Peter Molyneux, speaking after a year of self-induced silence following the infamous Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview in which journalist John Walker asked Molyneux whether he thought himself to be a pathological liar, has returned to the spotlight in a candid interview with Eurogamer.
Molyneux came under fire after Bryan Henderson, the winner of Molyneux's Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube? was denied his prize, which amounted to 1% of the revenue from Godus, and didn't receive any communication with developer 22cans for a year and a half. To make matters worse, Godus itself was a mediocre god game that received middling scores of an average of 60 for its iOS version.
Everything came to a head after that interview, Molyneux explained:
That was the point where I said, this is just not going to work. To be called a pathological liar, which he said at the start… it's just not going to work, because how do you ever gain people's trust and belief after a journalist says that?It was tempting to retire. Many of my counterparts from the late eighties have sat back and retired and left. I had always said this is my life and my passion, other than my family. That was a knife-edge decision.
Instead of retiring, Molyneux opted to find a solution and to "get to the core of what the journalist was saying, which was, you're over-promising and under-delivering":
…And how am I going to solve this problem, if I think of this as a problem rather than emotionally react to it, which is the tempting thing to do? The solution to the problem is to do a great game rather than talk about doing a great game… That countered any childish feelings of saying, oh fuck it then I"m not going to do anything again.
Godus Wars, which takes the Godus concept and turns it into a real-time strategy game, is now available through Steam Early Access. It's available for $14.99 in a package with Godus, or as a free update if you already own Godus.
The game, however, has already received a 30% "mostly negative" recommendation from user reviews with many saying that Godus Wars was rebranded this way only to escape the many negative reviews of the original Godus on Steam. Their overwhelming disappointment from Godus, 22cans, and Molyneux can still be felt just by looking at all of the helpful reviews. That said, there are a smattering of positive recommendations that are giving Godus Wars a fair shot despite their misgivings of the game's past.
