BAFTA Annual Video Games Lecture – Peter Molyneux

Bingo. I played bingo during the talk given by Peter Molynuex last night at the BAFTA HQ in Piccadilly, right in the heart of London’s Theatre-land. It wasn’t your average game of bingo, oh no. It was based on 12 utterances I predicted the founder of Lionhead Studios and Creative Director at Microsoft Game Studios Europe would sound off during the talk. Would you believe that I was only one off from filling my self created bingo card in its entirety by the end of the talk? For yes Mr Molyneux is indeed that predicable, although he did reveal a surprise or two.

Peter started his career in making computer and video games pretty much by accident. In 1987 his newly founded company Taurus Implex Ltd was provided with a swathe of Amiga computers by a firm that was hoping they would develop some networking software for it. Peter and his co-hort Les Edgar developed it to reasonable success. They then renamed the company as Bullfrog Productions and created Populous by using the money they earned making the networking software and thus the ‘God-sim’ was born.

One of the key components of the gameplay that is found in Populous is the player’s ability to raise and lower land. Apparently this was not originally going to be in the game, but Peter being the self confessed poor programmer and game designer, put it in. This was only to avoid having to code for computer controlled characters to walk around walls. He just let the player do that job instead!

The game was released on the Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive and SNES to huge success and sold in excess of 4 million units. Now I want you to keep that figure in your head, for it comes up later in the talk.

Peter then moved on to talk about Power Monger. A strategy game that appeared on the usual selection of computers and consoles, including the Mega CD, it was a rather complex game that fell down over its reliance on forcing the player to issue orders to their armies via carrier pigeon. In the game you understand, not in real life. That would be quite bizarre and very expensive, as the player would be required to keep pigeons. This would have of course limited its audience quite considerably. Now where was I? Ah yes, Syndicate!

Syndicate was the next game Peter chose to speak about. In this game the player controlled 4 psychotic cyborgs in a future dystopia that is somewhat akin to the found in the film, Blade Runner. A free roaming game, the player was able to do what ever they wanted within the world. Provided it involved shooting people in the face with a mini-gun whilst avoiding sniper rifle fire from enemy cyborgs.  It was also incredibly difficult and its expansion, American Revolt made the game even more of a challenge. It was released on a vast selection of platforms and even spawned a sequel, Syndicate Wars, which wasn’t as successful sadly. You’ll be happy to know that it was confirmed in March of this year that a new Syndicate game is being developed by Starbreeze Studios.

Peter then spoke about Magic Carpet, Bullfrog’s first game it developed natively on the PC, although it did also end up on the PlayStation and Sega Saturn as well. A flying carpet simulator, it had the player flying across a landscape shooting creatures and other magic carpet flyers via an increasingly complex array of spells. The game boasted a self developed engine that Peter remarked would have been perfectly suited for creating dark corridors filled with demons and arming the player with a shot gun, not a carpet. Sadly some other company in Texas did that instead.

Up until the existence of Magic Carpet, Bullfrog had been known for its action packed and a tad violent game output. That was until they made Theme Park. Here was a game that was bereft of any kind of violence as it required the player to manage a business whose sole purpose was to entertain people via a series of mechanical rides. When Peter pitched this idea to publishers their reaction was mostly negative, as they wanted Bullfrog to make yet more violent games and not faff around with a theme park simulator!

The publishers were eventually proved wrong as Theme Park went on to sell over 15 million copies world wide and was ported to a very large selection of formats, including the 3DO and Jaguar of all things. It also spawned 2 sequels, Theme Park World and Theme Park Inc. The concept was eventually expanded upon by the creation of Roller Coaster Tycoon series and Thrillville, as developed by fellow British developer Frontier Developments.

The name of Hi-Octane was muttered by Peter but he quickly brushed it aside. It was a hastily created game for the PC, Sega Saturn and PlayStation that didn’t sell well. It’s not one of Bullfrogs jewels so to speak and is rarely spoken about, especially by Mr Molyneux. So for him to mention it at the talk was quite a surprise!

