Molyneux: "Sorry if I've over-promised"

By Fred Dutton Published 16 March, 2011

Admits telling fibs to keep journos awake.

Lionhead boss and newly-crowned holder of a BAFTA Fellowship Peter Molyneux has admitted making game features up on the spot to stop bored journalists falling asleep during interviews.

"I'd like to thank the press, by the way, for listening to my stuff," said Molyneux while accepting an academy fellowship at the annual BAFTA ceremony in London earlier this evening.

"Sorry - I've slightly over-promised on things on occasion," he continued.

"I could name at least 10 features in games that I've made up to stop journalists going to sleep and I really apologise to the team for that."

Molyneux – who counts Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Fable among his contributions to the world of video gaming - is now the fourth industry veteran to be awarded the BAFTA honour, following Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and SimCity creator Will Wright.

"Every day I wake up and thank the stars that I'm still here now," he said at the end of his brief speech. "I love my job so much and I really feel like going home and working harder than I've ever done to prove that I deserve this award."

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (60) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • TriggerHippie #1 1 year ago

    Goodness. How did we miss this? The mans a genius.

    Edited by TriggerHippie at 17/03/11 @ 04:54

  • suicidal_penguins #2 1 year ago

    Making shit up for journalists is the same thing as talking shit to your customers. But, anyway, we knew you were full of shit Peter so no bother.

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #3 1 year ago

    Congrats to a well deserved recipient. He's made some wonderful games.

  • koopahell #4 1 year ago

    Whilst he's being honest, he might as well come out as an alcoholic as well. In most of the videos I've seen of him, he's sloshed. Knuckle down rummy!

  • dean0null #5 1 year ago

    What a douche. Each game he creates seems worse than the last. He started out well and just went down hill.

  • Red930 #6 1 year ago

    I've just won an award, but i spouted shit to get it! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAaaaaa!

  • Red930 #7 1 year ago

    "I love my job so much and I really feel like going home and w**king harder than I've ever done to prove that I deserve this award."

    Oh my sides, I'm only joking, and I have to say that Populous was brilliant. And Black and White. And Syndicate. And I even liked theme park. Putting too much salt in the chips was epic :)
    Edited by Red930 at 16/03/11 @ 23:13

  • MattEdWithCheese #8 1 year ago

    Over-promised? You told us that the decision at the beginning of fable 3 was going to be bigger than the one at the end of 2.

    In actuality the decision was kill some random peasants or kill nicholas hoult...

  • dsmx #9 1 year ago

    You talk shit all the time molyneux, how do we know your not talking shit now?

  • stevetuck #10 1 year ago

    He invented the dog you know :)

  • estel #11 1 year ago

    The speech he gave on collecting the Fellowship was genuinely moving. An incredible designer.

  • FiReTiGeR2K #12 1 year ago

    what a pretentious lying cunt.

  • Red-Moose #13 1 year ago

    What a dick but that is quite amusing :)

  • CaptainQuint #14 1 year ago

    No probs, Pete. Apology accepted.

    Just don't expect me to believe another word you say when it come to pre-release hyperbole. Deal?

  • PJL101 #15 1 year ago

    Just make another Populous damnit.

  • Epcotman #16 1 year ago

    I remember how much he went on about "...reaching out and touching people" in Fable 3. In reality this meant pressing LB to kinda pull another character along by holding their hand with unreliable and buggy animation.

  • RedSparrows #17 1 year ago

    I really don't mind Molyneux, and you lot always overreact to him, and take ANYTHING he says as him saying 'THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY'. Even if he is hyperbolic sometimes he's not always so.

  • andywilkie35 #18 1 year ago

    About time.

  • Cataferal #19 1 year ago

    Don't forget Magic Carpet 2, his greatest creation.

  • Kami #20 1 year ago

    Over-promising I can live with.

    Fable 3 being broken at launch and in some regards still broken now? That I can't live with.

    At least Michael Gambon is hilarious when he tells fibs to the press...

