Peter Molyneux (22Cans) is Kickstarting a God Game.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22cans/project-godus

He is asking for 450 000 GBP or $717210.

What do you guys think?

Well if anyone can do them... it's him. Also that isn't a crazy high goal or anything, seems pretty reasonable.

Okay the 5000 pound thing just seems like a straight up good deal. All inclusive flight to E3, plus a VIP pass for the show, an interview opportunity (eh), and you get to be Peter's guest of honor, which would probably involve a considerable amount of whimsy. If I had any vacation money to spare, that is totally what I'd spend it on.

Contemporary Molyneux is a joke

Never trust Peter Molyneux, no matter what he says.

"Project GODUS"? Oh man that's great.

That's awesome. I had just been saying how crazy it would be if Molyneux and 22Cans did a Kickstarter, two weeks ago, and saying I'd back it. For one thing, because I like that he's trying new crazy indie(ish) stuff and doing his own thing and also because he would probably then be the most high-profile and most (currently) success big-title-ish designer to have tried crowd-funding.

I'm also surprised at the amount. With Chris Roberts doing something like $6.5m and the many millions of recent projects like Obisidian -- and even much smaller little adventure-style projects all looking for half a million to a million bucks . . . this seems down right conservative. But this is probably just a small part of the overall funding they'll have and may just be a chunk he wants to "farm out" to the community as part of 22Cans' experimentation.

A lot of people talk shit about him, but he's brought us a lot of entertainment. Even if you discount (as I wouldn't blame you) the Fable franchise. I always say that the guy may not always successfully deliver on the promise, but he is one of the most day-dreamy big-name designers out there who really seems to approach the industry with a sense of awe and whimsy. It would be a lot more fucking boring without more guys like him.

I'll back it. I even gave $5 to the little thing they put up (at the community's request) for Curiosity awhile back. Not because I play it (I only tried for about twenty minutes), but because I like seeing guys try new shit (even though I also often talk trash about new things, but that's only because I'm getting old and curmudgeonly). I've backed about 350 crowd-funding projects so far and this is another one that I'm god damn excited about.

Even if you don't like some of his more recent games, I don't see how you could dislike the man.

Also, the video is hilarious. They don't shy away from the contrast of the one guy being like "eight would be possible . .. to go beyond that would be tricky" and Molyneux is spliced into that every few seconds, going like "five gods, no ten -- no twenty -- all these gods fighting each other and doing battle and these massive wars". :D

Update: I found where I "called it" on November 12th. Heheheh.: http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/12/3634528/curiosity-developers-now-accepting-donations-to-help-with-continued#126941207

He's a snake oil salesman. A charming and likable snake oil salesman, but a snake oil salesman all the same.

I'd be down if it was another Black and White game.

@Marz said:

I'd be down if it was another Black and White game.

I hope not. I would love to play a world building game again where I don't have to babysit a creature.

I was pretty interested up to this point: "GODUS will be developed for the PC and Mobile devices, we hope to be able to add more platforms as our Kickstarter campaign progresses."

I don't know why but I have a major hate on for mobile games now and it seems like developing with them in mind will severely limit the scope of this game.

Hellooooo cutie pie front and center of the group shot.

Whatever, multiplayer doesn't really interest me, but I'll probably back it just out of respect for everything Bullfrog created.

It's about time he returned to the thing that made him famous and successful enough to be able to dupe us with his lies in the first place.

I put down my £15.00. Don't care if his games never become as grand as his dreams of what they could be are, because even when they fall short they are great games.

The god of gods tier claims that the backer will be interviewed at E3 with Peter Molyneux on G4tv next year; isn't that station closing down at the end of December this year?

Gotta love that guy.

The budget is actually quite conservative. Maybe high for kickstarter standards but conservative none the less for your average game. Though I'm not sure if this counts as an indie game, I have no idea how much it may cost to make an indie game with a decent budget.

Kickstarter UK is doing a lot better than I expected.

I'm going to support 22cans because even though Molyneux does talk alot of bollocks, he has made some of my favourite games of all time. Theme Hospital ,Theme Park , Dungeon Keeper ,Black and White ,Syndicate ,Fable 1+2, The Movies is a great game too. I love the Charm and Humour he puts into his games ,the ambition and excitement he has for games and him doing a God game after so long is something I really want and have been wanting for years FUCKING PLEASE BE A GOOD GAME !!!!!!.

