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Veteran developer Tim Schafer has offered support to Peter Molyneux, labelling the treatment of the 22Cans founder as "unfortunate and unfair".
Schafer’s comments came from his latest update video on Broken Age, spotted by Kotaku, in which he adds that the reaction to the recent controversy around Godus has been "way out of proportion".
Molyneux and the 22Cans team have come under fire this month when a Godus designer said it was unlikely some of the Kickstarter promises would be met. The game’s development troubles have reportedly led to depatures from the studio.
A video interview with Molyneux saw the developer admit he had "made some horrendous mistakes" with the crowdfunded god game, but continued scrutiny from the media led him to announce he was "done talking to the press".
Schafer offered his sympathies in his update video, which you can read below.
"I’d like to send our support to our friend and fellow developer Peter Molyneux," he said. "In the last few weeks we’ve seen some extremely rough treatment of Peter on the Internet and in the games press, and I think it’s really unfortunate and unfair and I don’t think it’s healthy.
"Obviously, things did not go as expected with his game and because of that people are making some really nasty accusations about Peter, and I can really relate to that, believe it or not.
"I’m not saying that developers like Peter and I shouldn’t be responsible and accountable to deadlines. I’m just saying the reaction to recent events and the tone of that reaction is really way out of proportion to the seriousness of the events themselves.
"One of the goals of the documentary we’re making [about Broken Age’s development] is to show actual game development and show that developers are human beings. I think it’s clear that the problems that Peter is having are not unique to him, and in fact they happen on many if not most projects – and I hope that if we… keep involving players with our development , more and more people will start to see the process and understand how games are made… and why game production often goes the way it does."
You can check out the video for yourself below.
