Rock, Paper, Shotgun holds no punches on Peter Molyneux interview. (Update)

[Elfgore]

So as previously reported, Peter Molyneux has seemed to abandon his work, or at least cut the dev team, on the kickstarted project, Godus. With the game not even being close to what he promised. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has decided to ask for an interview about the topic and in doing so, they held back zero punches.

Link: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/peter-molyneux-interview-godus-reputation-kickstarter/

Just reading that article is fantastic. I wonder if it is possible for him to not spew bullshit out his mouth? So what do ya'll think? Was Molyneux a victim to needlessly harsh interviewer? Or did RPS go too soft on the old man?

Edit: Looks like Jim Fucking Sterling Son has weighed in on this.

 

[jademunky]

While I am not at all a fan of Peter Molyneux and have been pretty disappointed in his work, the interviewer probably should not have started off by asking if he was a pathological liar. Maybe ease into that a bit more.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Meh, I'll save everyone the need to give RockPaperShotgun hits.

Interviewer: You're a lying dick
Peter: No I'm not
Interviewer" Yes you are
Peter: No I'm not
Interviewer" Yes you are
Peter: No I'm not
Interviewer" Yes you are
Peter: No I'm not
Interviewer" Yes you are
Peter: No I'm not
Interviewer" Yes you are
Peter: No I'm not
Interviewer: Well okay.

 

[Sixcess]

I don't think it was uncalled for. Molyneux got his funding on the strength of his reputation - or at least the good bits of his reputation. The 'discussions' around Kickstarter projects that don't go as planned often turn ugly, and when the project is very much fronted by one big name then that discussion is going to get personal. People will laugh off Molyneux's antics when he's over-promising and under-delivering at the expense of some faceless publisher. They won't do the same so readily when he's doing it with money from people like themselves.

I imagine we'll see a good deal more of this sort of thing in the future. God help Chris Roberts if he doesn't eventually deliver on the sixty million dollars (and counting) worth of expectations that have been built up about Star Citizen.

 

[StriderShinryu]

It's nice to see someone finally hold Molyneux's feet to the fire. Honestly, though, I've seen enough Molyneux interviews at this point to actually believe him. I really do think he's so far up his own ass with his ideas that he doesn't even realize what he's saying in real world terms or how others may be hearing him. He really isn't lying.. he's just not on planet Earth.

It would be for the best at this point for Molyneux to just not talk to anyone. He's an ideas guy and he should stay behind the scenes of development, and he should be forced (or have the sense to force himself) to only work with people who will smack him in the back of the head once in a while and say "Yeah that's a nice idea, but it's impossible and we're not doing it." All his talking to others is doing right now is either A.) turning people off his games before they even come out because they know his games will never live up to his promises or B.) piss people off who do buy his games based on the promises and eventually turn into people in camp A.

 

[Olrod]

Peter Molyneux Interview: ?I haven?t got a reputation in this industry any more?

That's not true. You do have a reputation, Peter. As a hack.

 

[Fat Hippo]

It's nice to see someone finally hold Molyneux's feet to the fire. Honestly, though, I've seen enough Molyneux interviews at this point to actually believe him. I really do think he's so far up his own ass with his ideas that he doesn't even realize what he's saying in real world terms or how others may be hearing him. He really isn't lying.. he's just not on planet Earth.

It would be for the best at this point for Molyneux to just not talk to anyone. He's an ideas guy and he should stay behind the scenes of development, and he should be forced (or have the sense to force himself) to only work with people who will smack him in the back of the head once in a while and say "Yeah that's a nice idea, but it's impossible and we're not doing it." All his talking to others is doing right now is either A.) turning people off his games before they even come out because they know his games will never live up to his promises or B.) piss people off who do buy his games based on the promises and eventually turn into people in camp A.

Unfortunately, even though he says he will stop, he never seems to actually go through with it. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if he isn't just slowly going progressively insane. Reading that interview, he sounds like a man at serious risk of slipping into a depression. It would probably be best, for his mental well-being, for the studio, and for the customers, if he stepped down from a leading role. It just...hasn't been working. For a while now, to be honest.

