Peter Molyneux Interview: "I haven’t got a reputation in this industry any more"

When Peter Molyneux agreed to speak to me, I knew the interview was going to be tense. I knew that an article we'd posted on Monday, asking what was going on with the development of Godus, had kicked up an enormous storm for 22cans and its boss, with the rest of the gaming press picking up and running with it. So I assumed, when he agreed to chat, he knew that it wasn't going to be a smooth ride. I wanted to get to the root of so much that now seems to form the reputation of the developer, the outlandish promises that so often aren't kept, the ridiculous time-frames claimed, and the often disappointing or lacklustre results. I especially wanted to do this now that the people funding such things aren't deep-pocketed publishers, but the players themselves. I wasn't expecting it to take us in the direction of Molyneux's declaring that I was "driving him out of the games industry".

We spoke on the phone on Wednesday evening, Molyneux speaking from the Guildford offices of his studio, 22cans. Sounding stressed, but composed, Molyneux asked how I'd like to begin, whether I had questions, or should I just let him talk. I told him I had questions, many questions, and so we began.

RPS: Do you think that you're a pathological liar?

Peter Molyneux: That's a very...

RPS: I know it's a harsh question, but it seems an important question to ask because there do seem to be lots and lots of lies piling up.

Peter Molyneux: I'm not aware of a single lie, actually. I'm aware of me saying things and because of circumstances often outside of our control those things don't come to pass, but I don't think that's called lying, is it? I don't think I've ever knowingly lied, at all. And if you want to call me on one I'll talk about it for sure.

RPS: During the Kickstarter for Godus you stated, regarding that you don't want to use a publisher stating, "It'll just be you and our unbridled dedication (no publishers)." And five months later you signed with a publisher.

Peter Molyneux: Absolutely. And at that time I wish we had raised enough money to not need a publisher.

RPS: But you got more than you asked--

Peter Molyneux: We could have gone and we were asked to by publishers to publish the Steam version, but we turned that down. The economics of doing Godus, unfortunately Kickstarter didn't raise enough money. Now the trouble is with Kickstarter, you don't really fully know how much money you need and I think most people who do Kickstarter would agree with me here. You have an idea, you think you need this much, but as most people will say with Kickstarter, if you ask for too much money up front because of the rules of Kickstarter, it's very, very hard to ask for the complete development budget. I think Double Fine have gone back and asked for more money because development is a very, very, it's a very confusing and bewildering time, and it's very hard to predict what will happen.

RPS: Yes, but you know that. You've been working in the industry for over thirty years, you know how much money it costs to make a game and you put a specific amount--

Peter Molyneux: No, I don't, I disagree John. I have no idea how much money it costs to make a game and anyone that tells you how much it's going to cost to make a game which is completely a new experience is a fool or a genius.

RPS: But you have to have enough experience to know the basics of budgeting a videogame, you've been doing it for thirty years!

Peter Molyneux: No, I disagree. See this is where you're wrong. I think even Hollywood struggles. Lots of films go over budget. I'll give you an example, I had some repair works done to my house, they went over budget by 50%. I said exactly the same thing. Anything that involves creativity, you may think it should be a defined process, but it's not. And the reason that it's not a defined process is that the people who work on it aren't robots, and you can't predict whether someone is going to be brilliant and you give them a piece of code to do and they do it in a day, or whether they're going to take a month to do it, and that's the problem with creativity. Being creative is a very, very unpredictable force, and you try your best. You try your best to predict these things but very often you can be wrong. And I have been wrong. Every single project I have ever done, and people know this, every single project I have done, I have been wrong about the times. And I've been very honest about that. And the only time I have absolutely stuck to my dates was on Fable 3 and I shouldn't have done that. I should have gone back and asked for more time.

RPS: I understand budgets can go--

Peter Molyneux: I'm running a business and god I wish to god that I could predict the time and I can assure you every single person has worked their ass off to try to make this game as quickly and effectively as they possibly can and everybody here is incredibly dedicated and still is. I mean, the Godus team were here at half past eight last night. We try as hard as we can to get things right the first time, to get a feature right the first time, we try to implement things that are going to be effective, but when you're creating something new it's almost impossible, John. Here's the thing: this is what I truly believe. Making a computer game that's entertaining and that's incredible and that's amazing is almost impossible, it's almost impossible to do.

RPS: I recognise that things go over budget, obviously they do. What you said at the start was that you didn't make enough money from the Kickstarter. You set an amount you want to make, you made about £100k more than that, you took over a half a million pounds of people's money, knowing it wasn't going to be enough to make the game.

Peter Molyneux: Well, I think if you talk to anyone, and this is the advice I have given to people about Kickstarter, is to not ask for too much. You cannot unfortunately ask for the actual amount you need. Because you don't really know. This is how I based my assumption of what money we needed. We had started implementing Godus, we were working on a prototype that was really going well. I thought, 'Oh, this looks pretty good.' I asked everybody here, how long do you think we'll need to develop the game in full. We all agreed that nine months was about the right amount of time to complete the game. We did the due diligence on it. We asked ourselves if there were any technical questions and it all seemed to make sense. This wasn't me just plucking a date out of the air.

The reality came along when we chose our middleware, we had problems with the middleware. When we started implementing some of the features that were on paper, they just didn't work. Now I wish that every single idea you ever had when you're developing a game works first time, but they don't. When we first released Godus in May, to some of the pledgers, we had taken an approach to this thing called the timeline and it just didn't work. People were just not motivated by it. We went back to the drawing board on that. What I'm trying to say without going through every sort of, every bad story about development, when you're creating something new, it's like walking through a foggy forest. You're never sure if you're taking the wrong route or the right route.

