods | 2006 | Lead designer |
| The Movies: Stunts & Effects | 2006 | Executive designer |
| Fable II | 2008 | Lead designer |
| Project Milo | 2009 | Lead designer |
| Fable III | 2010 | Lead designer |
| Fable: The Journey | 2012 | Creative consultant |
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube? | 2012 | Designer | |
| Godus | 2014 | Designer | |
| Godus Wars | 2016 | Designer | |
| The Trail: Frontier Challenge | 2017 | Designer (uncredited) | |
| Masters of Albion | TBA | Announced 2023 |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
