Peter Molyneux

Molyneaux began his career as a game designer and programmer in his twenties. His first game was The Entrepreneur, a cataclysmic failure in sales. After his first game's failure, Molyneaux pursued business databases and founded a company with his business partner Les Edgar; the company was called Taurus Impact Systems. The name was similar to a different company that was more established in the industry and was already grounded in networking. Commodore International had meant to contact TORUS, but instead contacted Taurus by accident. Not realizing their mistake, Commodore offered Molyneaux's company 8 Amiga systems free of charge, in order to develop their networking software. While the mistake was eventually straightened out, the program Taurus created was considered to be a success. Molyneaux and Les Edgar decided to try their hand at luck a second time, creating a new company called Bullfrog Productions. Their success came with Populous, and Molyneaux continually designed or produced many decent games while there. Bullfrog was later sold to Electronic Arts in 1995. In 1997, Molyneaux founded Lionhead Studios, which struggled at first due to Black & White having missed its original release date, invested his own money to finish production on the game. In 2006 Microsoft acquired Lionhead. Since then, the releases made by Lionhead have generally improved in functionality and quality.

It should be noted that a large part of the game review community is at odds with Molyneaux due to his overyhyping of his games. (See: Motivational poster, right.)

Work

Peter Molyneux is a complex character when it comes to his development of games. His work has often shared a few themes such as the "God" theme. Molyneux could be considered obsessed with making the player choose to be good and evil and allowing a player to act like a god. He is very much about tiny details and features in his games. Molyneaux seems to also be highly interested in simulation and economic games, as seen by his development of The Entrepeneur and integration of advanced economies in the Fable games. He is considered to be one of the most influential British game designers in the industry.

Project

Early Career:

• • Peter Molyneaux's first release was The Entrepreneur, a text-based business sim that sold a whopping 2 copies (one of which Molyneaux is still convinced was his own mother). Overall the game was a failure.

Bullfrog Productions:

• Fusion

  • • Released: 1987

    • Summary: A shoot-em-up with 13 levels that scrolled vertically.

    • Sales: Unreported