Molyneux documentaries

There's some really good content here, for anyone interested in Peter Molyneux's career in the games industry. There won't be much that we haven't heard before though, especially if anyone read the recent Lionhead insider articles. The narrator is grating to listen to and a lot of time is spent dwelling on the content and quality of individual games (basically mini reviews by the documentary maker) which I was less interested in.

Thanks for posting these RobertMuldoon. I enjoyed watching them, although they were long. I think these videos feel right at home on this forum. Please update when there are more.

You're right Crumpy. This third video especially was more of a Fable series review than anything else. You could probably cut the video down to somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes and have the same amount of information in it.

What the hell is up with this guy starting to screech out people's names at the end of the video??? Way to scare your viewers away!

I think you're right but I don't think he managed to pull it off with this one. A big part of this last video was not so much about Molyneux at all.

and we're STILL waiting for the Godus documentary!

No worries. And thanks too - I was out of the country last week so didn't see it had been published.

Slightly odd wrap-up/conclusion there, but overall a decent overview of Peter's career. I liked the focus on Bryan Henderson and the "god of gods" fiasco at the start of the fourth video. As 22Cans stumbles along committing one blunder after another, it's easy to forget some of their earlier and more significant "mistakes". Bryan was promised a life-changing prize which included actual cash - Peter promises that Bryan will literally take a cut of the money. And the way he phrases it, he's clearly referring to revenue not just profit (paraphrasing: "a percentage of every dollar spent on Godus"). This makes a dramatic difference to the amount of money we could be talking about here. For all we know, 22Cans has not made a penny of profit in the whole time it's been trading, but it has obviously been making tens of thousands of pounds of revenue because Godus has sold loads of copies. Not forgetting, of course, Peter's notorious claim that Godus has made tens of millions of dollars.

22Cans lucked out because Bryan doesn't care and was never all that fussed about Godus in the first place. Other than the one article where he was interviewed about his experience as the winner of Curiosity and his visit to the studio, he has kept his head down. Even when Simon emerged with the slimy evasions about paperwork and contracts and technicalities which meant they have now decided they owe Bryan nothing. The video concludes that Peter Molyneux is a decent guy, but his apparent indifference towards the God of Gods failure (among others) suggests otherwise.

EDIT:

There are two other ideas the video puts out there, which I'm glad to see getting some attention:

• Peter Molyneux appears to consider Godus complete, as evidenced by his complete lack of interest in it since the Trail was announced. More of those handy technicalities are probably the reason why the studio is wisely keeping it in Early Access (I gather it can remain in Early Access indefinitely, and as long as that is the case they can pretend they're working on it)
• Godus Wars is a crappy game in its own right. It frustrates me that Godus apologists and 22Canners have decided that the community will hate any developments in Godus just because it's Godus and we're prejudiced against it. They use this as an excuse to be dismissive of negative or constructive feedback, as well as justifying their decision to withdraw from community relations since we're all just a bunch of horrible trolls. Makes me wonder if the 22Cans studio is a bubble in which everyone truly believes Godus and Godus Wars are awesome games and it's the rest of the world who are wrong.
  

Yeah, definitely. The fact that Bryan didn't kick up a public fuss saved 22Cans from a lot of hassle, though perhaps did also allow for the situation where everything blew up in one go in their collective face. In terms of a press narrative, Bryan being so laid back about it also made for a stronger contrast with Peter's more shameful actions. Watching this whole section, I did also wonder whether 22Cans/PM ever set out with a clear idea of what the Curiosity prize would be or whether the God of Gods idea was just another bit of in-the-moment blue-skying.

Overall, though, I'm not sure the video concludes that Molyneux is a decent guy, just one with some admirable qualities. I guess this is fair enough; he seems to be passionate and charismatic and has provided opportunities for other developers too (whilst not doubt crashing the career prospects of others). It's just that this doesn't overcome the 'bullshit and incompetence' that characterises his latter work or the fact that his charisma and industry clout have been turned to deplorable ends. Perhaps it's more of a 'very flawed genius' interpretation of him, but this is still a bit too generous if you ask me.

This aside, does anyone know of any other decent games documentaries like this? They needn't be as long, but there's bonus points if they allow me to indulge some early 90s Amiga memories too.

I really need to tak some time and watch this to see some of his early history that I missed.