I like how they put the super attractive girl at the front of the developer picture

@Kidavenger said:

I was pretty interested up to this point: "GODUS will be developed for the PC and Mobile devices, we hope to be able to add more platforms as our Kickstarter campaign progresses."

I don't know why but I have a major hate on for mobile games now and it seems like developing with them in mind will severely limit the scope of this game.

Bastion is on mobile devices.

@themartyr said:

Kickstarter UK is doing a lot better than I expected.

Agreed. As soon as they opened up to UK projects, we got a rush of projects. Very cool ones, at that.

I don't know how he intends to achieve this in seven to nine months...

I guess we don't know how much work has already been done on it, but that still seems really tight.

I just got an email from one of the 22Cans guys, about the $5 I sent via paypal for the whole (community-driven/requested; not 22Cans requested) Curiosity donation thing a couple weeks ago, when they needed to buy more/bigger servers to keep the new Curiosity workarounds running. They offered to transition the $5 from that over to my Kickstarter pledge and add it to that, if I wanted. I didn't, but that was pretty thoughtful, frankly.

@ajamafalous said:

I like how they put the super attractive girl at the front of the developer picture

She's also about the shortest person, so it makes sense that she's in front. It doesn't hurt that she's really easy on the eyes, I'm sure. I also like how Molyneux is way off to the side and in the back. Kind of like "HEY I'M OVER HERE GUISE! HEY GUISE!".

You know, I've talked my fair share of shit about Fable games, but Molyneux always makes me smile.

@Branthog: Bastion wasn't developed for mobile though.

Coming in thinking this will be a next gen Populous, walking out expecting this to be a watered down From Dust, if it turns out good; great, but I'm not backing anything mobile game related ever, make a real game FFS.

ill throw in money when he gets to black and white

@Kidavenger said:

@Branthog: Bastion wasn't developed for mobile though.

Coming in thinking this will be a next gen Populous, walking out expecting this to be a watered down From Dust, if it turns out good; great, but I'm not backing anything mobile game related ever, make a real game FFS.

Populous isn't necessarily that complex and it looks like they're going to go for a sort of sleek voxel-ish art-style. I don't see why it couldn't maintain its old-school PC integrity and also have a direct (or, at worst, slightly dumbed-down) version for tablets. It's not like it has to have a massive frame-rate. On the other hand, they also mention all the stuff about multi-player or whatever, which suggests it's going to be fairly ambitious. I expect it to be more than just a dinky mobile-game that happens to also be on PC. I would certainly be disappointed if it turned out it was $24 or more (more, probably, since this is just the early backer price) for an iOS game. That seems really *really* unlikely.

No thanks. I see no reason (for myself) to support this. If the game releases and is great, I'll be all for a purchase, then.

Black & White 3? This might make me donate to kickstarter for once, I fucking loved Black & White!

Well if anyone can do them... it's him. Also that isn't a crazy high goal or anything, seems pretty reasonable.

Okay the 5000 pound thing just seems like a straight up good deal. All inclusive flight to E3, plus a VIP pass for the show, an interview opportunity (eh), and you get to be Peter's guest of honor, which would probably involve a considerable amount of whimsy. If I had any vacation money to spare, that is totally what I'd spend it on.

@ajamafalous said:

I like how they put the super attractive girl at the front of the developer picture

I like how Peter Molyneux is nearly photobombing on the left side. Just showing up.

He's like a mole popping out of its hole.

@ajamafalous said:

I like how they put the super attractive girl at the front of the developer picture

I like how Peter Molyneux is nearly photobombing on the left side. Just showing up.

He's like a mole popping out of its hole.

Bah fuck god games, give me a damn new magic carpet molyneux... now that I would back.

Who would be stupid enough to pledge money to Molyneux beforehand, based only on the shit he told you? Jesus Christ.

Edit: I would like to propose a counter Kickstarter that makes the game Molyneux promises instead of the one he ends up creating.

@McGhee said:

Who would be stupid enough to pledge money to Molyneux beforehand, based only on the shit he told you? Jesus Christ.

Everyone who bought a Peter Moylneux game ever.

Edit: I should I say, I'm a huge fan of the fable series and didn't totally hate 3.

@Benny said:

@McGhee said:

Who would be stupid enough to pledge money to Molyneux beforehand, based only on the shit he told you? Jesus Christ.

Everyone who bought a Peter Moylneux game ever.

Edit: I should I say, I'm a huge fan of the fable series and didn't totally hate 3.

