Peter Molyneux: it’s all about experimentation

After giving two lectures at GDC London earlier this month, Peter Molyneux sat down with Gamasutra to discuss what it was like being Peter Molyneux. The short and the long of it is: experimentation. For example, take Fable 2.

“HereÂ’s the thing about Fable 2 – the whole reason that Lionhead exists, the reason that Microsoft acquired us, and the reason that I still am passionate about games is about innovation. We should kick every single foundation stone that weÂ’ve got in Fable 2 – the way weÂ’ve done that is with lots of experiments.”

The guy, being a games designer by nature, pushes himself to push the gaming envelope. Sometimes it confuses even those who enjoy his games. For example, in Black and White, “I was talking about gameplay features when I should have been talking about experiments.”

Gamers expecting that everything Peter was talking about in a game would show up in the final release would probably be disappointed, such as in the first Fable, but in the end, “people came around.”

Any advice he could give to budding indie developers out there? “You have to have an unbelievably good idea, you have to be unbelievably dedicated – your life will be destroyed for a period of time.” Okay, that’s the bad news, but here’s the good news: thankfully the games industry is more professional now than when he started – but you now need someone with a strong business sense to back you up. And…

If you were starting out as an independent developer and you said: “I want to make a great game,” then (at least) one method is to say: “IÂ’m going to get respected by doing a Live Game,” and then use that respect and that increased negotiation power to actually broker a deal for the unique game that youÂ’re working on. The mistake that people make – and that IÂ’ve made myself – is trying to do the big things first, without thinking that this is the ultimate goal.

In other words, baby steps. Experimentation starts out the same way, too, if I recall my Science 101 courses.

After giving two lectures at GDC London earlier this month, Peter Molyneux sat down with Gamasutra to discuss what it was like being Peter Molyneux. The short and the long of it is: experimentation. For example, take Fable 2.

“HereÂ’s the thing about Fable 2 – the whole reason that Lionhead exists, the reason that Microsoft acquired us, and the reason that I still am passionate about games is about innovation. We should kick every single foundation stone that weÂ’ve got in Fable 2 – the way weÂ’ve done that is with lots of experiments.”

The guy, being a games designer by nature, pushes himself to push the gaming envelope. Sometimes it confuses even those who enjoy his games. For example, in Black and White, “I was talking about gameplay features when I should have been talking about experiments.”

Gamers expecting that everything Peter was talking about in a game would show up in the final release would probably be disappointed, such as in the first Fable, but in the end, “people came around.”

Any advice he could give to budding indie developers out there? “You have to have an unbelievably good idea, you have to be unbelievably dedicated – your life will be destroyed for a period of time.” Okay, that’s the bad news, but here’s the good news: thankfully the games industry is more professional now than when he started – but you now need someone with a strong business sense to back you up. And…

If you were starting out as an independent developer and you said: “I want to make a great game,” then (at least) one method is to say: “IÂ’m going to get respected by doing a Live Game,” and then use that respect and that increased negotiation power to actually broker a deal for the unique game that youÂ’re working on. The mistake that people make – and that IÂ’ve made myself – is trying to do the big things first, without thinking that this is the ultimate goal.

In other words, baby steps. Experimentation starts out the same way, too, if I recall my Science 101 courses.