Peter Molyneux leaves Lionhead Studios, Microsoft

He’s finally given in? I kinda hope he stays in the industry and finds something good. He’s bit of a dreamer when it comes to his games and his ideas are great but the implementation of those ideas into games have been poor in recent years.

Best of luck. He was never well suited to Microsoft.

Was sad seeing him flanked by PR handlers stopping him going on one of his batshit mental rambles.

About time if you ask me.

I’m sorry he never managed to make a comeback, but sadly having him step down is probably for the best. And it probably should’ve happened a while ago. His heart obviously wasn’t in it for the last few games.

Sadly that’s really the Molyneux cycle. Start a studio, sell it to a scumbag publisher, realize you’ve made a huge mistake, and start a new one.

If you have an account on Gamesindustry and look at the staff for 22 Cans, the only one on there at the minute is the CTO, Tim Rance, who’s also been with Lionhead for a LONG time. Could be about to see an exodus of Lionhead on a larger scale than just Molyneux.

Wow. Isn’t less than a year ago he was made Creative Director? Something must have gone wrong.

This on top of all those senior devs leaving Lionhead too. Microsoft is a complete mess that spring showcase was a depressing rollcall of franchise horseflogging.

I think that the creative genius that is Molyneux needs to be independent. I honestly never saw why Lionhead went to Microsoft, because it always seemed so … wrong. I’m not hating on MS, but it seemed like a really bad fit. Molyneux was always going to have his beautiful crazy ideas, and MS isn’t a very crazy company.

I’m a bit sad that it’s just Molyneux himself, and not Lionhead, that is leaving MS. But hopefully this will allow him to soar like he did before.

Mr. C has just informed me it was 2009. Well, that blows that argument out of the water. And makes me seriously consider my sense of the time/space continuum.

History repeats. The guy said he left Bullfrog because he was too bogged down in meetings and politics and not actually making games.

I wonder what this means for petermolydeux?

JM

I hate to bring this up Pete but if you get a chance, a new Theme Hospital done properly would be great…

Best of luck, Peter.

Yeah, that too. One of my favourite ever developers. Good luck, Peter. Can’t wait to see what you do next.

Very interesting to see his games go multiplat.

Blimey. I spoke to him about Fable last week. Be interesting to look at now in light of this.

Well I wasn’t expecting that.

I’m surprised he stayed so long. MS was always looking for a small number of franchises for regular release and every time a new Fable was announced I kept thinking surely Pete doesn’t want to do nothing but run some old ideas into the ground.

The push towards non-innovative Kinect titles – i.e. bye bye Milo and Kate hello Wii Sports rip offs and dancing titles – can’t have been attractive nor gratifying for him either.

@17: His famous quote about the “second wave of Kinect titles” being more aimed at the Core certainly hasn’t appeared. You could be right in him being undermined there.

He has great visions that often couldnt translate into games. Hopefully something like Milo n Kate is coming to the next box.

I asked him about Milo and he did talk to me about it, but MS PR stopped us and moved us back onto Fable. Peter said they get very twitchy about it.

Here’s how I think it went down:

Microsoft: “Hey, you’re a pretty neat guy, Petey! You should totally be our Creative Director ‘n’ stuff!”

Peter: “Um, sure. I could do that. Why not?”

Microsoft: “Awesome! Let’s get some more Fable on!”

Peter: “Well, actually, I’ve been thinking about some other pretty interesting concepts lately…”

Microsoft: “MOAR FABLE NAAAOOOOO!”

Peter: [sigh]

@20: Oh dear. Surely if he was that close to leaving he should’ve just told them to fuck off?!

Extremely unprofessional and would’ve burned all bridges but it would’ve been funny.

With his tendency to… exaggerate *cough*lie*cough* about his games, i’d be interested in reading his CV. It probably says he ran Microsoft.

I doubt it.

@7 “Something must have gone wrong”.
One word: Microsoft.

@22 He’s a cool guy and a decent person (at least that’s my external impression of him, I wish I could know him better), he would never shoo them even if he had already left.
He could have thought it, but he’d never tell it.

Cool. Maybe Lionhead studios will make good games from now on.

Holy mother gosh! Things are getting really interesting. I want to say he could make anything on par with his Bullfrog days but Black & White and The Movies shut my mouth.

Wish him the best. I just hope Lionhead doesn’t become the next Rare (Avatary / crap factory) after this.

@27 I agree, it’d be nice to see if Lionhead can still release quality material after this. That said, Microsoft seems to be the ruiner of good development studios. Bungie, Rare, now Lionhead – all examples of studios that have been almost entirely put to pasture after joining Microsoft’s stable.

Bullfrog > Lionhead > Borg resource. Leading to becoming another one Microsoft used for a name to conjure with, churned up and spat out.

I have a lot of appreciation for Molyneux’s approach demeanor and attitude, and he has achieved a lot. I respect him for that. I wish him all the best. I’d sooner see enthusiasm, than empty PR spiel. He tries, and looks forwards, and that’s an example I can only hope will be followed, or at least learned from.

What a pity MS reckon their UK studios are only capable of creating experiences for Kinect. Real shame.

Only 343 Industries are treated with any kind of respect by Microsoft Game Studios.

Molyneux went from Bullfrog to EA to MS. His pompous attitude, constant over promising and under delivering is what made their games go from the likes of Populous and Theme Parks to late Fable.

#28, troll harder.

Well well… Good luck Mr Molyneux…

i really hope he stays in the business! i got a soft spot for this guy. i enjoyed fable 1 and 2 a lot…3 was a let down though. he´s good for western game development. he must continue working. wish him all the best and me that there will be more awesome molyneux games to play in the near future.

Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Black en White, Fable , Fable 2 , Fable 3 , Fable Journey…

See where i’m going at? It’s not just Microsoft, that’s just nonsense. Molyneux has always been a big talker. Sure, very entertaining and always sounding ambitious, but probably a bit TOO ambitious. Look at what he promised for Fable 1. And i remember interviews of him about Fable 3, promising some incredible features and the featurs that did make it…they just didn’t feel revolutionary or incredibly special at all. Just very simplistic and what not.

I don’t think any of that has to do with Microsoft, it has to do with a developer that talks just a bit too much and promises a bit too much.

Oh and

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-01-key-fable-staff-leave-lionhead-to-form-new-studio

And it was NOT Microsoft…read this!!!

http://forum.xboxworld.nl/showpost.php?p=4566373&postcount=46

Maybe now we’ll get some advancements in the next Fable…

so what does this mean for fable 4 happening, i mean without molyneux shooting his mouth off about it can we really say its a true fable game, cause for me half the fun of a fable game is see if it actually does any of the things that peter says it’ll do, though i wish him the best, i hope though that fable doesn’t wind up being turn into a useless series of kids games and god awful kinect apps…….. um sorry forgot it already has with the journey and heroes, btw heroes to me seems sort like a rip off of legend of zelda four swords and smash bros. just has that vibe

Fable has/had the potential to grow into a game like The Witcher, but it turned into something completely else.

Without third party, Microsoft would be out of the game.
Neither Nintendo nor Sony rely so heavily on external develpement for AAA titles.
Why is that?

What’s this ridiculous ‘creative consultant’ position? Come on celebrity developers, if you want to leave do it flambouyantly!

Leave the project in a huff, and maybe fud a few lines of code before you leave, and block the toilets with toilet roll on your way out.

Where’s the drama!?

First Ueda, now Molyneux. Cut the project loose!

P.S Hi guys!

Hopefully he can go back to making some sweet God Sim games.

1+ for gamers and the internet, no more bullshit whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo NOOOWWWW stay out of the gaming industry you shit talker.