Molyneux: Ashamed Of Low 80s Scores

Tuffcub 23 Comments

The ‘cheeky’ Peter Molyneux has been speaking about the development of Fable III and how the two year development time meant the game ‘suffered’.

I think last year we were just on the cusp of possibly getting everything we wanted in the game, or possibly having to come down and edit very heavily to finish the game in what was two years.

You have to remember that, you know, Lionhead — especially me — has never created projects in less than two years. This was the first time we ever did that.

Peter goes on to explain how the team developed ‘pillars’ for the project before joining them together to create the game, a game that was ‘ twice as long as he thought it was going to be,’ which meant some heavy editing was required.

I think the ruling section in Fable was the one that really suffered a lot here. The edit was very harsh and hard to actually make the game fit.

When the final scores rolled in, not everyone agreed with our 10/10 review.

I know I probably should say it’s a great game just respective of whatever it was, but the Metacritic score was sort of low-’80s. I think I’m pretty ashamed of that, to be honest, and I take that on my own shoulders, not the team’s shoulders.

But what of the poster boy for Kinect, Milo? He was a game, then he was a tech demo, then he was a game again, then he vanished completely as if Madonna had swooped in and adopted him.

I can’t say anything about Milo. I’ve got in such trouble — an amazing amount of trouble, like standing in the corner of the room and being shouted at sort of trouble.

I’ve always been cheeky in the past, and I’ve always pushed the boundaries of what publishers would like me to say, but this is literally standing in front of a court and being stripped down repeated times.

Head over to Gamasutra for the rest of the interview, it’s a great read and a real insight on the development of Fable III.

Source: Gamasutra

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23 Comments

  1. On most websites, 8/80’s = average with 6/60 being the lowest they award.

    Sounds like the release schedule caught up with him, but anyone should know you’re not going to do 4 years work in 2 years and cut your cloth accordingly, like EA manage to all the time.

    • So whoever reviewed this game for this site gave it a perfect score when even the creator says it wasn’t a good game. Interesting.

      • The flaw in your comment is that you equate 10/10 to mean perfect

      • No I said “perfect score” which is correct because when your highest possible review score is 10/10 and you give something 10/10 you effectively say what you are reviewing cannot be scored higher by your scale, and this doesn’t say its flawless but it does show whoever reviewed it thought it high quality enough of an experience to give it the highest possible rating, and i was saying that to give it a 10/10 and then have the games creator say it wasn’t good and have an average metacritic score of 80 or 8/10 shows that your review scoring method may not be good enough.

      • I’d disagree actually that “most” websites score average games with an 8 and then don’t go below 6 for poor ones. I would hazard a guess that most sites consider 8 to be easily above average or an average game.

      • Sorry, yeah… According to Metacritic the average is 73 not 8 or 80 as I suggested.

        But, the average being 73 doesn’t equate to 8 being ‘easily’ above average.

        This is why games that receive a ‘7’ can crazily be considered weak, because the gaming industry reviews much higher than movies etc, whch tend to use the whole scale better.

        7 (in gaming) is below average according to all of the games reviewed by all of the publications considered quality enough to be indexed by Metacritic

  2. You promised…..

  3. “I can’t say anything about Milo. I’ve got in such trouble — an amazing amount of trouble, like standing in the corner of the room and being shouted at sort of trouble.”

    Just what exactly was he doing with that virtual child?

  4. I think there’s a yawning chasm between being “cheeky” and just being a massive liar when it comes down to what your product does vs. what you claimed it would do. It’s not just Fable either I’m going all the way back to Black & White 2 where the best feature was hooking Winamp (it really whips the llamas ass!) up to it so your giant cow could dance around to sepultura and that was a 3rd party release!

  5. Always though a black and white game would work well with kinect. Maybe they should do that.

  6. “I can’t say anything about Milo. I’ve got in such trouble — an amazing amount of trouble, like standing in the corner of the room and being shouted at sort of trouble.”

    And yet you still open that trap of yours and come out with the most absurd things.

    The internet: A voice for all – just that most aren’t worth listening to.

    • Milo is locked in the basement of Peter’s house, his cold, dead, virtual eyes seething with anger.. one day he’s going to escape. Did you ever see them movie ‘The Lawnmower Man’?

      Just sayin…

  7. as far as im concerned this man is only capable of speaking white noise until he says the magic words “dungeon keeper 3”

    • Go on…?

      • the man is sitting on one of the greatest ip’s in gaming history, there has never been a game like them, full of wicked humour and solid gameplay mechanics it was perhaps the first game series to glory in being evil, the multiplayer was fantastic fun too and yet despite strong sales a third iteration has yet to appear, ill forgive the man anything if he announces it, the second games well worth a play if you can get it running.

  8. TSA’s review on MC isn’t actually listed.

    Odd.
    http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/fable-iii/critic-reviews

    • MC don’t list our 360 reviews sometimes.

      • Ahhh … bastards.

        Get the petrol.

  9. He just lies. I dont believe a word he says.

  10. Don’t know if anyone here was a Official Dreamcast Magazine reader? (don’t worry, this is going somewhere…) But way back then, when Peter was banging the drum on upcoming Dc ver. of ‘Black and White’-He proceeded to slag off every game he’d previousily made.

    which to myself? came across as just rather poor-He was basically saying that everything he’d done so far crap, but hey kids, Black and White is going to be amazing.Logic was rather flawed.

    Also, so far i’ve played 3 Fables, plus lost chapters, across 2 formats and i’m still waiting for things he promised in the 1st game to appear.

    Peter-you’ve made some superb games over the years, keep doing that, it works man, but this P.R stuff, it’s just not you.

    Peter has morphed into this industry elephant in the room, trumpeting like mad, but by now people are just seeing right through all of it.

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