It was at this time that the name Bullfrog was about to vanish into the history books as one of Peter described one of the last games under their umbrella that was Dungeon Keeper. This innovative game put the player in the role of an evil overlord who happened to have an extensive dungeon, as they generally do. The player had to entice and trap would be heroes in their dungeon by dropping in evil devices and creatures to thwart their progress through it.

Peter sold Bullfrog to Electronic Arts and stayed at the publishing behemoth for a while before realising that he ceased to be a developer but more of a manager. This he wasn’t keen on at all and soon left to form a new studio called Lionhead Studios.

The first game new developer created was Black and White. A god-sim in an almost literal sense, the player did indeed take the role of a deity who was represented by a disembodied hand. Peter explained that the main point of innovation of that game was the eradication of a HUD. The way the game provided feedback to the player was via visual and audio queues and not flashing icons. It was this Peter was most proud of about this title. A PC exclusive game, it spawned an expansion and a sequel.

In 2004 Lionhead delivered Fable for the Xbox and PC. This was the first time Peter had worked within the RPG genre and promised it to be the be all and end all of RPG’s. Sadly it didn’t live up to that promise as many of the features spoken of by Peter himself prior to the gamee’s launch, failed to materialise in the final game. It is something Peter regrets to this day and continues to chastise himself over how he promised so much when asked about Fable prior to its release. It got so bad at times that he started spouting out features about the game to journalists that he had only just thought of whilst talking to them. This resulted in the development team learning about new features being added to Fable from the press and not their own studio head. Not a good move.

Despite this, the game was a success and Lionhead Studios went on to create Fable 2 that was launched in October 2008. It has sold 4 million copies over the past 12 months. There’s that number again; 4 million. Remember it from when Peter was talking about Populous? That also sold the same amount of units and yet it was released 20 years ago. Does this mean that the audience that is served by the video game industry hasn’t grown for over 20 years? Well this is what Peter was postulating and it bothered him, a great deal.

Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor the pocket calculator, digital watch and his most successful device, the ZX Spectrum computer had a dream. His dream was that all forms of home entertainment would be delivered via a computer of some sort. Peter was inspired by that dream, as he watched Sir Clive jump over the words ‘Quantum Leap’ in a TV commercial he did to promote the Sinclair QL computer. The question is; what happened to that dream? Why are people still passively watching TV? Why do we still have dedicated DVD/BluRay players? These are the questions Peter asked of the audience and he ended this rapid fire series of queries with the real nub of his presentation that was leading inexorably to somewhere I saw coming a mile off. Before I get to that though, let me tell you what this question was!

Peter asked; what has gone wrong over the past 20 years? Why has video games been consigned to a small section of society and not become as universal as film, TV and music? Well before Peter tried to answer that directly, he elected to describe 5 moments in video game history he believes were pivotal in its development toward it becoming a more widely accepted and valid entertainment medium for all.

‘Moment’ No. 1 – Dune 2

 Dune 2 was a pivotal game in Peter’s view as it made the player feel ‘smart’. Types of gameplay such as ‘turtling’ came into being as the player could build their forces up in their heavily fortified base and only until they had amassed a vast army would they initiate at devastating counter attack. Dune 2 challenged the foundation stones of strategy games by stripping away the turn based system that was prevalent in that genre and made it far more accessible. Peter went back repeatedly to this idea of challenging established gaming tropes and felt it was a key facet of game development that inevitably gives birth to ground breaking innovation.

‘Moment’ No. 2 – Super Mario 64

 Super Mario 64 is regarded by many as one of the best games ever made. It turned a traditional 2D platform title into a free roaming 3D world, the like of which had never been seen before. Peter described it as the game that was the first to represent 3D in a ‘real sense’. He postulated that without Super Mario 64, there would be no Grand Theft Auto. He may be right, although that particular series owes a lot of credit to many other games, over and above Super Mario 64.

