Molyneux: If developer talent were celebrated "maybe we wouldn’t have so many sequels"

Peter Molyneux, one of the industry's best known names, has said there aren't enough celebrities in gaming.

“Not so long ago, publishers suppressed a lot of the early interesting characters in the games industry,” Molyneux told Bafta Games question time attendees, as reported by Develop.

“We use to have the Bitmap Brothers, and these were quite celebrated people, but it wasn’t in the publisher's interest to celebrate these people. If more of these celebrities were trusted, then maybe we wouldn’t have so many sequels."

Molyneux, who never seems afraid to speak his mind, said a lot of talented developers fail to turn into rockstar types like Cliff Bleszinski or Ken Levine because they're scared of speaking to the media.

“I think what is also true and quite sad is that a lot of the time a lot of developers are incredibly scared of the press," he said.

"One of the most fantastic people I’ve worked with, Louise Murray, head of the Fable franchise, was afraid of the press. You need people who are confident and eloquent enough to deal with the press, but at the moment we don’t have that and it’s very hard to do that."

Molyneux recently left Microsoft Game Studios and Lionhead to pursue an indie development career with new startup 22 Cans; he's been chatting merrily to the press nearly non-stop since then, bless him.