I know you can call on me, John, 'Oh you've got thirty years, surely you know what to do,' but I would say that anybody who is creating something new and original and different, which Godus is, it's almost impossible to ask for the right time, and in the end the amount of money that we have spent on making Godus is far, far exceeded what we got on Kickstarter. Far, far exceeded. Because you got to remember on Kickstarter, although we got £100k more than what we asked for, after Kickstarter take their cut, after paying VAT, you have to pay off after completing all the pledges, it's far less than that. You do the maths, it's that simple - you can do this math, we had 22 people here. If you take the average salary for someone in the industry, which must be about £30k, that's 22 people, multiplied by £30k, divided by 12. You work out how many months Kickstarter money gives us.

We saw this coming, in around about March, end of March time. I knew by that time that the game was not going as it should have gone. I could have gone back to my pledges and asked for more money, but instead I went to a publisher and just signed up the mobile rights. Not the Steam rights, even though that would have made our life a lot easier to sign the Steam rights and we did have companies after us for the PC and the console rights. We ringfenced that and just did the mobile version and there were other reasons, but the money they gave us upfront far exceeded the money that we got off Kickstarter. And that was the business decision that you have to take, because you have to make these sacrifices both personally and professionally in the sake of making a great game.

RPS: You asked for less money on Kickstarter than you knew you were going to need because you didn't want to ask for too much money.

Peter Molyneux: No, I didn't say that. I asked for a sensible amount. If I was a sensible business man, then you would probably have a 100% contingency. That is the way that you run a business, is you would have contingency, and I would have to say in the Kickstarter campaign, we need one and a half million, because we want a 100% contingency in case something goes wrong. Now that is problematic if you're a backer and anyway, if you go back to the Kickstarter time, people were already very... They'd been quite fractious that I was going on Kickstarter anyway. There was a lot of negative press about, you know 'Why does Peter Molyneux need to go on Kickstarter?', 'Why is he doing it, Kickstarter isn't for people like him.' I think most people if you speak to about Kickstarter will say, don't set your price too high, and make sure that every penny you ask for is justified. And asking for an additional five hundred thousand for a 100% contingency is something that's hard to justify, especially in those times.

The problem with Kickstarter is that if you get to day thirty and you don't make your pledged amount, which we got to like three days before our cut off, before we hit our pledged amount, then you don't get anything. Then all that work and all that effort and all that exposure and all the hangovers that Kickstarter have, the biggest one is that takes the fire out of any excitement you can generate in the press, has been used up and you haven't got any money. I'm not saying that in a perfect ideal world, everybody would go on Kickstarter and probably say the same as I did, as I do now. You go on and and you say, "We think it's going to cost us nine months to develop, here's the costs, it's 22 people multiplied by the salary, that's how much we need to get, but we're going to ask for double that because we want 100% contingency.' I think that's the way it should be done but I don't know anyone who does that.

RPS: OK, in 2012 Nathan asked for us, what happens if it doesn't get funded? And you said, that you were not doing it for the money, you were doing it to get people's feedback, it was feedback you were really after.

Peter Molyneux: That was one of the main reasons, yeah. I could have gone to January, December/January, I could have used my money I guess, I wouldn't have had enough money, I've already used my money to found the company, and Kickstarter was there and it was an attractive thing to go into, not only to get you funding but it also gave you access to people who were passionate about the game and to help the game. And it was very much a thing of the moment. You only have to do the economics again John to realise that if 22cans doesn't have a publisher, and it doesn't have a VC, and it doesn't share ownership by anybody else, then where's the money going to come from? And it's true, I didn't need the money, because if the Kickstarter didn't work I could have gone to a publisher. I said that in my Kickstarter campaign, and I didn't, we didn't until we actually needed that money, and some people would say, 'You shouldn't leave it so late.' But we know that we did leave it to, not the last moment, but we left it as long as possible. When you see the writing on the wall, you see the writing on the wall.

RPS: The implication is that the PC didn't go to a publisher and all that, but the reality is that you stopped developing the PC version and left it as broken as it is today.

Peter Molyneux: No, we have always said, right from the very start, if you go back through all the videos that Jack and I did, we said exactly this. This was our strategy. Firstly we would release a build, a very, very early build, after just six months, well five months of development, we would release an early build to the backers in May. We did that.

Secondly, we would release a build in Steam Early Access and it would be very very broken. I think we started, I can't remember the start percentage but it was way before 50%. We absolutely did that and then we said very clearly, in every one of our videos, we're going to spend up to Christmas iterating through that and then we're going to go on to the mobile version and then we're going to finish the mobile version and come back to the PC and refine it and polish it and make it the game it should be and that's exactly what we're doing. We're doing precisely that.

And if you look at our front page on Steam, that's what it said. It says 53%, it doesn't say 98%, and the reason it's 53% because we have to, absolutely have to put a story in the game, and that story comes out on Friday to the opt-in branch on Steam.

Then we have to put absolutely amazing, incredible combat, and this is totally unique combat, and the reason this is totally unique combat is that we have to solve one fundamental problem and that is how do you mix an RTS game with a god game. Because the problem is with combat in Godus, is that you've got this world that you can absolutely shape, and you can use all your god powers - we're putting god powers in - you can use all your god powers that are cataclysmic but the wars, the fighting and the battles, have to take place between these little people and that is a real design challenge.

But we are absolutely focusing, the gameplay team - the original gameplay team that was on Godus right from the start - right on Godus now, we're focusing that gameplay team on that feature and we've recruited someone who's got some really amazing ideas on how to do things like ranking, grouping, and group behaviour because that's the trick of the problem here - how are you going to group your troops together? - and we're going to solve that. And we think - and again, I don't know John, and you might think, 'for fucks sake, why don't you know, because you've been in the industry for thirty years,' but I think we'll be done by Easter. And then we can start moving that percentage up.

But we're still not finished because we had multiplayer in the game October of 2013. We took it so far multiplayer, but then we realised that to maintain multiplayer in the game would really slow down development simply because of the way it works, it's all got to be in sync and all that stuff. So after we've done the story, after we've done combat, we'll then go back to multiplayer. And then the percentage will start moving up.

RPS: But do you hear how crazy these times sound? You're talking about things you said you would do in 2013 as if that was just the other day.