‘Moment’ No. 3 – Tomb Raider

 Peter is of the opinion that Tomb Raider changed the need to have the main protagonist in a game to be a muscle bound space marine. By doing this the game appealed to the two things teenagers are focussed on, video games and, umm, yes. Well you can guess the other thing, best not expand any further here. And no it isn’t needle-point.

‘Moment’ No. 4 – World of Warcraft

 There was an audible groan within the audience when Peter started to expound on the virtues of the all conquering MMO that is World of Warcraft. Most assumed he was going to declare it the deliverer of the MMO genre, but that wasn’t his take on things at all. No, he was fascinated by the fact that rather than the game delivering most of the content to the player in the early stages of the game, the player had to earn it! He cited the ‘stead’, or ‘mount’ as it’s more commonly known as the main driver for him to continue playing. He wanted this mount ever so badly, as he was sick and tired of having to trudge from place to place.

Peter called this the ‘anticipation’ mechanic, as it was content the player could see but not gain access to until the game had deemed they had earned it. Such a mechanic he felt challenged yet another foundation stone of game he felt up until then was immovable.

‘Moment’ No.5 – Halo

 A somewhat predicable choice by the Creative Director at Microsoft Game Studios Europe and Peter agreed that it did look bad, but he maintained that he didn’t choose Halo out of company loyalty. He wanted to explain how he felt it brought the FPS genre to the consoles by doing away with the ability to have a vast arsenal of weapons available to the player. The limitation of 1 small side arm and 1 primary weapon reduced the complexity of the game by removing the need for players to cycle through a vast array of death dealing implements that was traditional for FPS.

Peter went on from describing these 5 key moments in video game evolution to discuss where we are now. He thought 2009 was the most exciting year for video games as there were three key facets of video games that have come to the fore. These being:

Controller

Digital Distribution/Downloadable Content

Online multiplay

Controller

Starting with the controller, Peter explained how over the years it had started out from the simple directional pad/joystick and one or two buttons. This evolved into the analogue joystick as developed by Nintendo for the N64. This was a major leap forward in Peter’s view as he felt without it Super Mario 64 would have been a very different game indeed, to the point where it may have resulted in a lesser experience.

Sony stepped up in 1995 with the PlayStation and provided the controller with two hand grips, but no analogue control. This eventually arrived of course via the Dual-Shock, a design that remains with us to this day. Microsoft tweaked it further for its Xbox console by moving the thumb sticks to locations more comfortable to the player. This was largely based on what Sega created for the Saturn and the 3D controller as well as the Dreamcast.

This is all well and good, but there is a problem. The complexity of the controller has become a barrier to the non-gamer. They see it and immediately shrink away as it riddled with buttons and triggers and has made it intimidating ro rhe newcomer. As an antidote to this, Nintendo created the Wii and along with it the Wii-mote. Whilst still having a myriad of buttons, it can also control games but requiring the play to simply move it in space. The Wii has certainly has brought in a new audience to the world of video games and Peter applauded Nintendo’s efforts. In the same breath he then began to sing the praises of Microsoft and their research in creating a method of interacting with video games without the need of a controller at all. It was at this point he lead us to the overarching theme to this talk, the one I knew he was going to from the very beginning, that being ‘Project Natal’.

He explained how Project Natal can track skeletal movement and also has voice recognition. Peter gave the impression that this was ground breaking and innovative and in many respects it is. I however felt uncomfortable at this point as no doubt any member of the Sony London studio would feel if any were present at the talk, as they were the ones that really pioneered this technology, not Microsoft. It was Sony London that created the Eye-Toy that did away with the need of a controller. What Microsoft has done here is taken the original idea of the Eye Toy and expanded upon it significantly.

