Molyneux on the decision to Kickstart GODUS: ‘The community can help us reinvent the god game genre’
Mark Seymour November 22, 2012 - 2:15 pmNews: Fresh from having announced GODUS, Peter Molyneux has explained the thought process behind taking 22Can’s latest “experiment” to Kickstarter.
With less than three weeks having passed since the launch of Curiosity: What’s Inside the Cube?, Molyneux’s newfangled game studio 22Cans has taken to Kickstarter to gather funding for its next game GODUS (presumably you’ve got to shout it). A riff on Bullfrog’s lionized god-game Populous, according to the Kickstarter page it’s “an innovative reinvention of Populous, the original god game and delivers exciting global co-operation, competition, creation and destruction to a whole new generation.” When Molyneux clambers onto his box and claims he didn’t hype this one up or he wasn’t promising anything, hopefully people will be quick to point to the word “reinvention”.
News of 22cans’ Kickstarter approach sparked cynicism similar to that which David Braben and co. have weathered in the wake of asking the internet for $1.25 million to fund a new Elite game. Speaking to RockPaperShotgun, the veteran developer explained the thought process behind using Kickstarter, rather than the traditional publisher model.
“Looking at some of the Black & White stuff and mixing that together – those three games had a huge number of mistakes in them. But the community of Kickstarter can tell us and obsess about those mistakes and help us to reinvent the genre”, Molyneux said. “That’s the reason to do Kickstarter.”
“We could have gone to a publisher, and maybe we should have gone to a publisher”, Molyneux opined. “Maybe that’s the sensible big-boy thing to do, signing up to a publisher. But I’ve always said, I’m exploring a way to make a really good, really well-balanced game. One of the great things about Kickstarter is you’ve got people that care enough to spend money. There’s a lot of talk about alpha and beta and people coming in and helping us with the design.”
“The reason that Dungeon Keeper and Black & White and Populous were so good, I think, back in those days, is because we played it a massive amount. We played Populous again and again. Same with Dungeon Keeper. We played it loads. I want to do that with these Kickstarter people. I want to play this game. We’ve already got a prototype we can fiddle around with here. I’m hoping to get to a state where we can have a public beta or alpha as soon as possible. Refine it and make it just fantastic. If we’re going to reinvent this god game genre, it’s got to be great. It’s got to be great on PC – obviously, that’s where it was kind of born – but reinvented for touch.”
22Cans are hoping to raise £450,000 to fund GODUS. They’ve already made £62,651, with 29 days left on the clock.
Have a read of the full interview for more insight into GODUS, the decision to Kickstart the game, what went wrong with Curiosity and a bit about Molyneux himself. Alternatively, we had a massive chinwag with the eccentric designer not so long ago.