No, no. In the past people could at least see the final product before they bought the game. This pledges you up front.

Star Citizen, Project Eternity, and Planetary Annihilation already got my money. Sorry, Peter.

Rubbish.

I hope I'm proven wrong.

If it looks anything like the concept art I'll back this.

@Jimbo: Zoom and enhance...........

@McGhee said:

@Benny said:

@McGhee said:

Who would be stupid enough to pledge money to Molyneux beforehand, based only on the shit he told you? Jesus Christ.

Everyone who bought a Peter Moylneux game ever.

Edit: I should I say, I'm a huge fan of the fable series and didn't totally hate 3.

No, no. In the past people could at least see the final product before they bought the game. This pledges you up front.

People need to understand that for the majority of crowd-funded projects, the whole point is that if they're not funded by the community, they won't get made. So "why would I help fund it now, when I can just wait until its finished" is sort of counter-productive. If you want to buy a finished product after its finished, then let the existing publishing model do its thing and you can continue to get what you've always gotten.

Crowd-funding allows the designers (and community, to some extent) to work together to bring out projects that otherwise might not see the light of day, due to lack of publisher interest (remember, publishers don't just want a game to make a profit -- it has to make hundreds of millions. EA has no interest in a one million dollar game that earns two million dollars). So you lose out on a lot of content, right there. And when they are backed, the designers relinquish a lot of control to the publisher.

In other words, part of what you're backing is not just one specific direct game that you want to buy. It's backing the opportunity for that to eventually even exist *so* you can buy it. This is obviously not something people should do if the $15 or whatever is something that is going to seriously dent their wallet. These are things to back if you are really passionate about it and feel it's worth some risk to have more great content oriented toward you, as a player.

Of course, some places don't adhere to this. You occasionally see nearly finished games by companies that are just looking for a few quick bucks and some publicity by going on Kickstarter. You can tell these projects, because they're usually fairly small, just skate-by with enough funding (but not much more), are by established companies that tend to make a lot of small things every year. Often mobile-only . . . and they roll the game out within a month or two of the crowd-funding, which could only be done if they already nearly finished the game in the first place.

If one is viewing crowd-funding as "I'M GONNA GO PRE ORDER A GAME DURP!" then the whole point of crowd-funding has gone over their head and they're "doing it wrong".

Hard to believe all this kickstarter stuff was started by one Double Fine thing.

Peter seems so happy at 22 cans!

The still at the end made me laugh.

#POWERPOINTPHRASES

More like Bogus am i rite?

Seriously he needs to give up this god obsession. Take a lesson from Double Fine and do lots of crazy shit until something sticks.

@Branthog said:

@McGhee said:

@Benny said:

@McGhee said:

Who would be stupid enough to pledge money to Molyneux beforehand, based only on the shit he told you? Jesus Christ.

Everyone who bought a Peter Moylneux game ever.

Edit: I should I say, I'm a huge fan of the fable series and didn't totally hate 3.

No, no. In the past people could at least see the final product before they bought the game. This pledges you up front.

People need to understand that for the majority of crowd-funded projects, the whole point is that if they're not funded by the community, they won't get made. So "why would I help fund it now, when I can just wait until its finished" is sort of counter-productive. If you want to buy a finished product after its finished, then let the existing publishing model do its thing and you can continue to get what you've always gotten.

Crowd-funding allows the designers (and community, to some extent) to work together to bring out projects that otherwise might not see the light of day, due to lack of publisher interest (remember, publishers don't just want a game to make a profit -- it has to make hundreds of millions. EA has no interest in a one million dollar game that earns two million dollars). So you lose out on a lot of content, right there. And when they are backed, the designers relinquish a lot of control to the publisher.

In other words, part of what you're backing is not just one specific direct game that you want to buy. It's backing the opportunity for that to eventually even exist *so* you can buy it. This is obviously not something people should do if the $15 or whatever is something that is going to seriously dent their wallet. These are things to back if you are really passionate about it and feel it's worth some risk to have more great content oriented toward you, as a player.

Of course, some places don't adhere to this. You occasionally see nearly finished games by companies that are just looking for a few quick bucks and some publicity by going on Kickstarter. You can tell these projects, because they're usually fairly small, just skate-by with enough funding (but not much more), are by established companies that tend to make a lot of small things every year. Often mobile-only . . . and they roll the game out within a month or two of the crowd-funding, which could only be done if they already nearly finished the game in the first place.

