Interviews// Peter Molyneux

The Video Game BAFTAs have come and gone, the mantlepiece of many a studio shining brightly with the addition of a well-deserved golden award. Perhaps none deserved an accolade more than Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux however, who has been one of the designing pillars of the UK games industry for over 20 years.

At the BAFTAs, he was collecting a Fellowship award - the highest honour - for his outstanding contribution to the industry. I managed to sit down with the man for a few moments to talk about his past as well as his present. From bacon sarnies in Guildford to disappointment in Fable III, read on for his after-show thoughts.


SPOnG: Peter, congratulations on your Fellowship! How does it feel to get up on that stage and be celebrated and respected by so many of your peers?

Peter Molyneux: It was incredibly emotional. I had this kind of out-of-body experience - I was sitting there with my wife, my mum and the Lionhead team, and seeing all my past games fly in front of me… it was like drowning. My life literally flashed before me and then when I walked up on stage and looked out, I felt incredibly humbled by the whole thing.

Just to walk up to that microphone was incredible. My first reaction was to say ‘thank you’ to everybody and - I know this sounds like an incredibly crass thing to say - that I’m just standing on the shoulders of some infinitely brilliant people. I’m just the guy that has the stupid ideas. It might seem like I’m being humble, but that’s the actual truth.

I mean, I have two skills. Well, three. I’m passionate… I’m the guy that has the ideas… and I’m good at talking to the press. That’s the reason I have this award, and I’ve worked with some unbelievably, amazingly talented people - who must be incredibly frustrated that I keep getting these awards and they don’t ever get mentioned!


SPOnG: It’s strange because you have this huge enthusiasm for all of your projects, but recently you seem to have become very critical once you release a game. For example I heard that you didn’t particularly like Fable III...

Peter Molyneux: No no, it’s not that I didn’t like it. I liked it. I actually went out, bought it and played it. But you know - and the words that you choose to write on what I’m going to say are up to you - but I feel that it just wasn’t good enough.

There are very justifiable reasons why it wasn’t good enough - I could lay all these excuses down, say that we didn’t have enough time or we were really squeezed at the end or it was really tough going… excuses like that don’t mean anything. The important thing to ask is whether it matched the vision that I and the team had for the game? And no, it didn’t. It’s not good enough.