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Hey,

A recent thread got me thinking whether Peter Molyneux is as terrible as people make him out to be.

I personally love his work; one day, I hope to work in the same field, and see him as an inspiration of sorts. I've played most of his games, and loved them; the Fable series, in particular, as well as B&W and the Theme games.

However, people seem to loathe him because of his incredible overstatements. This seems to mask most of what he's produced; most of his work is humourous, well structured, and works around some truly interesting concepts and stories. He has repeatedly attempted to try something new, and that is often when he has been prone to overstatements.

So I ask you Dakka; is Molyneux as terrible as people think he is?

He's a bit of a tool.
I liked a few of the games he has been involved with but when he overstates things like he does it's rather annoying.

Fable 1 was alright; 2 and 3 were over-hyped wastes of money, because half of what was promised wasn't delivered, and the other half was half-arsed, rushed crap.

He did have a few decent older games, but recently he's been claiming his games will have X, Y and Z probably before he's asked the developers if it's even possible.

I was willing to wait and see after F2 came out, but when F3 was the same disappointing load of garbage, I gave up on him.

Populous was a genuine ground-breaking game. It created a completely new genre. Not many people can say that.

He is a hell of a talker and self-publicist, though.

Compared to how he describes himself, he is a huge disappointment.

By any objective standard though, he's just another game developer with a string of hits and misses under his belt. I do appreciate his drive to keep exploring the theme of good and evil being a choice.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Fable 1 was alright; 2 and 3 were over-hyped wastes of money, because half of what was promised wasn't delivered, and the other half was half-arsed, rushed crap.

Fable 2 was nothing on the first one for over-hyping. 'Project Ego' (irony lol) was the game where if you threw an acorn on the ground as a child you could watch as it grew to a mighty oak tree along with your character.

I loved Fable II...

And TLC...

Three was a terrible game, I'll admit.

"Oh, you liked being yourself? Nope, just going to give you this linear campaign with unsatisfactory combat and very little replayability."

 BlapBlapBlap wrote:
I loved Fable II...

And TLC...

Three was a terrible game, I'll admit.

"Oh, you liked being yourself? Nope, just going to give you this linear campaign with unsatisfactory combat and very little replayability."

Wait you liked F2? How is this even possible?

The story was good, I liked the setting, the humour was nice and combat was half-decent.

I can remember attending a press release showing of populous at a computer show back in the 80's. I recall the jibes i heard there about Peter. How he was inspiring to be a god in computer gaming by making a god game.

I enjoyed populous, i enjoyed black and white. I guess i have to wait and see about his new stuff.

IMO, he hasn't done a single worthwhile thing since he started on Fable.

BlapBlapBlap, are you asking about him as a games designer /developer or something else?
Because I feel like you want to combine separate aspects of him into a single 'like bar'.

He has created some genuinely creative and classic games. Unfortunately that was a long time ago when he was still at Bullfrog.

These days he tries hard but the end result never seems to live up to the hype which he goes out of his way to build and seemingly believes. To be honest I think he could well do with a break from games development.

 Perkustin wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Fable 1 was alright; 2 and 3 were over-hyped wastes of money, because half of what was promised wasn't delivered, and the other half was half-arsed, rushed crap.

Fable 2 was nothing on the first one for over-hyping. 'Project Ego' (irony lol) was the game where if you threw an acorn on the ground as a child you could watch as it grew to a mighty oak tree along with your character.

I never experienced the hype of the first one; I bought it after playing it at a friend's house, so I wasn't really able to be disappointed by anything.

The thing you need to understand about Pete and why people hate him is that people actually do have a reason to hate him. Especially with the Fable series, good ol Pete has made a habit of grandiose claims about the awesomeness of his games and all the things he's going to do in them. He then releases previews, box art, and advertisements based on these things. People buy the game cause it sounds awesome, only to find that the game is half-arsed, offers what was promised in the most bland unimaginative of ways or doesn't actually have it at all. When confronted with this, Pete just smiles and shrugs "what you guys talking bout? Oh we're working on Fable 2! Its gonna have everything the first game had but more!" Then it turns out Fable 2 is frankly... Fable 1, for nearly all intents and purposes. Lets just not get into the crap storm that was Fable 3.

Have you seen the Smug episode of South Park? That's Peter Molyneux and people hate him for it.

 LordofHats wrote:
The thing you need to understand about Pete and why people hate him is that people actually do have a reason to hate him. Especially with the Fable series, good ol Pete has made a habit of grandiose claims about the awesomeness of his games and all the things he's going to do in them. He then releases previews, box art, and advertisements based on these things. People buy the game cause it sounds awesome, only to find that the game is half-arsed, offers what was promised in the most bland unimaginative of ways or doesn't actually have it at all. When confronted with this, Pete just smiles and shrugs "what you guys talking bout? Oh we're working on Fable 2! Its gonna have everything the first game had but more!" Then it turns out Fable 2 is frankly... Fable 1, for nearly all intents and purposes. Lets just not get into the crap storm that was Fable 3.

Have you seen the Smug episode of South Park? That's Peter Molyneux and people hate him for it.

Exactly. He's been riding the success of Populous his entire career. Fable 1 and 2 aren't bad games by any means, but they aren't even close to being the marvels he claimed them to be.

The man doesn't over exaggerate, he flat out lies over and over.

Fable 2 and Fable 3 are cruel games. They're not entirely terrible. In fact, I really really wanted to like both of them -- especially Fable 3. But there is so much that is broken and boring and downright shallow about them. The way Molyneux talked about them ... well, if he had made Fable 2 in 1999 he'd actually be the rock star that he makes himself out to be.

My wife and I quite like playing the fable games coop together; 3 is much better for this than 2 due to control/camera issues in 2.

And to be honest I don't bother reading the hype about games much these days (damn you Spore for killing any excitement I might have about a game!) and just go off the reviews once a game has been released, or if I have played a previous game in a series and enjoyed it.

To answer the thread title, yes, yes he is. Reasons have been stated and restated.

Without knowing too much about the man, just his games (Populous!), it sounds like he might have latched on to this idea of "positive thinking creates results", and just fething ran with it.