If one is viewing crowd-funding as "I'M GONNA GO PRE ORDER A GAME DURP!" then the whole point of crowd-funding has gone over their head and they're "doing it wrong".

And? I know all of this. I helped fund an album by one of my favorite artists. I'm in the fucking credits. I'm not questioning crowd funding. I'm criticizing crowd funding a game made by a complete liar like Molyneux.

seems like alot to ask for on kickstarter but what do i know

also the mandetory

my balls

@McGhee said:

And? I know all of this. I helped fund an album by one of my favorite artists. I'm in the fucking credits. I'm not questioning crowd funding. I'm criticizing crowd funding a game made by a complete liar like Molyneux.

That's harsh. Sure, he gets over excited and tends to promise more than what he can deliver, but he's still responsible for creating some of the best games ever made and he clearly has a vision and some very original ideas. At least he isn't shitting out more first person shooters or generic action games like most other developers out there.

He even quit a ridiculously high level position at Microsoft, just so he can go back to making games that he actually wants to make.

Rab Florence just wrote a great blog post absolutely ripping the shit out of Molyneux's use of Kickstarter. It's a short and concise read, but the short end of it is that Molyneux is abusing the good faith and grassroots spirit of the Kickstarter business model, tricking it's audience with nostalgia to promise future enjoyment, and ultimately giving all the financial risk of creating a video game to the gaming community. The blog post ends it's sentiments with unabashed truth:

But then you stop and ask yourself if you can do it on your own.

And if you can? Even if it’s a struggle? And you STILL start a Kickstarter?

Then FUCK YOU, Molyneux. And all who came before you.

And, depressingly, all those yet to inevitably fucking come.

@Fattony12000 said:

The still at the end made me laugh.

#POWERPOINTPHRASES

It's such a simplistic idea that's so absurdly obvious to the point where it's insulting to act as if they are giving us profound insight to how the company works. "Oh? You do something, see how well it does, and use the knowledge from that to make your next thing better? Incredible. At my job when I do something and it doesn't work, I bang my head with a hammer and give myself amnesia so that I can make the same mistakes all over again. But your way sounds better!"

@Grillbar said:

seems like alot to ask for on kickstarter but what do i know

also the mandetory

my balls

Under a million bucks really is a tiny amount -- both for making a game and for notable developers on Kickstarter. It would be a lot for an indie developer nobody heard of before, making a small game in his home office. Games by people who are known entities (even if they haven't really done much in decades) have been asking for around half a million to a million or so and getting between half a million and many millions.

And when it comes down to it, you need to ask for the amount of funding your project *needs* -- whether that's a lot or a little.

@Andorski said:

@Fattony12000 said:

The still at the end made me laugh.

#POWERPOINTPHRASES

It's such a simplistic idea that's so absurdly obvious to the point where it's insulting to act as if they are giving us profound insight to how the company works. "Oh? You do something, see how well it does, and use the knowledge from that to make your next thing better? Incredible. At my job when I do something and it doesn't work, I bang my head with a hammer and give myself amnesia so that I can make the same mistakes all over again. But your way sounds better!"

I'm not entirely sure I understand what side you're coming down on, here (depends on how you read your comment). It *is* very simplistic and would almost seem offensively so, except at the places most people work at (not even necessarily game development -- but definitely software development!), "when I do something and it doesn't work, I bang my head with a hammer and give myself amnesia so I can make the same mistakes all over again" very accurately describes many companies.

@Andorski said:

Rab Florence just wrote a great blog post absolutely ripping the shit out of Molyneux's use of Kickstarter. It's a short and concise read, but the short end of it is that Molyneux is abusing the good faith and grassroots spirit of the Kickstarter business model, tricking it's audience with nostalgia to promise future enjoyment, and ultimately giving all the financial risk of creating a video game to the gaming community. The blog post ends it's sentiments with unabashed truth:

But then you stop and ask yourself if you can do it on your own.

And if you can? Even if it’s a struggle? And you STILL start a Kickstarter?

Then FUCK YOU, Molyneux. And all who came before you.

And, depressingly, all those yet to inevitably fucking come.

I like Rab Florence, but I don't agree with him here. There are some clear abuses of the spirit of crowd-funding, but they aren't coming from the likes of Tim Schaffer, Brian Fargo, and Peter Molyneux. They are coming from the countless "we spit out a dozen titles a year" shovel-ware companies that spit out crap and hope to just make a few bucks selling their stream of generic iOS games and come to Kickstarter in a pathetic attempt to soften the capital-investment risk of their existing projects.