  • mowgli #21 1 year ago

    Seems like a nice guy. You have to be a complete morriss to believe some of the shite he spouts. And his games are ridiculously overrated. But he is important to the industry so well deserved imo.

  • Tyronne #22 1 year ago

    Making shit up that gets reported back to those who buy your games...lovely....nice way to respect the gamers.

  • ISmoke #23 1 year ago

    Where's Fable 3 on the PC?

    Or was that also a lie?

  • NewbieZilla #24 1 year ago

    Maybe he was good before, but for a long time now he is naught but a bullshit artist.

  • Peter_LIAR_Molyneux #25 1 year ago

    I remember Peter apologizing for over-promising after Fable 2 while hyping up Fable 3 as the best rpg ever. Molyneux definitely deserves the BAFTA Award and for that I congratulate him. He also deserves all of the skepticism that he recieves on message boards for constantly lying (or "fibbing";) about his upcoming games.

    When will someone in the enthusiast press grow a pair and point this out to him in an interview or at the very least stop reporting what he says unless he shows some footage to back it up? Fool the gaming media once, shame on them. Fool them for the 30th time....

  • BBIAJ #26 1 year ago

    Watched this on the live stream, his moving acceptance speech was both amusing and touching, a true genius, and very British eccentric.

  • kaya08 #27 1 year ago

    Funny, the last thing i can imagine is him boring a journalist to sleep.
    I cant be bothered reading his interviews anymore, they're vaguely amusing but completely pointless. They don't tell you anything about what will actually be in the game.

    Anyway he deserves it for sydicate if nothing else. Pity the stuff he's made in recent years has been nowhere near the same quiality.

  • captain_Carl #28 1 year ago

    What? Making up features on the spot? What a knob...

  • Sonic_D #29 1 year ago

    Twat.

  • epiazk #30 1 year ago

    Guys, your talking about one of the fathers of gaming. If he sat on his arse and told me cheese was moondust id nod and smile while thinking of his back catalogue.

  • Phishfood #31 1 year ago

    I'm guessing co-op for Fable 2 was one of those features they had to implement after Molyneux haphazardly made up, and to poor effect.

  • metallicorphan #32 1 year ago

    balls to you all,LOL...i love this guy :D

  • Kaminari #33 1 year ago

    I hope some real developer is awarded next year. Like, you know, Yu Suzuki?

  • Telepathic.Geometry #34 1 year ago

    Wow, what an incredibly shameful thing to admit to. :^/

  • Dave52 #35 1 year ago

    The whole Milo thing wasn't made up on the spot was it...? No, that was a well planned, well executed "over promise".

    Well done, here's a reward.

  • Dave52 #36 1 year ago

    "id nod and smile while thinking of his back catalogue"

    Is that a thinly veiled homosexual reference...?

  • KungFuSpoon #37 1 year ago

    I like Molyneux for all the lies and exaggeration he is one of the few people in the industry that is genuinely passionate about games, and I think that is what fuels his exaggeration and bending of the truth is he tells it how he wants it to be, not the reality of it.
    I don't think it's a bad thing, with pricks like Bobby Kotick turning games studious into battery farms for franchises it's good to see that some of the people (even if he is under MS's thumb a little) have a genuine love and passion for making a good game. And it shows through in interviews he is simply overjoyed to be telling people about games and passing on that passion, and it is infectious. As shown by lionhead's games, Molyneux's passion seems to filter all the way down to the bottom.
    Flawed Fable 3 may be, broken even, but it is certainly not a hollow game, it is brimming with heart and soul.

  • CaptainKid #38 1 year ago

    "I could name at least 10 features in games that I've made up to stop journalists going to sleep and I really apologise to the team for that."

    So he purposely lied to the public.
    Since journalists report to the public, that's kinda their job.

    Fuck you mr. Molyneux.

  • bad09 #39 1 year ago

    Sadly this entire industry is built on over-promising, or outright lies as I like to call it. Pete is no different from the rest of the industry.

  • levitate #40 1 year ago

    Everyone lies and over-promises in the games industry, Peter at least has the balls to admit it.