Digital Distribution/Downloadable Content

Peter thought that this was a very exciting part of video games that has only come into its own very recently. He explained how the consumption of entertainment media was very different to how it was delivered as little as 10 years ago. Everything from music, film, literature and of course games now comes down a phone/cable line. This has opened up a whole new way of getting new content to the video game player and Peter was keen to exploit this as much as possible.

His first reaction to the rise in online distribution is to turn Fable II into an episodically delivered game, rather than a $60/£40/€45 game that the player is expected to play through over a period of 20 hours or so. To get over this, Fable II has been broken up into acts, the first one of which is completely free! It acts as a taster or demo of the game that then gives the player the choice. They can either buy the next act once they have finished the free introductory one or simply stopping and deleting it as it wasn’t to their liking. Whilst I can see the benefit of this model, I do believe that in this instance the player is paying over the market price of the game. With each act costing $15 whilst the price of the second hand game in its entirety is a little less than that, it’s hard to argue that this is value for money.

For new games however, I can see some benefit here. By allowing the player to buy chunks of the game it offers them a choice and enables them to spread the outlay over a longer period of time. Note that this is not the same as episodic delivery Peter is advocating here. We’ve all seen how that has failed with Halflife 2 and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness either stalling completely or having years between each episode. No, here the game has to be complete prior to its release. It’s just broken up into acts and delivered via downloadable files.

Peter then spoke at length about the problems with downloadable content or ‘DLC’. He said that he found it incredibly difficult to maintain interest in DLC once a game has been released. He cited the content Lionhead created for Fable II and how he had to get the marketing machine rolling again every time more DLC was made in order to drag people back to playing the game. It was at this point that he dropped a bit of a bombshell. He revealed that within Fable III there will be a shop. From this shop the player can buy clothes, items, weapons and even additional content with Microsoft Points. That’s right, he is proposing to release additional content in a piecemeal manner via this shop for a few nickels and dimes. He boasted that new content would arrive on a daily basis as it was terribly small and easy to create.

It was at this point my mind was racing. Not with excitement, no. It was with rage and fury. I was madder at that point than the average PC gamer that wants Activision’s and Infinity Ward’s blood over the Modern Warfare 2 dedicated server mess.

Why was I so mad? Well what Mr Molyneux is proposing here is creating a two tier gaming experience, one for people with more money than sense and the other who have no intention of paying out money for a red hat because it looks ‘cool’. Now this is the first time anyone had heard about this new feature in Fable III, so no one really knows the ins and outs of how it’s going to work. We’re just going to have to wait and see how it pans out in the final game.

Online Multiplayer

There is a huge movement towards co-operative play at the moment. Everything from Borderlands to Uncharted 2 has some form of co-op play. Peter does like this trend, but is more impressed with the idea of player created content. He believes this is the true future of the online space and cited Second Life as an example of it. He didn’t say it was any good mind, we he felt it was far too complicated. Nevertheless he did feel that it was player who was going to create their own experiences and it was up to the developer to provide them with the tools to do so.

My concern over this view is that the number of people who create content for games such as LittleBigPlanet say is very small compared to the people who enjoy the content itself. This has applied to PC FPS titles for many years as the modding community is far smaller than those that play the games they alter. Still, if the tools get easier then their may be an increase in creators out there. It’s certainly a brave position to take; it’s just not one I particularly buy into.

Peter was now drawing his presentation to a close and he did so by pulling out his final party trick, Milo. Lionhead Studios has created this virtual 8 year old boy as part of their work with Natal. Its creation was driven by the fact that they had to throw out the rule book as far as making games goes thanks to the dramatic change in how the player interacts with the game. For with Natal, the controller was the person’s body and voice, not their fingers and thumbs on a joypad.

Peter has always wanted to create something that is ‘alive’. From the stumbling beginnings in Populous, he still felt those little 4×4 pixelated faces had emotion. They did things in response to what the player did. They were therefore ‘alive’, in Peter’s mind at any rate.

