Industry Figure: Peter Molydeux
Job Title: Artist/Thinker/Worker/Soul
Company: Yes, very good.
Best Known For: Being Twitter's Petermolydeux, MolyJam Global Game Jams
Gaming is precious. Gaming is immortal. Gaming is a door with which countless artistic questions lie, unanswered, on the other side. And it is Peter Molydeux, a light-hearted parody character of real-life designer Peter Molyneux, that has the power to solve these questions.
Peter Molydeux made a name for himself via Twitter and gaming podcast Joypod, hosted by SPOnG. As word of his illustrious wisdom spread, a completely new idea was born - what if coders around the world worked together to make inventive game concepts a reality? Concepts like playing as the road instead of the cars in a racing game?
And so MolyJam, the global game jam, was born. Over 270 such games were created in 48 hours last year, a feat accomplished in over twenty locations around the world. Peter Molyneux himself has even said he'd like to take part in the next one. With such a background in design and inspiration, it seemed only right that we would approach Mr. Peter Molydeux for his insights as to the future of gaming. Read on...
I don't believe in rules. If you make rules it creates limitations and I don't like those. Imagine a game where you have to connect and disconnect to change the state of the world? What if certain enemies became weaker offline or if some doors only opened when online? By forcing your consumer to always being online that idea that I just came up with wouldn't be possible.
If you really have to make your game online all the time, please at least make sure it's not just to avoid piracy but more about creating new exciting experiences. Such as having doors that only open in a particular state.
Following Sony's PlayStation 4 reveal event, how successful do you think next-generation consoles will be in capturing the indie and mobile gamer?
I don't want to actively try and get people playing Curiosity to play console games. I'm not really doing console games anymore as they have those boring game pad things that have been around forever and people moan if you have any other form of controller for them.
You can't please everyone. I just want cool people to play my games. We had one guy here who dreamed of everyone playing Curiosity but it's just not realistic. He wanted to put codes in various men's and women's lifestyle magazines to entice them into Curiosity on mobiles.
Then when you play on the mobile for over a minute you get a Ouya code so that when you play it on Ouya you get a special tool to chip away the cubes... Then when you play Curiosity on Wii for more than 5 minutes you get a code for a special feature on the Ouya version.
If you play that for 10 minutes you will get a new feature to use on the Playstation/Xbox/Steam versions. The idea being that Curiosity will make everyone in the world build up their hunger for console gaming.
I fired him and now he works at EA.
It can be nice to release an existing franchise during the final stages of a generation as you understand the hardware more and can concentrate on making a great game. I'm excited for the next generation but also rather upset that I won't be able to take Fable there since I have ideas how to use new technology to create a better bond between you and your dog.
We need to step back and think about this. What I am truly getting at here is that you may start a generation with a core idea and by the end of that generation we as designers should have explored that idea as much as possible within the limitations of that generation.
I could have made Fable 4 for this generation but if you looked into the dog's eyes you still wouldn't see it's soul. It's too early. I wanted to leave Fable 4 for next generation when they will be able to add that feature of looking deep into a character's eyes and not see pixels but rather a soul. A life and all of it's endless weaving of emotions.
You explore a IP as much as possible, but need to be strong and be able to say no if current gen tech is unable to give that IP anything new.
Thanks to Mr. Molydeux for his time. Check out SPOnG's recent industry insights below.
Industry Insights Series:
Apr 2013: Paul Rustchynsky, Evolution Studios
Mar 2013: Gordon Midwood, Different Tuna
Mar 2013: Theo Sanders, Ubisoft Singapore
Mar 2013: Dan Webb, X360A
Mar 2013: Stewart Gilray, Just Add Water / Oddworld Inhabitants
Mar 2013: Alex Neuse, Gaijin Games
Feb 2013: Blazej Krakowiak, Techland
Feb 2013: Gina Jackson, Women in Games Jobs
Feb 2013: Stewart Gilray, Just Add Water & Oddworld Inhabitants
Feb 2013: Dominic Matthews, Ninja Theory
Jan 2013: Dan Webb, X360A
Jan 2013: Antti Ilvessuo, RedLynx
Jan 2013: Andy Payne, O.B.E.
Jan 2013: Gordon Midwood, Different Tuna
Jan 2013: Andrew Smith, Spilt Milk Studios
Jan 2013: Theo Sanders, Ubisoft Singapore
Jan 2013: Paul Rustchynsky, Evolution Studios
Jan 2013: Peter Molydeux, Genius
Jan 2013: Andy Payne O.B.E.
Jan 2013: David Jaffe
Jan 2013: Jon Lander of CCP
Dec 2012: Martyn Brown, InsightforHire
Dec 2012: Steve Lycett, SUMO Digital
Dec 2012: Theo Sanders, Ubisoft Singapore
Dec 2012: Ted Price, CEO Insomniac
Dec 2012: Paul Rustchynsky, Evolution Studios
Dec 2012: Antti Ilvessuo, RedLynx