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Molyneux Rumour Control

Posted by Zonk on Mon Mar 27, 2006 01:32 PM
from the not-quite-black-and-white dept.
Entertainment Games
Gamespot has an article up looking at some of the current rumours swirling around designer Peter Molyneux. Best known for the Black and White series, Molyneux's Lionhead studio is heavily favoured to be the next acquisition target for Microsoft. He canceled a GDC session with no notice on Friday (one I was hoping to go to, I might add), and there's been much speculation since last week. From the article: "Over the subsequent month, the rumors festered. On March 3, Lionhead laid off between 50 and 100 people, and reduced its number of projects-in-development from three to two--a Black & White 2 expansion and a Fable sequel. Today, the floodgates of speculation re-opened, when Molyneux's session at the 2006 Game Developers Conference in San Jose was summarily canceled."
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Related Stories

[+] Tough Times for Lionhead Studios 43 comments
Alice, over at the Wonderland blog, discusses Lionhead's decision to reduce the size of the company. The maker of The Movies and Black and White 2 has apparently not been doing so well financially this year. From the article: "Over the last few months Lionhead has been working on plans for a new AAA world class game. As work on a number of its titles draws to a close, a pool of 100 super talented developers at Lionhead are available to create a new super team at Lionhead. This will be in addition to an existing team which is working on an amazing next generation title. This strategy was presented to Lionhead this morning in a company meeting but sadly it will mean some redundancies."
[+] Lionhead Studios In Purchase Talks? 20 comments
Lionhead Studios, best known for the Black and White series of games, may be in acquisition talks with Microsoft and Ubisoft From the Eurogamer article: "Of the two, Microsoft has the most history with the studio - the software giant published one of Lionhead's most successful titles to date, Fable, and is believed to be working with the firm on a next-generation sequel to the game for Xbox 360. Credence is also lent to Microsoft's involvement in the deal by the close relationship Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has enjoyed with the firm and its top executives since the launch of the Xbox, with the well-known designer often appearing to sing the praises of the Xbox platform in public." Gamespot reports further on the subject, stating that while it's certainly plausible, it's not official yet.
[+] Microsoft Buys Lionhead Studios 73 comments
Grench writes "The BBC has an article on Microsoft's purchase of Lionhead Studios. They focus in particular on Peter Molyneux, and the kind of talents and expertise that he can bring to Microsoft's future gaming efforts. A sequel to Fable was mentioned as a probable endeavor." From the article: "Some of the giants of the games industry, such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, were reported to have been interested in acquiring Lionhead. But Microsoft has emerged as the victor, adding the studio to its roster of British gaming talent. In 2002, it acquired developers Rare in a $375m deal."
[+] Molyneux Talks Fable 2 44 comments
Eurogamer has some details from a discussion with Peter Molyneux, on the upcoming Fable 2 and the as-yet-unnamed 'Project Dmitri.' The site comments on Molyneux's obvious enthusiasm for his work, and manages to get a few tidbits of information from the designer on these in-production titles. From the article: "I think it's exactly what Lionhead stands for - it's uniqueness, it's originality and it's taking something and doing something with it that no-one's done before. And that's really what the core of what the whole of Fable is. Fable 2 should be everything you expect, then 10 times more that you don't expect — and that doesn't just apply to this one feature ... I almost said it then! — that applies to the whole game."
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  • Populus (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AoT (107216) on Monday March 27 2006, @01:39PM (#15004512) Homepage Journal
    I just want a remake of Populus.
  • Rumors are all very good and all... but they're just that--rumors. The same things would happen if the studio was floundering because they aren't making enough returns from their investments. Fable was, disappointing, to say the least. There was lots of hype surrounding it, but it just didn't live up to all the hype. Sales were fairly good, but a game of that kind isn't exactly inexpensive to make. Black & White 2 just came out too far after the original Black & White and is another game that defini
    • Black & White 2 just came out too far after the original Black & White...

      No, the problem with Black & White 2 was that it was a sequel to Black & White, an incredibly over-hyped game, like Fable, that didn't come anywhere near living up to Molyneux's hyperbole, and had extremely shit game-play besides. That thing left such a bad taste in so many people's mouths that I'm amazed they even considered making a sequel to it.
      • See, I hadn't even bothered reading a review of B&W 2, let alone playing it... Fable was a huge disappointment to me and B&W was fun like 5 years ago, but I just didn't feel like playing more of the same with its sequel. But if the sequel was that much of a let down then it seems fairly likely that the problem might just be the studio is floundering. Just because Molyneux made great games at one point, doesn't mean he can run a successful studio now. Hype/fan base can only take you so far.

  • Hmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now let's think about this:
    • Now-medicore developer riding on the wave of his impressive past
    • Overpromises for years and years on every game, then underdelivers
    • Lives and dies on a wave of overcharged hype

    Yup. Looking at their past history, Molyneaux would be a perfect fit acquisition target for Microsoft XBox's games studios.
  • This would be most welcome. I enjoyed Fable. A lot of people felt the game was too short. I agree, but if you went out of your way to complete most of the game, you were still siting around 30 or so hours (much more if you killed the shopkeeps and then bought them out). The only thing I didn't like about the game was how quickly you could go shift sides from bad to good or good to bad. I wasn't too fond of running around with white armor and having every single adult propose marraige just because my
    • Sorry. Couldn't resist.

      The only thing I didn't like about the game was how quickly you could go shift sides from bad to good or good to bad. I wasn't too fond of running around with white armor and having every single adult propose marraige just because my attractiveness attribute was too high.

      Yes, I'm sure you get quite enough of that in real life.

      (I apologize. Like I said, couldn't resist.)
    • Seriously, it was a pretty good game that could have used more story and much better graphics

      Gods!!! What the hell is wrong with you people?! Is there no satisfying you?!

      Fable is probably one of the best looking games on the Xbox. It's artisic design alone gives it significant merit.

      It's comments like this that leads to developers throwing away resources at useless graphical improvements when they could be improving the actual game instead of pandering to these impossible demands.
      • The game's graphics look grainy (and I've played it on normal and Hi-Def TVs). There was too much junk everywhere. A lot of people considered it to have great graphics, but, to me, it seemed like they were doing too much with what little they had (performence vs. image quality). You could see where they cut corners too easily. The massive gloves, for instance. It keeps them from having to use polygons on the charecter's hands (Just a big cylinder for the gloves, really). It also looked like all bump-m
  • Say what you will about his games, but the man sure knows how to create a buzz. And just for the record, it's "Molyneux".
  • That was an awesome Molyneux game.

    Or another Magic Carpet? Or another Populous?

    Or something completely new and kickass instead of another sequel?
    • Dungeon Keeper has soooooooooooo much potential. It's a shame it was never expanded upon. Evil Genius was nice, but I *hated* the world map. You had to constantly flip back to it every 15 seconds in case the super agents appeared. It felt tacked on to add difficulty when all it did was frustrate. Some kind of warning would have been welcome. But all you got was a number that flashed AFTER you had lost your men. If I still programmed for fun (instead of for a living), I would make a DK type game.
  • They need him to rewrite the Windows Vista interface. It is so simple guys, why do one has figured it out yet?

  • The Cut Game? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sux2BU (20893) on Tuesday March 28 2006, @01:27AM (#15008861)
    Anyone know which game got cut? In the writeup it reads reduced its number of projects-in-development from three to two, but fails to mention anything about that third game.

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