Peter believes that Milo is a natural progression from those early days and went on to explain that it is a genuine game, not a tech demo as I had originally thought. The player takes on the role of an imaginary friend of the 8 year old boy or girl. They build a relationship with the virtual child and help them through various trials and tribulations. They can interact with them by drawing sketches that are scanned by the two cameras that are part of the Project Natal unit. This is then taken and examined by Milo.

Peter explained that this OCR scanning technology was developed for Natal based on the need for the player to identify themselves. The Lionhead Studio’s team that works on Natal struggled for weeks trying to figure out how the player would identify themselves to Milo. That is until some bright spark said ‘why not just write you name on a bit of paper?’. It was this kind thinking that Natal is generating within the team.

Peter expressed the opinion that emotion is the key thing that is mission from video games. There is need to address that as well as simplifying the control method of interacting with games. For if we carry on as before, there is little hope of us encouraging the non-gamer to participate.

As a sign off, Peter confirmed that some Project Natal aspects will be supported in Fable III. How this will be done Peter wouldn’t confirm, but he did promise something will be implemented as he thought it would be ‘stupid not to’.

Questions from the Audience

A sizable audience showed up for the talk and the floor was opened up to questions. What follows is a transcript of them:

Question 1 – Peter Molyneux is one of the few European developers who are actually known. Why do European developers shrink away from the lime-light?

Peter explained that there is a culture in Europe of promoting the team spirit. They fear that being a face of a development studio, they demean the work of their compatriots. Peter did not follow this rule just in order to survive. He spoke directly to the press so that he could keep his company’s head above water. By doing so he took some power away from the publishers, which is a precious commodity between the two parties. Nevertheless Peter stressed that he is under no illusions as to being egotistical about the work Lionhead Studios produce. When explained that when he says ‘I’, he actually means ‘We’.

He went on to state that he believes other European developers should take his lead by standing up and being counted. He cited Media Molecule, the creators of LittleBigPlanet as being a good example as they did put themselves out there to promote their game. This isn’t surprising seeing as the founders of that company used to work within Lionhead Studios! Still, he did have a point and is something I personally would like to see more of. It’s starting to happen with Splash Damage doing their very best to get noticed by promoting Brink at any given opportunity.

Question 2- Is Project Natal in danger of alienating the existing core audience of games?

Peter bristled at this question a little and explained that Project Natal should not be regarded as a replacement to traditional controller based gaming. It should be regarded instead as additive.

Question 3 – Can emotional responses really be generated by ‘AI’

Peter admitted that Milo was very much smoke and mirrors. There are a lot of tricks to fool the player into thinking that Milo is really reacting to what they are doing. Nevertheless he did believe that emotional response is the next feature AI development will be focussing on in the future.

Question 4 – Games are being developed by gamers, who are generally men aged between 18 and 34. Are we trapped in a vicious circle of people making games only for themselves?

Peter agreed that this historically has been a major cause of concern and indeed has resulted in the situation the industry finds itself in. He then revealed that the team behind Milo is 40% female. This he felt illustrated that with a diversity of people behind the creation of games there will be a break away from this ‘vicious circle’. He also explained that it was very difficult to encourage creative people to work within the gaming industry. Artists typically do not value its output and hence shy away from it. Peter is very keen to remove that perception within that group, as it will only serve to enrich the output of video games.

Question 5 – How much should people pay for digitally distributed content?

Peter said it depended on the content! The current model of one shot price for the content is a legacy of the retail model. He preferred the ‘Freemium’ model, where the core game is free and any additional elements are provided for a small fee. This is very popular with MMO’s in China and South Korea. It’s questionable if it will be as readily adopted in the West however.

Question 6 – An emotional response in gaming can really be only be generated with another human being, how can an AI replace that?

Peter conceded the point that the ultimate method of interaction should be with another person. Such thinking has lead to many developers decrying the need for single player games at all. Peter disagrees with this kind of thinking, as both methods of emotional interaction can co-exist. He postulated that the single player experience can be just as emotionally engaging as when player interacts with a human controlled player.