The known-names who have used Kickstarter over the last year for big projects may be known-names. They may even *personally* have some wealth. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have to personally invest millions of their own money into a game just because Florence says so and going the traditional publisher route is contrary to the entire reason they're seeking crowd-funding (either publishers aren't interested in more niche titles that tens of thousands of gamers want, because a game that males a million bucks profit is not worth their time when they could make games that would make fifty million profit --- or because they would exert enough influence in the games so as to turn it into something completely different).

People are surely aware of the risks and know when backing a project, they're contributing to an idea that could potentially have no return. They should be approaching these from the mindset of "yeah, I want more from this guy and I want more stuff like this on the market" and not the mindset of someone buying a game off the shelf at Gamestop. If you can't stand the risk, don't take it. You'll be better served buying a finished game and that's entirely okay.

I would COMPLETELY agree with Rab if this were a zero-sum game. But it isn't. There's no finite bucket of money. In fact, I see smaller guys having successful (sometimes wildly so) Kickstarters every day. Molyneux and Obsidian and Double Fine aren't sucking up all the monies. So, whether he agrees that they are in the spirit of crowd-funding or not (and the Ouya is a thing I would definitely say is grossly over the line, though), they are not negatively impacting the other projects. If anything, they are raising more attention for crowd-funding that is eventually funneled into finding more truly indie projects that may have languished.

I do definitely understand his concern, though. The whole crowd-funding concept -- even without these big names trying it -- remains a bit unproven. It's not something we're used to, yet. And it feels weird in the Video Game category, specifically, because it isn't like any other. Board Games and other things can easily be made by a guy in his garage and then mass-produced with a contract somewhere. There is only so much unknown overhead they can incur. But gaming . . . making software can hit so many unexpected road bumps and even the best of intentions can mean jack shit when you run out of money, a vital member of your team splits, technologies totally fail, etc. It's easy for a hundred million dollar EA game to miss its deadlines, budgets, and goals -- so it's a thousand times as likely for some guy with very little business experience making one of his first few games for $50k in crowd-funding to stumble even more.

I even I question this whole crowd-funding thing every day. I'm in-love with the concept. The idea of removing middle-men and putting guys who want to make something directly into touch and debt to the guys who want that something made. The same way I'm a fan of ditching advertising and having people who consume content (like GiantBomb) pay for accessing the content (which I do). Yet, I also find myself questioning the whole concept on a regular basis. Especially when you get to thinks like movies and video games, which by their nature can be more difficult (nobody wants to back someone they've never heard of who hasn't anything to show, but there's enough cost involved that until you have funding, you can't invest in developing something worth showing -- catch-22).

In the end, I'm personally backing hundreds of projects, precisely because it's a new thing. Because it's uncertain. And because it's interesting to see how it is approached. By project creators, backers, the communities. By participating, I'm able to gather information on how this is all going on. The kind of communication between projects and their funders. The successes and failures. The fulfilled promises and the unfulfilled (I actually have a massive spreadsheet where I maintain all sorts of information on a per-project basis and am consulting pro-bono on a crowd-funding think-tank's startup). I think it's going to be fascinating to continue to watch all the projects I've backed over the next year or two and see what the truth ends up being. I mean, we don't *really* know until it happens, right? And in the meantime, I get a few things I wouldn't get if I just bought it off the shelf (if it were ever successfully made without crowd-funding). I get to kick in a few ideas and pieces of content for games I find interesting. I get to watch part of the creation process. I get to see the growth of a project. Sometimes I get rarities like meeting people in the industry (I was able to arrange for my little brother who wants to be an indie developer to spend time with Romero and Wright, for example). In a lot of cases, I'm personally okay if all I ever get from the contribution is the thrill of the ride. Even if the ride ultimately crashes.

I understand Florence's whole being-a-contrarian thing. And good for him. It doesn't hurt, in a world where half of everyone is so eagerly throwing money at crowd-funding, to offer a reality check to them. Even if I don't necessarily agree with him. They're stil interesting points. However, there is a place for all business models and I don't agree that crowd-funding ONLY belongs to the little guy trying to raise funds so he can buy a rolling press to make organic fair-trade cookies to sell out of his food-cart in Fisherman's Wharf or the girl looking to fund her interpretive dance performance on stage in a little community theater or the parents who think their ten year old is the next Justin Bieber and want to crowd-fund his debut album.