Peter Molyneux: But John, every game I've ever worked on has been made--

RPS: So why say it's going to take you seven months to make it when you know it's not?

Peter Molyneux: One thing, Godus will be one of the fastest games I've ever done. If you go back and look at every single game I've ever worked on, ever, other than Fable 3, they've all taken longer than with the exception perhaps of the original Populous. They've all taken longer.

RPS: So why go to people who trust you and trust your reputation and ask them for half a million pounds and say you're going to finish the game in seven months, when you know you're not going to?

Peter Molyneux: Because I absolutely believe that and my team believe that. That's what the creative process is.

RPS: You're asking me to accept that you know you've run late on every game you've ever made but you were going to finish this one in a ludicrous and obviously impossible seven months?

Peter Molyneux: No, I didn't say absolutely we'd be there, I said we'd try to finish it on this time. And why are you beating me up on these dates things? You sound like a publisher.

RPS: It's three years later! People gave you half a million pounds and you've taken their money--

Peter Molyneux: One is, John, you're becoming very emotional, I think firstly you need to take a breath, because if I had walked away from Godus I'd agree with your points, but I haven't walked away from Godus. We are committed to Godus, we are recruiting people to go on to Godus, I have never moved that percentage beyond 52% where it is now.

RPS: How long should backers wait for you to deliver the game they paid for three years ago?

Peter Molyneux: I don't know. All I know is that there are people here that have been working on Godus, that we have worked on Godus for one hundred and twenty thousand man-hours. We have got three terabytes of documentary feature. We've replied to 31,000 posts and tickets. We've done 57 community videos. Do you know how many updates we've done on Steam?

RPS: I don't think anyone who paid for the game cares.

Peter Molyneux: How many updates have we done on Steam?

RPS: I don't think anyone who paid for the game cares. I think they want the game they paid for three years ago or their money back.

Peter Molyneux: We're trying as hard as we possibly can.

RPS: I don't think you are. You’ve said yourself--

Peter Molyneux: John, John, John--

RPS: You said yourself, that you should not have gone and focused on the mobile version until the PC version was finished. This is all very disingenuous in light of you saying that.

Peter Molyneux: No, I actually said, "I wish I hadn't focused on," I didn't say I shouldn't have done.

RPS: [Laughs]

Peter Molyneux: This is the plan that we laid out John. Go back and look at the videos. Go back and look at what we said to the community. Go and talk to the, I've done twelve design Skype talks, we've had the bigger backers, we've taken them over to E3, go talk to those people. Talk to people in the studio, this studio has worked incredibly hard on making something that is totally unique. That's what we're trying to do. And making something totally unique takes time. How long did it take for Minecraft to be final?

RPS: He didn't take anyone's money before making it with promises he didn't keep.

Peter Molyneux: I'm afraid you'll have to check your facts there--

RPS: He sold an alpha, he didn't make any promises.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, and we have absolutely, categorically stayed in Early Access for that exact reason and we have been honest about the percentage that we think the game is finished.

RPS: OK, let's move on. How do you think Bryan Henderson's life has been changed?

Peter Molyneux: Well, Bryan Henderson, we need Bryan Henderson, we need multiplayer to work before his life is changed. He's still going to get what is coming to him, but we need to get through that development. It's very much exactly the same problem

RPS: Your lead developer on Godus said on your forum that, "To be brutally candid and realistic I simply can't see us delivering all the features promised on the Kickstarter page. Lots of the multiplayer stuff is looking seriously shaky right now, especially the persistent stuff like Hubworld."

Peter Molyneux: Well, let me explain that. That was Konrad, and he actually is a backer of Godus.

RPS: A backer who pursued the job at your company because he was so dissatisfied with the state of the game. That's what he said on your forum.

Peter Molyneux: No. That's not the case. He actually joined us before we released the version, so that couldn't have been the case. So Konrad is one of the main architects of multiplayer, and back in late October we - me and Jack - announcing that in November that we would be at last getting through to multiplayer. And Konrad was super excited, we were all super excited, to get on to that. And then in the first week of November our publisher called up and said, well, sorry about this, but the server system that you use called Polargy, we're going to close down and you need to re-write the entirety of your server code that drives Godus under this new system--

RPS: Sorry, you're saying that this is the publisher, but the PC version doesn't have a publisher.

Peter Molyneux: Yes, I know, but you're talking about everyone in the world playing Godus not being able to play Godus any more.

RPS: But you said that the PC version doesn't have a publisher, but the publisher is the reason you had to take away the framework that allowed the multiplayer.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, I know, but John, these things--

RPS: No, I’m asking you to explain--

Peter Molyneux: Why do you-- Why don't you come here for a couple of days, and do your job, and see what goes on here?

RPS: Obviously that's--

Peter Molyneux: Because what you must realise is that doing a game in today's world and a game that's live is a nightmare.

RPS: I know it is. I've visited many studios and I know how difficult your job is. What I'm asking is, you said that the PC version is independent of a publisher, that you turned that down, but you're also saying that the PC version can't have multiplayer because of the publisher.

Peter Molyneux: But this team isn't independent of a publisher. And the people who are playing on mobile, some of them are backers incidentally, aren't independent of a publisher. One of the reasons why we took that publisher on is that they have this server technology which is used to drive the game, which they then drop this bombshell, that we have to change the technology. Unfortunately, this is absolutely true, you can ask the person who did the code here, unfortunately and sadly the team that was going to do multiplayer, then had to switch over and fix that server stuff. That's just what happens in development. And I wish it didn't happen in development, and I wish the world was so simple that you could predict that tomorrow's going to be the same as today, but it's not.

RPS: Just to clarify, five days ago Konrad wrote, "From the minute I played the alpha, I could see the direction Godus was heading in and I didn't like it. It took half a year to develop contact with Peter personally before I was offered a design position, initially unpaid, and then another year working at 22cans to get a position there." So just to be clear he says that he played the alpha and didn't like it and then came to work for you guys.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah. And that's fair enough. And he did something about it.