Unless it's just more Molyneux bullshit, of course. I do feel sympathy for the man, but it's just so hard to tell what's real and what isn't when he's talking. I don't think anyone can really tell, at this point.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

It's nice to see someone finally hold Molyneux's feet to the fire. Honestly, though, I've seen enough Molyneux interviews at this point to actually believe him. I really do think he's so far up his own ass with his ideas that he doesn't even realize what he's saying in real world terms or how others may be hearing him. He really isn't lying.. he's just not on planet Earth.

It would be for the best at this point for Molyneux to just not talk to anyone. He's an ideas guy and he should stay behind the scenes of development, and he should be forced (or have the sense to force himself) to only work with people who will smack him in the back of the head once in a while and say "Yeah that's a nice idea, but it's impossible and we're not doing it." All his talking to others is doing right now is either A.) turning people off his games before they even come out because they know his games will never live up to his promises or B.) piss people off who do buy his games based on the promises and eventually turn into people in camp A.

Yeah this is what I think of Peter. That hes a genuine game lover who loves to make speeches and tell us all about how awesome and super cool his next games going to be.... While its still nothing more than writing about concepts on a whiteboard somewhere

 

[SKBPinkie]

What an awful, shit-ridden excuse for an interview.

Don't get me wrong, Molyneux seriously needs to consider looking at how reality works and make promises accordingly. He has repeatedly been bad at estimating how much effort is involved in bringing his pipe dreams to actually work.

That being said - isn't the whole point of an interview to try and get some sort of information from someone? Starting it off with "are you a pathological liar?" is fucking idiotic, to put it mildly. You've chosen to go down shit-creek from the start and the following questions are barely any better.

A better interview would have questions on the lines of "which stage of the development process is causing these many problems? Can those problems show up again when you promise something? Is it a lack of resources or overly-inflated goals that's causing this?", which is something that could provide information, but is still kinda hard hitting.

This so-called interview on the other hand, is just a shit-show. What a fucking prick that interviewer is.

 

[Ryallen]

I read the first part and skimmed a good portion of it, and I just see two people calling each other out on their bullshit. From what I have read, the interviewer is calling out Peter on the promises that he's made on the Kickstarter and Peter is calling out the interviewer on his lack of knowledge on how the creative process works and how videos games are made on a day to day basis. It's actually kinda refreshing and funny. Granted, I didn't read the entire thing, but that's just how it seemed for about 75% or so.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Well now I know why they call it Rock Paper Shotgun, a grilling that Jack Bauer himself would be proud of. I'm really surpised Peter didn't cut the interview short after an opening question like that. I read the interview after The Guardian one and I was quite taken aback by the difference in tone. Questions that needed answering from Molyneux for a long time, I'm just not sure that going straight to acusations on his character is the best way to start an interview. On the whole I'm glad that he his being brought to task for all this, I hope the trend continues when next game company try to pull some shady stuff.

 

[The Lunatic]

It was an amusing interview.

I think it's a good thing that interviewers are basically asking the questions that an awful lot of people are wondering and not just fulling accepting the answers that developers are giving, especially when it comes to matter of crowd funding and the pledges made during such things.

I hope it continues, especially after events such as Tim Shafer's Kickstarters, The Yogventures and other kickstarters which still haven't delivered on promised content after several years.

 

[Timeless Lavender]

I do not know Molyneux very well (I don't care about any games he made and many people on internet seems to hate him) but the interview was not very good because RPS should not call out on him, no matter how much they dislike him. They should respect him and if they want to ask him any controversial questions, they should just ask him maturely. Well that is just my take on this, for a person who is indifferent about Molyneux anyways.

 

[Mikeybb]

I read it and while I'm inclined to not have much sympathy towards Molyneux, it felt awfully aggressive.

Claiming a goal for a game and failing to reach it seems insignificant compared to failing to back up their pledge to the winner of "curiosity".
That aspect strikes me as a real scandal, rather than unreached goals on a kickstarter.
Kickstarter has led to a lot of unfulfilled projects and that always felt like part of the risk to me.
You put down that money and hope for the best, like a bet really.
Granted, it has to be damaging to the faith people have in kickstarter when high profile developers and project managers fail so massively in their pledged goals.
This is not a complaint about Molyneux specifically though, he's one of many who have done this.
If I'm brutally honest, I have become significantly more cautious when supporting games as a result these kind of results from kickstarter.

It is nice to see games journalists attempting more of a probing question line, though in fairness I also have some respect too for Molyneux for not stonewalling any efforts to contact him or just hanging up, especially when the questioning got harsh (pretty much out of the door, when you think about it).