He then went on to expand on FarmVille, which is a Facebook game that is requires people to aid each other by tending fields in their virtual farms. He likened it to World of Warcraft in that it required the player to earn their way to additional content that was always visible, but just out of reach.

Question 7 – Can the research behind the creation of Project Natal be of any use to anyone outside the gaming industry?

Peter thought it could as generally, video game developers are experts at taking highly complex technology and simplifying it. They have to get it to the point where people can pick it up within 10 seconds. Any longer and people get frustrated and lose interest.

Such skills could be used outside the gaming industry, but Peter couldn’t think of any examples how. He said that in all the years he’s been working within it, he was only approached once by Glaxo-Welcome to create a simulator that demonstrated how human faeces moves through the bowel.

Question 8 – Story telling in video games is not its strong point. How can this be improved?

Peter was of the opinion that script writers had to get better! The model of a 2 hour start to finish narrative was a thing of the past and that they had to get used to the fact that stories can have many branches. The interaction element of video games presents a major hurdle to the writer as the player can alter the outcome to the point where the carefully honed plot can suffer thanks to a button press by the player.

As an antidote to this, Peter suggested more focus should be placed on characters over and above the plot. Too many games fall into the trap of thinking the plot is everything to the point where the characters end up as simple marionettes to be cast aside for the greater good of plot progression.

He finished off answering this question by praising the efforts of Naughty Dog on their creation of Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves as being a case in point of putting characters above plot. I could not help but agree with him 100% on this issue.

Question 9 – The anticipation model was raised frequently during the presentation, how does that marry with the micro-transaction that is going to be present in Fable III?

In response to this question, Peter said that the two modes of game play are at odds with one another and there is a risk of people buying their way to the parts of the game they should have earned. To overcome this there should be a way in which the game prevents the player using an item until they reach a certain level. He did conced however that there is the distinct risk that monetising too much of the game can result in it becoming fundamentally broken.

Question 10 –What does the future hold for British game developers?

Peter revealed that he holds the opinion that there is something inherently creative about those that live within the British Isles. It is thanks to this that he believes there will always be a strong development community within the UK. He cited Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland the creators of the Grand Theft Auto series as being prime examples of this as well as a myriad of other developers all over the UK. He did also say that he believes there is clear evidence within the UK government that they take the gaming industry seriously and are seeking ways to improve investment within it. All of this is in aid to help out the smaller studios who, since the arrival of the App Store, XBLA, PSN, Wii & DSi Ware haven’t had it so good.

The Slides

As a final flourish, Peter explained his reasoning behind the slides he had being displayed behind him during the presentation. They were pictures from a variety of pictures from a swathe of media, be it film, television and video games. Here is his explanation of the few he explained:

Lost – The series has a massive story arc that can only be followed if the viewer has watched the show from the very first episode. It is not possible to dip into the show half way through; you have to watch it from the beginning. This Peter believed was a foundation stone that this show removed entirely.

Ant Attack – An old ZX Spectrum game that required the player to move around an isometric 3D space, the like of which Peter had never seen before. This opened his eyes to the possibilities of working within a virtual space.

Toy Story – Peter felt the genius of Pixar of making a children’s film that was even more appealing to adults was unparalleled. Rather than parents/guardians having to suffer through some banal and insipid musical, they were instead presented with satire that flew over the head of the child as they laughed at the slap-stick comedy and fun filled story.

Coronation Street – The creation of the soap opera was something Peter was fascinated by. How did its creators pitch the original idea? They had a show, they had no plot to speak of and it focussed on the inhabitants of a inconsequential and fictional street in Manchester. The fact that people are still watching it, week in, week out 40 years after it was first broadcast is a testament to its success.

Well that’s it. I know, this is more of an essay than an article, but Peter does like to talk, and I like to write, which is a lethal combination. Let me know what you think of this very long piece by using the comment dialogue below.

Thanks for reading!

-  Chris “Kropotkin” O’Regan