Tracking mobile

feanix, ask your girlfriend to give Populous the Beginning a wee spin. It's available on GOG for $2.39 so a real bargain. She'd have to play it on PC though. I'd love to hear what she'd have to say about that game, in particular how she would compare it with Godus.

Also, I still love the way your avatar looks at me. Purrr purrr.

I think Peter already has a reputation for following his own vision. For example, the dog in fable was apparently universally decried as a terrible idea by the rest of Lionhead. He ignored them and stuck with it. That's how he does things. It's the source of all the controversy. We could say "Peter, please don't promise any huge new features on the next press trip" but he won't listen, he'll do what he thinks is best.

Any design decisions ultimately lie at Peter's feet, not DeNA's.

She's not interested, I'm afraid.

If thats the case, then your boss and lead designer seems to have some very skewed ideas of what "good game-design" entails and what contributes to a good and enjoyable game.
Since as it stands even a lot of casual players on the mobile platform have remarked on the nature of these timers and the pace of the game.
All of which are key features to the games that DeNA represents - features that were introduced to Peter by none other than DeNA. If these features aren't directly pressed in by them, then at the very least they'll have been the ones that 'told' Peter that these features are generally used in mobile games to maximize profitability (and yes, I'm merely deducing based on information available here...)

I find it hard to believe that the man who created some of the better and more innovative games is unable to see that he took a wrong turn. And that he's unable to recognize the need to alter course even in the slightest. I'm not even saying move away from mobile (I recognize that the mobile platform represents a MASSIVE profit potential and the inherent business value of following that path), but instead I'm saying that the current version of Godus has even the most casual of players remarking that the game is far too slow paced and that there is little to do other than mindless self-replication.


The reality of things is that many of these players on the mobile platform will not return to a game once they've tried it and they decided its boring. I've already spoken out my thoughts on the 'PC sprint' and that I do not believe it'll entail much (the words found in the dev com by Peter confirm as much) - and frankly at this point I believe that the best course of action that could result in improvements for the PC version is for 22cans to hand over as much control as possible on PC to the PC community (PC balance controls, some form of sandbox/map editor or terrain generator for homeworld/voyages and other modding/LUA tools or steamworkshop support) while 22cans themselves focuses on creating actual content for the mobile version instead to maximize their profitability and customer retention.

As much as I'd hate to say this, 22cans can't make a profit off of the PC version at this point in time (if ever...) after having burned the community this badly. They can do so on the mobile platform if they make the game more worthwhile soon enough. Which means a content injection (expand on the Astari and future AI tribes, add wildlife and connected mechanics, expand and improve on settlements etc), a re-design of the timer mechanic (less waiting, more stuff to do) and overall improvement of the game.

Also, the pet dog was well received and all, but from what I understand, the idea of a pet wasn't what was universally decried by the rest of the team, it was that the rest of a team thought a pet DRAGON would be better. Peter wanted a dog, a dog is what we got. Which people liked.

Because they didn't realize that dog could have been a damned dragon.


I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of people wouldn't have preferred a dragon, given the option.

Feanix unless you are in the DeNA meetings with Peter, I can understand you believe you are distilling Peter's vision, but you still likely to be getting a subset of that reality with a DeNA flavour. After all we also get to be in his presence from the videos, and there is more than a mere air gap in realities.

While it would be nice to think that Peter isn't making 'bad' decisions on his own (I use quotation marks because obviously bad is our opinion, not absolute fact), from sources who actually work with him (Feanix), and from everything else we actually know, they are his own choices.

We have no evidence to suggest that DeNA had anything to do with the decisions, and it's not like Godus was great before DeNA got involved. It is by far and away most likely that it is Peter making the decisions.

I disagree here, while we have no inconclusive proof that DeNA is the cause, we do have evidence to suggest that they had something to do with these decisions.
First and foremost of which is the fact that Peter himself said that he turned to them for guidance on how to manage and market his game on the mobile platform because he doesn't have a lot of experience with mobile as a platform.

On top op that we have a few other titles by DeNA to look at, all of which show the very same typical methods of monetization and gameplay. While it is entirely possible that Peter came to these conclusions by himself - the likelyhood of DeNA having part in this seems to be pretty obvious.

If only the bullies would let Peter be Peter, then we would be able to invest in his delicious "pay-to-wait-less" mechanics on PC too!  Darn you, bullies!!!!