RPS: No, but you just told me that he started working for you before the alpha came out so that wasn't possible.

Peter Molyneux: I think he had had a temporary-- He certainly came to the studio-- Let me ask. [shouting in background] Konrad!

[in distance] Konrad: Yeah?

Peter Molyneux: When did you first come to 22cans?

Konrad: [inaudible]

Peter Molyneux: December. 2013. Is that-- No, that's not before the alpha.

RPS: No, long after.

Peter Molyneux: I was wrong. But it's not a lie.

RPS: No, but it's frustrating. Let's go back to Bryan Henderson. The Eurogamer story revealed that you ignored him for nearly two years - that's awful. And you've apologised, but how can that even have ever been a thing that happened?

Peter Molyneux: You're right, John. It's wrong. It's one of those things where I thought someone else was handling it and they were. It was someone - and these are excuses, it's pointless me writing these excuses - and I thought they were handling it. They left and I assumed incorrectly that they had handed their handling of Bryan off to someone else and they hadn't.

RPS: But it never crossed your mind to talk to him or anything like that? You were changing his life.

Peter Molyneux: It's terrible, it's wrong, it's bad of me, I shouldn't have, I should have checked on these things, but there is a million things to check on, John, and that one slipped through. There wasn't any intention not to use him, or not to incorporate him, but we needed the technology before doing and I am truly sorry and we are writing a letter of apology to him today.

RPS: OK, but only because Eurogamer chased after you.

Peter Molyneux: They, they, they actually did make me realise that I hadn't checked up on it, it's true. I am a very flawed human being, as you are pointing out, and I totally accept that I'm a flawed human being.

RPS: Everyone's a flawed human being, that's not my point at all.

Peter Molyneux: And when there are thousands of things to check on, you try to rely on your team and this slipped through the net and, you’re right, it shouldn't have done.

RPS: In 2012--

Peter Molyneux: Why would I have ignored him? I mean, why did I do that? It's just incompetence.

RPS: OK. In Rezzed--

Peter Molyneux: I mean, I'm sure you are going to write, 'Peter Molyneux's incompetent', and I am.

RPS: No, look, this is ridiculous. Everyone is a flawed human being. My purpose here is not to hang you out. My purpose is to get to the truth of what's going on here. In Rezzed--

Peter Molyneux: Yeah. I'm giving you-- I mean, I would say, if you really want to get to the truth, come down to the studio.

RPS: At Rezzed in 2012, you said that what's in the middle of the cube is "so valuable, so life-changingly important, I don't want to waste the value of what's inside that cube." Could you have done more to waste it?

Peter Molyneux: Again you're going down a very emotional line. But it's born out of-- when I did Curiosity and I thought of putting into the center of the cube a royalty share of the revenue for Godus, as soon as his role of God of Gods started, I thought that was a pretty good thing. And as soon as that comes to pass and as soon as we've got the technology to do that, I think, he will be getting that money and his reign will last six months and I think it will be an amazing feature.

RPS: OK, so you said that Bryan will be God Of Gods for six months. Just to double-check on this. When we spoke to you on 2012 you told us that it would be a significant amount of time, you estimated five or ten years.

Peter Molyneux: We what?

RPS: You said five or ten years, is what you told us.

Peter Molyneux: For what?

RPS: For being God Of Gods.

Peter Molyneux: No, I've always said that his reign would only last a certain amount of time but the God of Gods role, if Godus continues to be as successful as it is on mobile, could last that long. I mean there are mobile games that are being played now - and there are webgames that are being played now - that are decades old.

RPS: Let me quote, you said: "By the way, there would need to be enough time to make it meaningful for him in every sense of the word, but we could make it five years, we could make it ten years. I think I wanted before--"

Peter Molyneux: And then later on I came out and said it would be six months. And I said that again and again. What are you trying to do? You're trying to prove that I'm a pathological liar, I suppose, aren't you.

RPS: I'm trying to establish that you don't tell the truth.

Peter Molyneux: Let me just ask you one question. Do you think from the line of questioning you're giving me, that this industry would be better without me?

RPS: I think the industry would be better without your lying a lot.

Peter Molyneux: I don't think I lie.

RPS: Let me just quote you from the Pocket Gamer--

Peter Molyneux: Well no, and and-- Yeah, OK, you can carry on quoting me. Obviously I can see your headline now--

RPS: I don't think you can see my headline now.

Peter Molyneux: Well I think I can.

RPS: What I want to get out of this--

Peter Molyneux: What you're almost going to get out of this is driving me out of the industry.

RPS: No, what I want--

Peter Molyneux: And well done John, well done! And if that's what you want, you're going about it completely the right way.

RPS: If you were to be driven out of the industry it would be as a result of your own actions. I've done nothing but quote back things you've said and done.

Peter Molyneux: No [inaudible] me being hounded, which is what you're doing.

RPS: I'm quoting back things that you--

Peter Molyneux: I must have given about fifty thousand hours of interviews and I'm sure if you go back over all of them you could-- The only result of this is, I've already withdrawn mostly from the press, I'm just going to withdraw completely from the press.

[Since this interview was recorded, Peter Molyneux has done at least two other interviews with press on the same subject, including one with The Guardian which he says will be his last.]

RPS: I've done nothing in this interview but quote back things you have said and done.

Peter Molyneux: Yes, I know, and you can-- I'm sure-- We're talking 50,000 hours of interview and there's going to be mistakes. Most of these things you've said are mistakes, and most of these things that you have said are coming from the mouth of someone that believes. I believe everything that I've said. That's what I've said in countless interviews. I believe. I believed that Godus would take nine months. To be honest with you, if you told me back then it would take two, three years, I probably would have said, 'Oh god, we probably won't do Godus then.' I believe that. If you think that I've got some sort of Machiavellian plan, of trying to hide the truth from people why would I do that? Why would I do that? We are committed to, we've used all the Kickstarter money, we're still committed to doing a great version on PC.

RPS: My original question was--

Peter Molyneux: Why isn't that enough? If you think that we're a bit shit for taking too long, then fair enough. I don't know what you get out of this line of questioning.

