Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Peter Molyneux, who was speaking to IGN about his BAFTA Fellowship win earlier this week, has said he thinks Minecraft is the game of the decade. More accurately, he said this in response to IGN’s suggestion that Minecraft represent a hallmark of a new golden age of gaming: “I think Minecraft’s the best thing I’ve played in the last ten years, and what’s so brilliant about it – and I’ve met Markus and he’s a real inspirational person – he did everything on his own, and I think how brilliant and inspirational that is, to not need the full force of publishers and marketing people. He did everything on his own. I agree with you about it being a golden age – there’s so much choice, and I feel there’s so many opportunities as well.”

The Fable 3 demonstration starts a little late, due to Peter Molyneux being a little too reliant on his SatNav. Which is the sort of thing which strikes me as a workable critique of the “bread-crumb” hand-holding in Fable 2, but we’re probably denying the existence of that non-PC Game. Which is going to make writing about the first public European showing of Fable III, it brings directly to mind its direct prequel.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m currently recovering from what East Coast Rail laughably calls a train journey from Newcastle to London, but is in fact three hours of sweatbox hell on a locomotive where they’ve taken the time to install wifi but felt air conditioning was an obscene luxury. I was in Newcastle for the GameHorizon conference, which is very much a business thing, but was also attended by the likes of Mark Rein, Charles Cecil and, the man I’m about to quote at length, Peter Molyneux. Here’s what he thinks of his own back catalogue.
Read the rest of this entry »

Rumours are afoot that Fable III may be making its way to the PC. During Lionhead head Peter Molyneux’s GDC chat with Gamespot yesterday, he referred to “platforms” for the new game in the plural, and that doesn’t really leave a lot of options. The Microsoft-owned developer is not particularly likely to aid their competition with a PS3 or Wii version (although you’d have to think a Wii port of the Fable series would be a 400ft golden egg-laying goose made of diamonds), which leaves the PC as the only viable Microsoft-supported place for the game to be. The original Fable made it to the PC after a lengthy delay, although Fable II stayed exclusively on the wheezing white crate. You can see him drop the hint on the video we’ve tucked in below. And even more clues too.

Read the rest of this entry »

VG247 have been talking to shy and reclusive game developer Peter Molyneux about Lionhead’s ambitions. They want to tell the greatest story ever. The developer said:

“The greatest story ever told? I think it’s going to be in a computer game. And I think that if I play the greatest story ever told in the same game as you play it, your greatest story is going to be different to my greatest story. And that is power.”

Blimey. I hate stories, me. Just give me a box of toys. But what about you?

I’ve spent the week doing a couple of short, if dense interviews with major gaming figures for the Guardian Online. First one’s up, where I talk to Peter Molyneux about the idea of name-creators, why there hasn’t been a refresh of them for a long time, where they may arise and why he hopes they do arrive. The quote the Guardian chose to open on: “I’ve been credited unduly”.

One of the more interesting sessions at this year’s GDC was entirely off-campus. Dave Perry invited a load of chums to lunch, with a select press audience. Present were people like Raph Koster, Peter Molyneux, EA’s Neil Young, Chris Taylor, Dave Perry and some bloke from Sony. And then they all had a good chin-wag. Annoyingly, Rossignol was present – as he’s never going to shut up about it – and has written up the session for Videogaming247. In it, he says things like…

This led Phil Harrison to point out that games are taking too long to make. “The speed of iteration has to change,” said the Sony giant. Koster argued that games were shamed by the web, whose speed of iteration of web-sites was lightening fast. “Flickr patches every half hour!” he exclaimed.

I suspect more from the session will emerge over the coming weeks, but in the mean time, Next Gen have some quotes over here.