'If more of these interesting characters were trusted, maybe we wouldn't have so many sequels' claims Peter Molyneux
The games industry lacks ‘celebrities’ because it is not in the interest of publishers to support them, Peter Molyneux has claimed.
Speaking at the Bafta Games Question Time, the former Lionhead boss said that interesting characters in the industry were being suppressed by publishers, with companies taking centre stage instead.
He added that if there were more celebrated developers in the industry, publishers would be more inclined to back original content and new IP led by a popular figure.
“Not so long ago, publishers suppressed a lot of the early interesting characters in the games industry,” said Molyneux.
“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.
Advertisement
“If more of these celebrities were trusted, then maybe we wouldn’t have so many sequels."
Molyneux also blamed a culture of developers being afraid to speak to the press as a reason why people in the games industry are not as well known as those in the film and music industries.
“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."
This is probably a fair point, and PM is a lucky chap that he combines so many skills in one easy-to-market package.
Unfortunately, too many of the blow-your-own-trumpeteers who want to be celebrities are often the very last people who are truly capable of making games. They are like facehuggers, always ready to use someone else as warm meat to spawn their own reputations.
I totally agree, it can go over the top like creating a hipe that wasn't worth putting the money and energy to like for example MW2.
But it can go in your favor like kenect/natel project. Which changed the way people (customers/developers) think about playing, creating or using a game or console.