RPS: My first question wasn't, 'Are you a Machiavellian and spiteful liar', it was 'Are you a pathological liar?' It was, do you say stuff that isn't true without meaning to?

Peter Molyneux: Like anybody that is in the business of creating something that doesn't exist, I say things that I believe is true, that very often don't come true and sometimes do come true.

RPS: But you agree though that you do have the reputation, the mock Twitter accounts, all these things, you have this reputation over many years of saying things that are outlandish and impossible.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, and my answer to that nowadays is to not do any press any more. You may have noticed, or you may have not as it doesn't really matter, that I'm doing a few little conferences but I'm not going to GDC, because I'm not doing anything. I think, you know, I think, a lot of people have turned round and have said that we don't want to listen to your lies, even though they're not lies. They're coming from someone who truly believes and I truly believe that the combat in Godus will be brilliant and I truly believe that it should take around three months to do. But maybe it won't take three months or maybe it'll need iterating more. You cannot find anybody in this industry more passionate than me, John.

RPS: OK so--

Peter Molyneux: I literally work sixteen hours a day. I literally work sixteen hours a day. I don't do that just to lie to people, I do it because I believe I'm doing. I totally believe in what I'm trying to make. Yeah, and you can rile the backers up and get them to ask for their money back and you can say, 'Oh, you've broken your promises,' but I'm still doing it. I'm still working on it. I'm still putting every ounce of my energy. I'm still not going to my son's play because I had to work on Godus. I'm still getting shouted at by my wife because I'm not home. Do you know what time I got home last night? Two-thirty in the morning.

RPS: I don't--

Peter Molyneux: Do you know what I was doing? I was dealing with the shit that all of this has come up, rather than working on Godus.

RPS: But--

Peter Molyneux: I'm someone, I'm defined by what I do in this industry and I love it so much. And, you know, it emotionally hurts me to have someone like yourself be so angry with me and really all I want to do is make a great game. That's all I've ever wanted to do.

RPS: Do you think you can make a great game?

Peter Molyneux: I think I can try.

RPS: But do you think you can achieve it?

Peter Molyneux: You've gotta try, man! There's one thing that I would love more than anything else, in my life, I'd love in a years time for that percentage on Steam to be 100%. And I'd love to talk to you John and have you say, 'I understand why it took another year.' And the only way I'm going to do that, I'm not going to do that by spinning people, and I know that none of this would have come to pass if I had spun the press, I could spin the press. I could have gone on and I could have explained about the delays and I could have done all sorts of interviews but I thought, 'No, the only way I'm going to do this is to prove it.' And I'm going to prove it by making a great game. But everything we do here, and everyone here, I can promise you, that's why you should come here John, and you should see that--

RPS: I don't doubt for a moment that you work very hard, it's very obvious that you do work very hard, and I imagine your team works extremely hard, but that's not really relevant.

Peter Molyneux: Well, I think it is absolutely relevant. Is it relevant that someone like myself, with the reputation that I have, two years ago predicted a date that was wrong, is that really relevant? What is relevant is, is there going to be a great game at the end of this?

RPS: But do you understand that most people now don't think there is?

Peter Molyneux: The very fact that I'm talking to you. It would be so easy for me to say, 'No comment.' I truly care, I truly care about the backers, I truly care what everyone does. We have, we have tried. We have done 207 updates. We've gone way beyond what we, some of the things we said in Kickstarter. We've given the community tools to edit the game. We never said that in Kickstarter.

RPS: That's great but there's lots of things you say in Kickstarter that you haven't done. Do you think in two and a half years--

Peter Molyneux: Yet! Yet. That we haven't done yet. There is one Kickstarter promise that I am very worried about but all the rest are going to get done.

RPS: Which is Linux. You made it a stretch goal; that was pretty shitty of you, wasn't it, when you know you couldn't do it?

Peter Molyneux: No, it wasn't shitty of us. If you look at Kickstarter campaigns a lot of people do this, and at that time, you know, Linux seemed more than possible, and we're waiting for an update from Marmalade to do Linux and they just haven't supplied it. At that time, it was on the cards for them to develop. They haven't developed it. And us going back and re-writing the whole of the middleware is, would mean that the development of Godus would stop. We've considered it. But you know, it's months of work.

RPS: Do you think a year and a half, to two years on, after the estimated deliveries on Kickstarter for things like, an art book and various other pledge items that don't exist, do you think at this point people can get their money back?

Peter Molyneux: Admittedly we should have done--

RPS: So do you think people can get their money back at this point?

Peter Molyneux: The excuse and, the excuse, and it is an excuse and I'll put my hand up to it and we are going to make it now, the excuse is that we hadn't finished the game. So you can't do-- it wasn't an art book, it was a making of book, and we haven't finished the game. But you know, Jack has got three terabytes of footage and we have now got someone called Connor who is going to be working on that book. Which is, we'll probably have that out pretty soon.

[It needs to be noted that in the prominent Kickstarter pledge levels, from £199, a “GODUS design/art book” is listed, and not a “making of book”. However, in the graphics at the bottom of the page, it is instead described as a “making of book”.]

RPS: OK but do you not think after this much time that people paid money for a product they haven't received. Do they at this point deserve their money back - isn't that just basic business?

Peter Molyneux: No. Because they didn't buy a product.

RPS: The pledge rewards were certainly a product. Kickstarter's terms and conditions are explicit that you have to provide those pledge rewards.

Peter Molyneux: But you can't make a Making Of book till the game's finished, can you?

RPS: Well, no, but at the same time, because you haven't supplied the product that was paid for, should you not give people their money back?

Peter Molyneux: No, what you're saying is what I should have done--

RPS: No, I'm asking should you give the money back, I'm asking nothing but, should they get their money back now?

Peter Molyneux: I don't think we're finished developing yet.

RPS: They paid for a product, they waited two years, it still hasn't shown up. Should they get their money back?

