SonOfVoorhees said:
I thought his last few games failed (eventhough i enjoyed them) because he doesnt know when to stop adding new ideas and thus the games are less than what they could have been. I like that he is imaginative and creative but when making a game you stop implementing new ideas and just make the game - if you have time once your finished then add new stuff. But atleast make the core gameplay good to begin with. Its like he starts off wanting to make the best loaf of bread he can and then half way through decides to make a cake instead and try to turn the bread mix into cake mix. All you end up doing is make an ok cake instead of an awesome loaf of bread.
Your analogy hit the nail right on the head.
I worked with Pete on a game a few years ago (back in the Lionhead days), and he is genuinely a lovely guy. Sure, some of his ideas are crazy, but some aren't and the ones that aren't sometimes make you think, "why didn't I think of that". And he cares... oh boy, does he care - he cares about games in general, the game currently being made, and he cares passionately about the gamer that will be playing it. And there's nothing wrong with any of that (quite the opposite, in fact).
However... he is an
absolute nightmare to work with beyond the initial ideas phase. When it comes to the actual implementation of his ideas, he's hopeless because of exactly what your analogy suggests. He just can't leave something alone to fully mature to see whether it will be a good mechanic or a crap one. If it isn't very quickly an awesomely amazing mechanic, he'll be off on a tangent changing things so that the original idea never has a chance to come to fruition.
The ideal way for Pete to make a game is this:
1) Be the visionary for the game at the beginning. He is better than almost anybody in the industry at this. Come up with crazy ideas all over the place.
2) Remove Pete from the building while these ideas are prototyped and iterated on for a few months.
3) Allow him back in the building to review the prototyped mechanics. Allow him to suggest modifications, further iterations, and so on.
4) Banish him from the building once again while these changes are being made. Repeat prototyping phase until time is up.
5) A final review of core gameplay mechanics with Pete back in the room. What worked, what didn't? Now we have the core of the game nailed down.
6) Fly Pete to the other side of the world for a couple of years and let the dev team actually complete the initial ideas and mechanics.
And, of course, don't ever, ever let him in front of a journalist halfway through development, or you'll be reading about some great feature you didn't know was going to be in your game, and now you have to figure out how the hell to cram it into the schedule in time for release....
