Poll: Peter Molyneux, Idiot or Liar?

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

I'm inclined to say neither.

He's no idiot - if anything, he's a marketing genius, and I wouldn't say he's a liar. He just sets his sights far too high, and so compromises by including things he said there'd be, but on a much smaller scale than he intended.

 

[Mekado]

He might be over-hyping his games a bit but he's far from being an idiot, after all that strategy DOES work and he's one of the most recognizable names in the gaming industry.

You seem to have it in for Molyneux though http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.134870

Someone's pretty angry he got banned from the Lionhead forums i guess, no need to make 10 threads about it.

 

[brumby]

one of the worst polls I've ever seen..

just a tad biased.

 

[orangebandguy]

Both options seem pretty harsh, although I lost interest in Fable 2 a lot quicker than most of my other games because the in game world simply wasn't interesting enough.

 

[ThePeaceFrog]

He's a dreamer that is trying to push the boundaries of games design as both a story telling and artistic medium, just because he doesn't always meet his own promises doesn't mean we should moan, at least he's setting his sights high and not aiming for mediocrity like most games developers.

 

[Ozzman]

I think part of it's marketing, and part is him just getting a bit too excited

 

[Woem]

One thing that frustrates me most about Peter Molyneux is how he's given a free pass to tell whatever lies he wants, because no one can prove that he absolutely knew that they were lies. It's a brilliant legal loop hole, the man is free to say whatever he wants so long as he can feign ignorance at the end of the day.

Peter Molyneux is a former CEO from Electronic Arts and he's had hands on involvement with many of the games that he, to put it mildly, over hyped. So I ask simply this, is Peter Molyneux a Liar or an Idiot, or maybe both? I certainly favor the "He's a Liar" theory myself.

For those who don't know Peter Molyneux, he's the 'master mind' behind Black and White and Fable, now whether you liked these games or not is irrelevant to whether or not Peter Molyneux was honest about them. If you really just don't know I ask that you google a list of claims he made and compare them to the game you played. Don't let whether or not you liked the game cloud your judgment on whether or not he was honest about them.

Edit: I added Dishonest next to Liar because some people seem to think that dishonesty is not equivalent to lying.

You could at least give one or two examples. Starting a thread about how we should go google something and then report back is kind of silly.

 

[veloper]

Still in his bullfrog days he gave us

Syndicate
Populous
Magic carpet
Dungeon keeper

It's just sad to see he's fallen so deep. Don't hate the guy.

 

[Chipperz]

Where's ANY positive answers to this poll?

The guy's a dreamer - he's got lots of big ideas that, if the technology was actually there, would be GREAT, but it's not, and I guarantee he only finds out about that after he's said it. Of course, after the fifteenth time, you'd think he'd check first, but even I don't do that.

 

[Jamash]

At this time, out of the 797 people who have viewed this topic, only 72 have voted.

Maybe you should include some positive or at least neutral poll options, which will reflect the opinions of the other 91%.

 

[Mekado]

At this time, out of the 797 people who have viewed this topic, only 72 have voted.

Maybe you should include some positive or at least neutral poll options, which will reflect the opinions of the other 91%.

I doubt he wants people's opinions, he wants a lynch mob

(see his other thread titled : What would you do to Peter Molyneux if you were alone in a room with him)

 

[gigastrike]

He gets over-excited about his game ideas, then finds himself in a pickle when his developement team wasn't good enough to turn them into reality.

 

[era81]

I could say he is a dipshit but he tricked me into all the versions of his lame ass Fable games so I won't.The first one he sold me was only half the fucking game then he charged me again for the rest of it.

 

[Tzatziki3301]

If you want to talk about unfulfilled promises then *cough* PS3 *cough*

 

[MR.Spartacus]

He's like the crazy old man who was once glorious but is now senile and needs to shut up. The problem is he sees what he wants his games to be instead of what they are. I'm pretty sure Ed Wood had the same problem.

 

[laikenf]

I think the poor man's just an idiot. For some reason his image has been overblown to that of one of the greatest game programmers in the world; but I find his work truly lacking, even his stuff before the Fable series (which is also worthless).

Edit: "Black and White" was a cool game, it didn't blow me away, but it sure as hell was better than both Fable's (and all of his other shit).

 

[Iskenator67]

He just promises too much, he needs to focus on doing a few thing well instead of a lot of things badly.

 

[Kyman102]

Peter is not an idiot, that's for sure.
But I do thing perhaps, he's not a liar, too.
He simply sets his standards so high that he can't hope to reach them, yet continues to advertise these standards as the way the game's going to be.

Seconded. Peter wants to make huge games, and he tries to make huge games, but ultimately he falls flat due to limitations of some kind. So, perhaps the word I would use to describe him is... Enthusiastic? He gets caught up in his ideals, to the point where he fails to realize that he might be bragging too much and may end up putting his foot in his mouth.

 

[Bat Vader]

But then sales would drop and he can't have that.

What if he said that Fable would have Free Roaming akin to Morrowind and it turned out to be a game on rails, and he knew this before the game was launched but chose not to tell us the truth?

Ever think that perhaps by the time he's realised that all his techies and whatnot can't do what he wants, he's said too much?

Then at that point he has a choice, he can tell the truth or allow everyone to continue to believe the lie.

I think perhaps that he's too enthusiastic for his own good.

And I think he gets a free pass with this excuse.

I think maybe for me the question isn't so much "Did he outright lie?" as it is "Was he really honest with what he knew?" The answer to the latter question is a repeated no.

If he says it is free roaming and it turns out not to be free roam I guess false advertisement may apply in that situation. Than again renting is better than buying. It lets you find out if the game is everything he said it was.