Peter Molyneux: They didn't pay for a product. That's not what Kickstarter--

RPS: I'm not talking about Godus, I'm talking about the pledge rewards. For whatever reason, it doesn't matter why they can't be finished, they paid for it, they paid at a certain pledge level. They could have pledged ten quid and got the game, which they've got, but they pledged a hundred or whatever it was in order to get certain items they've not received. Should they not-- isn't it basic business, that they should get their money back?

Peter Molyneux: No. Because they've received an awful lot of pledges already.

RPS: No, the people who haven't. The people who haven't received their pledge rewards that they've paid--

Peter Molyneux: You're talking as if they haven't received anything, but they have.

RPS: People paid specific amounts of money to receive specific pledge rewards that they haven't received. Do they not therefore deserve to receive their money back?

Peter Molyneux: No, they deserve an explanation as to why they haven't got them yet. Maybe they would deserve their money back if we announced that we weren't doing something. But we haven't announced that.

RPS: Why did it take my writing an article about the fact these things don't exist for you to get round to start making them?

Peter Molyneux: I'll tell you why, John. Because we're so fucking busy trying to make this game a great game. Everybody here, every single person here is doing something on the game, with the exception of Michelle, and even Michelle who is the office administrator is now acting as a producer to help out. And someone called Peter Murphy who is the finance director. Everyone else is programming, doing art, coding, doing concept drawings, testing, and there isn't, there's not, we're not a big enough company to have someone who looks after the pledges. We did have someone like that and unfortunately they left and went and left the industry. And you know, maybe if we had more money than anybody else, we'd employ lots of support people to handle that. We're just a small indie developer. If I was Electronic Arts then, fair enough, justified, because they've got the infrastructure. You know I think something like 80% of their people are support people and only 20% people are actually people who produce stuff, who make code and art.

That's the reason why. Is that right? No. I could spend a day a week going on to boards and answering the boards and I could spend half my day doing it. Christ knows how that would work. I mean, I've got absolutely zero free time as it is. We won't see me, John, going round schmoozing and taking five days to go to GDC. I don't have a social life.

RPS: You tweeted the other day about how much you were enjoying luxuries of the Mayfair Hotel.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, the Mayfair Hotel, which I went up there because a friend gave me a free, a free suite in the Mayfair Hotel which I didn't pay for at all, and the reason I was up there was that I had a meeting that finished at 1 o'clock in the morning and then I had a start in the next morning that I went to Casual Connect it was, and I actually met two people - two people - which I helped out charity stuff in the morning. One at 8:30 in the morning, this guy who just got funding from the Welsh council, and one kid from Westminster college who wanted some advice. You can-- I'll tell you what, this is what we'll do John, I'll put you on Find A Friend, on Apple, and you can see exactly where I am every moment of my day.

RPS: OK, honestly Peter, I don't have an Apple product and I don't want to know where you are at any time.

Peter Molyneux: You're questioning this, you ask anybody in this studio, I am the first to arrive in the morning and I am the last to leave--

RPS: I'm not denying that you work hard, I'm just saying that you are going to events. It's silly to say that you're not going to events.

Peter Molyneux: You just accused me of holidaying in the Mayfair Hotel!

RPS: No, I'm not, I'm just pointing out that you were there for Casual Connect, you do go to events.

Peter Molyneux: No, I was there for one night and one night only.

RPS: Sure, but, OK. It was just an odd point, you were saying you don't go to events and you went to one last week. It just seemed an odd--

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, and I could have spent-- I was over in Amsterdam, great place to spend some time, isn't it? You'd think I'd take just a couple of days extra just to spend it in the coffee shops. I flew in there, I landed at 11 o'clock at night, I went and I did my talk, and I was back in the office by 6 o'clock in the evening. I am completely dedicated to what I do.

RPS: Me too. I work very hard too. We all work very hard too.

Peter Molyneux: Let's carry on going. Let's make me more depressed.

RPS: Do the student forums exist?

Peter Molyneux: The student forums, we set up, I went up to Teeside University, I did a talk, and then the volume of traffic on those student forums got so low because they were all going to the main forums, we stopped it. If there's enough interest in the students forums, we'll start it up again.

RPS: Did you provide anyone with support and advice on those forums? The pledge said that you would provide people with feedback on their games and advice for students?

Peter Molyneux: Yes, we did twelve one-hour sessions where we went through people's games, I've actually got their art on the wall here, and we went through people's games, we went through their designs. Konrad was actually one of those people. Yesterday, in fact, I went to school, a local school, and was helping kids out with their games designs, so yes.

RPS: That's great. That's brilliant.

Peter Molyneux: What are you doing at the moment John? You're trying to find any crack you can to actually destroy us. That's what this article is going to do, isn't it?

RPS: I think I've found enough cracks already. I think what I've done there is fill in one, that's brilliant news. I'm really glad that that existed and that you did it and that's good.

Peter Molyneux: Well what cracks have you found?

RPS: [laughs] I think with the whole conversation.

Peter Molyneux: No, I've admitted that I get dates wrong, I always have got dates wrong. So that's not much of a crack. We've had the student forum, and we started them and closed them down because people weren't using them. I'm absolutely happy to start them up again. I've admitted my mistake on Bryan. The Making Of book we are going to do now but really it should be done at the end. So where's your big 'Watergate'?

RPS: I don't think there's a Watergate. You've got this bizarre agenda for me that I don't have. If I have any agenda, if I have any goal to come out of this, it would be for you to commit to not continue this cycle of making promises that you can't keep.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, I'm totally committed. You, are one of the people, that will drive me out of any press interviews at all. I have done any press interviews--

RPS: Apart from the one to Eurogamer on Monday.

Peter Molyneux: [inaudible ] --about Hololens, you're not going to have me.

RPS: You spoke to Eurogamer and Gamespot on Monday so that was a couple of interviews.

Peter Molyneux: It wasn't Monday. It was Eurogamer and Gamespot because of the article you put forward.

RPS: That was Monday, yes.

Peter Molyneux: Was it Monday?

