Yes, Daikatana is funny all by itself, and we may be witnessing the birth of the next version of the joke right now…

Godus

What’s the story here?

 The short version is that in 2012 Peter Molyneux started a Kickstarter campaign for Godus, which was to be a rebirth of the God Game Genre. This was promised to be the the thematic successor to Populus, featuring a tribe expanding under your leadership and battling other tribes, and expected to be released in just 9 months. Asking for £400,000, and getting a bit over £500,000, the Kickstarter campaign succeeded, activating several stretch goals for the campaign.

Things did not proceed smoothly, though. We’re now nearly 3 years later and Godus is not what the Kickstarted campaign proposed. Peter Molyneux is no stranger to over promising and under delivering…

…but this one goes beyond being late, or underwhelming. One of the basic promises for Godus was multiplayer. The idea of, instead of a player working against the computer, to have 5, 10, 20 gods and their tribes struggling against each other. This has still not been implemented. Kickstarter backer rewards have not been sent out yet either and backers are starting to get angry.

There’s even anger over what should be a fascinating idea. 22Can’s previous game/experience called “Curiosity – What’s Inside the Cube”, a sort of a worldwide multiplayer experience of trying to get inside to see what is inside, turned out to be a trojan advertisement of sorts for Godus. The game awarded the final player who opened the center box the opportunity to be the “God of Gods” in Godus, a special position in multiplayer, which would earn a portion of the game’s profits along with it. This was in May 2013 that Bryan Henderson won this, and because there’s still no multiplayer, there’s still no “God of Gods” role for him.

Godus may be the perfect storm of bad circumstances and bad decisions for Peter Molyneux.

The interview that pulled no punches

In February 2015, stemming from the growing disappointment with the development, Rock Paper Shotgun had an article talking about the mess that the game had become (Oh Godus, What The Hell’s Going On). Shortly after that, Peter Molyneux agreed to an interview with them (Peter Molyneux Interview: “I haven’t got a reputation in this industry any more”). This was not a typical games industry interview either, the kind where it’s just giving people an opportunity to talk about what they’re doing. John Walker was not interested in asking soft ball questions, and focused on getting as much of an answer to his underlying questions as he could. Hell, the first question was “Are you a pathological liar?” due to all of the broken promises over the years. Moluneux’s responses ranged from sincere, to depressed, to combative, to a bit confused. Looking through it all, though, I think there are real lessons to be learned here for everyone involved including game journalists, game makers, fans/customers, and even Peter Molyneux himself.

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