All in all, it did feel quite uncomfortable reading it.
This in itself doesn't make it a bad interview, but it certainly wasn't an enjoyable read for me at least.

I am wondering if RPS will continue with this more confrontational style of interview when pursuing other interviews with developers at the head of unfulfilled kickstarters though.
It was very Paxman like and, with some refinement, a format of hardball questions could be something I'd wish to see more of.

 

[Ima Lemming]

I stopped reading shortly in, when the guy kept asking "How can you not know how much money your game is going to take? You've been doing this for years!"

No, you don't know how much money and time your game is going to take. [http://www.cracked.com/article_20727_5-reasons-video-game-industry-about-to-crash_p2.html]

 

[The Madman]

It was very Paxman like and, with some refinement, a format of hardball questions could be something I'd wish to see more of.

RPS have been doing these sorts of interviews for a while now, it's part of why I stopped reading that website. The problem being that they tend to be extremely aggressive in their interviews not only when it might questionably be warranted, but half the rest of the time as well.

I remember an absolutely cringe-worthy interview of there's a couple years back with the CDProjekt RED team where shortly after Cyberpunk 2077 was announced, they accused the interviewee of sexism for this image in their trailer and advertising:

It was genuinely cringe-worthy, and that sort of over-aggressive interviewing has since become their norm to the point where I stopped following the website, among other reasons.

 

[Fox12]

This article... made me really depressed. Peter Molyneux has many problems, but I think the interviewer crossed a certain line. That's no way to start and interview. He made some good points, but I kind of felt for Peter by the end. It seems like he;s under a lot of stress, and he's caught in a quagmire he can't escape from. I hope his family life is okay (even if he was exaggerating about his hours). I don't know, he made a lot of mistakes, but he doesn't seem malicious. Honestly, expecting the game to be done in less then three years seems pretty optimistic to me, regardless of the goals. This doesn't excuse his past mistakes, but there are much worse a-holes in the industry. Like Phil Phish. Wheres our crushing editorial about that dude?

 

[The Bucket]

The games media has been handling Peter with kids gloves for years; he overpromises and overhypes, he acts contrite, takes full "responsibility" and promises not to do it again. Then proceeds to do it again. Thats not taking responsibility.

That being said, I do think they definitely took it too far at points in this, but i'm glad he's started to be held to account more.

EDIT:

This doesn't excuse his past mistakes, but there are much worse a-holes in the industry. Like Phil Phish. Wheres our crushing editorial about that dude?

They're pretty much completely different situations, and plenty of people have taken glee at dogpiling Fish

 

[Seishisha]

I read this interview a couple of days ago, gota say the line of questioning was a little harsh but because of that harshness some pretty intersting topics came up, peter seems at a loss for words in some parts yet still asked john to come down to the studio multiple times and see for himself just what is happening, he sounds exaserbated by the questions but clearly willing to explain what he can. I like the candid nature of peter's responses straight up saying he's made mistakes in the past and would have given everything for it to have not happened, he comes across as very passionate about his work and insists that any failures were certainly not due to lack of effort atleast in the development side anyway.

The artbook/making of book thing i can certainly agree with, 22can's made no effort at the time to get those created and shipped, peter again candidly agree's that it was their fault for not doing so. I think people should be able to get a refund for those pledge's since it has been year's now and still the book is unfinished, if i remember correctly it has only just started getting attention in earnest from 22can's.

All said and done, i enjoyed the interview, and i don't see peter or the john negativly because of it, what i see is two people looking at the same issue's from very different perspectives.

 

[Lord RPGs]

Good grief, charlie brown. That may well be the single most disgusting "interview" I've read in a while. I have no idea who this "John" dude is or what he's done before, but holy crap, he should have had the phone taken away from him after his opening question, and probably given a talking to about "How to interact with people". If he wanted to take a firmer stance on getting some answers about this, then that's great! Getting the answers is what media journalism is meant to be about, it's a chance to ask the harsher questions that need to be answered. Starting by accusing someone of being a pathological liar and then devolving the whole thing into an exercise in futility from both sides is not.


Before anyone rips their dick off over this, no, I'm not supporting Molyneux. He needs to answer for what's gone on with his projects and everything around it, because it's seriously not good. What I am saying is goddamnit, that's not how we should approach getting the answers.