RPS: Yes. So there was press interviews that you recently did, you say that you don't do them any more, you quite readily do them.

Peter Molyneux: This is not me doing press, this is me reacting to the press. I'm not going to generate any press articles. You go back and have a look. I used to phone up press and I used to invite press into the studio, we don't do that any more.

RPS: Do you not--

Peter Molyneux: Because people like yourself have said, 'don't overpromise.' OK, I won't overpromise, because I won't talk. When was the last time that you saw an article about a game that we're doing?

RPS: I saw that you made an announcement about The Trail at an event in November.

Peter Molyneux: Yes, I made an announcement about The Trail and I said nothing about it.

RPS: Well, you kind of talked ambiguously about social media and--

Peter Molyneux: I didn't give dates about it or anything. I now want to step away from the press because you know, that seems to be the only solution to the problem that you're putting forward. You said, categorically, ‘I want you to stop overpromising. I want you to be like a PR person is’. And my answer to that is, 'OK John, fine, I won't talk about my development process, I won't talk about my games.' That's what I'm going to do! There you go, you got what you wanted.

RPS: But do you not see that asking you-- There's a massive gap between not overpromising and taking your ball and going home. There's a huge gap between the two, which could be talking more sensibly and calmly about these things.

Peter Molyneux: Oh, so you want me to talk calmly? You don't want me to--

RPS: I don't want you to hype up people so they spend money on products and are excited to get things that they don't get.

Peter Molyneux: And that's exactly what I haven't done for the last twelve months.

[It’s important to note that Molyneux has done plenty of interviews promoting Godus over the last twelve months.]

RPS: OK, but you haven't had a game to do that with.

Peter Molyneux: I've spoken to people about HoloLens and when people have spoken me up. I haven't tried to sell you Godus.

RPS: I don't blame you given the state it's been in. But that's the point, you haven't had anything to sell for twelve months, of course you haven't.

Peter Molyneux: I did exactly that if you go back and you have a look at what I did in Fable 1 and Fable 2 when the dates were moved, I then hyped all the press up, so I'm not doing that any more.

RPS: No no, and everyone--

Peter Molyneux: You've got what you want, haven't you John? You just don't want me around.

RPS: Listen, that's a ridiculous thing to say. I'm saying that of course you haven't done any promotional press in the last twelve months, you haven't had anything to promote for twelve months.

Peter Molyneux: Yes I have. Of course I have!

RPS: What?

Peter Molyneux: There've been 207 releases on Steam.

RPS: And the reviews of those releases--

Peter Molyneux: There's been the iOS version and the Android version. I could have hyped those. There's been the total change around of the timeline in the game, I could have hyped those. I would have hyped those in the old days. Jesus Christ, I kept the development of Black & White going in the press for four years.

RPS: And especially with Black & White 2, people were disappointed when they spent money on the game based on the things you had promised.

Peter Molyneux: Oh my God, you really have got it in. You really don't like the stuff that I've done.

RPS: No, I love some of your games. Absolutely adore some of your games.

Peter Molyneux: [skeptical] Really? And which ones were those.

RPS: Yes! Populous was wonderful, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, wonderful, wonderful entire industry-changing games for which I have massive respect and admiration.

Peter Molyneux: Right. They were all late.

RPS: I'm not complaining--!

Peter Molyneux: Dungeon Keeper, do you know what I had to do-- Maybe this will give you an insight. Even though I was working at Electronic Arts, I paid to finish Dungeon Keeper at Electronic Arts, because they wanted to force me to finish the product a year early. I said no, take the team to my house, the whole team went to my house and we worked slavishly hard on the game and finished it. That's, you know--

RPS: Do you not see the difference between being late for a publisher and being late for half a million pounds that gamers gave you?

Peter Molyneux: Well the publisher gives you-- I could have said that the game was finished a year ago. But I didn't. Why didn't I? Ask yourself that. Why didn't I just say, oh the game's finished?

RPS: Because I think that would have been the end of your reputation if you put out a game that bad a year ago.

Peter Molyneux: I haven't got a reputation in this industry any more.

RPS: Why do you think that is?

Peter Molyneux: I mean, I don't think I have. Every time, at the moment the way it works is that every time I say anything it's leapt on. You know, I said the thing about HoloLens and that all went into, 'Oh, Peter said don't overpromise," and you know, I just feel that the press as it is at the moment on, that sort of press is just a place I'm no longer in. And it's hugely sad for me, but you won't see me at GDC, you won't see me at E3. So you just won't see me at those things. I just feel quite introverted these days, comparatively so very introverted.

RPS: You seem to be trying to blame the press for that rather than the press merely holding you to account--

Peter Molyneux: No, I'm not blaming the press at all, I'm not blaming the press at all. I was held to account. I didn't announce that I was withdrawing myself, I just withdrew myself. Everybody said, 'oh, you keep overpromising, you keep overpromising,' and I said right, OK, fine. My answer to this-- I have the sort of personality that finds it very, very difficult when faced with members of the press, and talking about my game, to be, not to get excited. I've tried to do that. I tried to do that at Microsoft and I had an army of PR people trying to suppress me but it's very difficult in my personality. So my answer was a year ago, well, I'm going to stop. I'll just quietly withdraw and that's what I've done. And I just feel like doing it more, because if it means that people don't hound me, and I have been hounded.

I mean, if you go back in time, and you look at all the press interviews, and you look at the Kickstarter campaign, there have been mistakes. And you can put that in the headline right now. But I am still dedicated and this team, especially the gameplay team, not the GUI team, and not the graphics team, is still dedicated to making Godus a great game. And it's going to take another six months. And that is the absolute truth of the matter.

RPS: OK so we should probably--

Peter Molyneux: There have been many many times, many times in my career where I said things I shouldn't have said about acorns and oak trees and dogs and god knows what else. But I promise you John, I only said them because at that time I truly believed them.

RPS: Do you think you wanted them to be true rather than believed they were true?

