Why I 'Heart' Peter Molyneux

I have a bit of a thing for visionaries. People with passion, dedication, ambition and creativity. Sometimes they fail in their endeavours and sometimes they succeed, but the very fact that they tried or dared to dream elevates them in my esteem.

In the games industry you would think you couldn’t move for people like this, but the sorry fact is that visionaries aren’t very popular with money men and they rarely last. In fact it is often the money men – the guys who perhaps rightly keep their eye on the bottom line at all times – who end up tripping these creative types at the last hurdle. There is also a difference between a visionary and a great professional. Visionaries are all about the creation of something unique, while professionals surround themselves with talent and take it from there. I would place Peter Molyneux firmly in the former bracket. He is after all a developer whose ambition often outstrips his ability or the ability of his team.

As the title of this blog suggests, that does nothing to lower him in my estimations. Molyneux gets more than his fair share of criticism for how he conducts himself. He gets very excited about his games. He loves new ideas and breakthroughs. Obviously this got him into some trouble with Fable, but I think the fact that he would be first to admit he went too far and promised too much has empowered criticism of him. Lionhead simply ran out of time. With Fable 2 we haven’t been promised anything that Lionhead wasn’t able to show and while that makes me feel far more secure in my anticipation of the game I’m probably more excited about what Molyneux has further down the pipeline, namely Dimitri.

Chances are you’ve seen his most recent comments (if not they are here) and while they appear wild and rambling I can’t help but be excited. I’ve spent the last week dredging up every last drop of Dimitri info that I can because of it. You can read all my findings in Issue 35 of 360 out next month. Ultimately I have faith in Molyneux as a facilitator of innovation. It may end up that Dimitri is not everything he is building it up to be, but I have a fair idea of what it is Lionhead is trying to do and simply for attempting it they have my support. If only all developers were so brave.