Peter Molyneux: I think a lot of times, especially a few years ago, I would say things almost as I thought things, and the team used to really get aggressive, that they would say, 'Oh god Peter, this is the first time we know that we're going to have this feature in the game.' And then the other side of the equation, which is just as bad, is that I would tell the press and often show the press when they've only just been implemented without thought to the consequences of them making it into the final game. But this is what-- Years ago, and over the years, I think I was one of the developers that showed the stuff that was being made as it was being made. Not like, a publisher, they were always into the shock and awe. Microsoft tried to get me to be like this, which is, Peter, wait until the game's finished and then do press, but I always loved-- and it was a passion and a love, sharing with the press, you know, what development was going on.

We had pretty much every journalist in the studio and looking round and meeting with us and that's the way that that world used to work and now, that side of development has completely gone off, so now we're developing The Trail and we're not going to say anything, at all. Anything at all, until this game is released on Steam Early Access.

RPS: OK, can we just clarify one thing. A number of sites have reported this week that the Godus team has been hugely reduced, there's very few people left working on it, but you've implied that the whole of 22cans is working on it. Where's the truth in that?

Peter Molyneux: No, I didn't say that.

RPS: Sorry, I misunderstood you then.

Peter Molyneux: Here's the thing. When a developer, a programmer or an artist has been working on something for a long time, they often, especially younger people and most of the people who have left are younger people, they want to broaden their horizons. And that indeed, a few people did that. On the production side, there was Gemma, and Christine, and Matt, and they were super busy when we were releasing the Android version and the iOS version, but after we finished those the writing was on the wall and they looked around for other jobs. All of them except for Matt actually left the industry.

We have now recruited people to replace them and that's a really brilliant thing for a studio. A studio needs to have an influx of new people, so we've just had an artist start from France, a brilliant artist start from France, I don't know his name, I should know his name. We're having Richard start on the, and he specialises in gameplay and combat and he's starting on Monday, and we're interviewing, we're about to make another job offer to a producer guy, but I can't tell you his name because he hasn't handed in his notice yet. So this is the normal--

RPS: So how many of those people are working on Godus and how many are on The Trail roughly, do you know?

Peter Molyneux: So the people who aren't working on Godus are the people who wouldn't be busy on Godus most of the time. So at the moment, I'm just looking over them now. We've got Dave, Pavle, Konrad, Andy, Martin and Conor, and Michelle just stuck up her arms as well. [to Michelle] You're not working on Godus.

And then Peter on the art side, and on the Trail we've got Sara, who's a concept artist so there's not much work for her to do on Godus, we've got Paul, who did all the sculpting stuff so there's not much for him to do on Godus at the moment, Tony's working on the Trail, Demetri and Tom, and then on the art side the new artist is learning Maya and we'll have to see how he gets on. And Paul McLaughlin is working on Godus and he's the head art. I think I've covered everyone that I can see.

RPS: OK, that's great.

Peter Molyneux: Jack is working on Godus, he's sitting next to me playing the story of Godus through at the moment.

RPS: Like I say, a lot of sites have reported that there are very few people left on Godus so it's good that we can clarify that that's not the case.

Peter Molyneux: I don't think that's very few people, is it?

RPS: No no no, I'm saying--

Peter Molyneux: John, why don't you get, come down...

RPS: Peter, listen, listen, you've misunderstood. A number of sites have reported that very few people are left working on Godus. It's good to have clarified that's not the case.

Peter Molyneux: ...Yeah. I'm passionate, I hope if you've got anything from this. I'm passionate about making a great game. You know, I'm doing work on Godus, well, I should be working on Godus, I should be playing through the story now but I'm talking to you. How long have we been talking?

RPS: An hour and fifteen minutes. I very much appreciate it. OK. One final thing then before we wrap up. It's been three years for Bryan Henderson, why don't you give him some of the money from the game?

Peter Molyneux: Well, because he needs to act as God of Gods.

RPS: Yeah, but he thought he was going to do that and...

Peter Molyneux: Because that is part of the deal. He needs to be God of Gods and we need to get the multiplayer in before God of Gods can--

RPS: Sure, but at this point don't you think it would be a bit of a good faith thing to do since he's been so badly screwed over?

Peter Molyneux: I think we'll... We'll, well, hmm. We'll probably--

RPS: You told Pocket Gamer that you were putting money aside for him.

Peter Molyneux: --think of something to say sorry about and I'm, you know, maybe I'm, this is not the place to announce that.

RPS: No no, not at all, but you told Pocket Gamer that the revenue was being put aside for him that he would get when the multiplayer is fined.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah, but he needs to be God of Gods before that happens.

RPS: Yeah, but with one of your lead developers saying he doesn't think that's likely to happen--

Peter Molyneux: I've already explained that, John. If you ask Konrad now, he would say the complete opposite. The key thing is that we have to do this stupid, boring, shitty server stuff before doing it and now they're literally once we've fixed the bugs in the story, that's the next thing they're working on and I hope and believe this date or not, I hope that by Easter we're going to have that in there. And then it starts getting really interesting.

RPS: Then it's combat, then it's multiplayer after Easter, is what you're saying.

Peter Molyneux: And then we need combat and then it's multiplayer and then we've got the ingredients for God of Gods, because it's combat which is used to judge the God of Gods. And stuff like that.

RPS: OK. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that you haven't enjoyed this at all, but I appreciate how much time you've given to do it.

Peter Molyneux: Yeah. I love Godus. I love what we're doing. I love what we're doing. I wish I was smarter and I wish, everything that came out of my mouth that came to pass, and there's no one in this industry John that hasn't been more committed and more passionate about the industry and I hope, I hope you personally see that. I'm sure you're going to write the article and it's going to be tough on us and--

RPS: Well, I'm going to quote the interview. It's not going to be, I can't make it any better or worse than the things that you've said, so that should be fine.

Peter Molyneux: OK, yeah. OK. I wonder, yeah. Well, we'll see. I'll get back to work. Get an Apple phone so you can Find A Friend.

RPS: [laughs]