  • Nithron #41 1 year ago

    More interestingly, did any of those ideas actually make it into a game?

  • Raconteur #42 1 year ago

    You can fool some of the people some of the time, but amazingly fool all the journos all of the time.

  • Fl0yd #43 1 year ago

    Bauble Awarded For Talking Arse

  • Kill_Crazy #44 1 year ago

    @#31

    Molyneux released his first game in the mid-80's, he's no where near being a 'father' of gaming.

  • Fab4 #45 1 year ago

    Silly man...its well-known that the only way to keep journos awake is the promise of copious amounts of alcohol.

  • Beano #46 1 year ago

    So now it's the journalists fault that PM overpromises?

    What's next? "The dog ate my homework"?

  • dagas #47 1 year ago

    I stopped buying his games after Fable 1 failed to live up to the hype. I borrowed and played Fable 2 a bit, but didn't really like that either. Fable 3 I don't even care to try.

  • BuddyChrist #48 1 year ago

    Molyneux in understatement SHOCKER

  • Lebowski #49 1 year ago

    We can all sit in the warm glow of cheeky game-scamp Molyneux telling porkies to the press, ergo the customers.

    However, whilst his BS won him column inches, and kept his so-so games in the limelight, let's spare a thought for all those companies whom he robbed of (often much needed) exposure, of things they were actually TRYING to get into their games. I'm just glad no such developers have had to close down recently. Oh. Wait...

    Molyneux should be ashamed of himself.

  • Caimbeul #50 1 year ago

    Isnt telling fibs just lying through your teeth?

  • MaxiSleep #51 1 year ago

    So instead of a visionary who reaches too far on occasion he is a liar. Oh well that s ok then.

  • Weezer #52 1 year ago

    I don't get why he's even got a BAFTA (is there one for talking a lot?). But then I don't get his games either. Only ever played Populous. I gather his next few games were brilliant but then things seem to have gone downhill from there. Eery parallels to George Lucas: brilliantly original first titles, mass-market pleasing sequels, and then crazily over-the-top flawed blockbusters. He'll start releasing tweaked 'director cuts' of his early games next...

  • Beano #53 1 year ago

    Giving Molyneux a BFATA Fellowship award is the most ridiculous award moment since Obama and Gore got their Nobel peace prices.

  • metalangel #54 1 year ago

    So, Eurogonks, does this mean you'll stop reporting his lies 20 times a day? Because we're fucking sick of hearing them.

  • IronCladChicken #55 1 year ago

    Shouldn't he be apologising to the people who actually bought his games? - They are the ones getting jipped after all.

  • AdamAsunder #56 1 year ago

    Stupid man.

  • Freek #57 1 year ago

    He was probably joking. That's sort of what you do when you get a prize.

  • RexRunti #58 1 year ago

    A lot of people are taking this far too seriously. Yes he had a tendancy to think of new features during an interview but that doesn't mean said features didn't make it into the game just that the features then had to be added to the game prior to launch. A few things like the acorn becoming a tree in fable did miss but I can think of several games where initially touted features don't make it to the final version. It's not like he put them on the back of the box.

    As for the fellowship award he is behind some of the most innovotive games of all time. You might not like all his games but then I don't like all of Hitchcock's or Kubrick's films either, he does however constantly strive to take the industry in a new direction.

  • suicidal_penguins #59 1 year ago

    yeah and what a direction that is ... "the last game wasn't very good but we're to make this one great... well actually that one was shit too but we're going to make this one great.. .no, rushed that one, but the next one will be great... no, that was shit too, but the next one ... " yeah, fuck off already.

  • Ryze #60 1 year ago

    As much as I respect the guy for his design skills and VISION, he really must take us for idiots if he thinks that it's acceptable to blatantly lie and make up facts in his communications to us.

    I shan't really read his interviews or articles any more, then. His games, and their reviews must do the talking.

    Either that, or you games journalists are such a bunch of cunts on the whole, that he felt he must act the fool in order to entertain you.

    I'm not sure which is worse, really.

    /grumbles...

    edit: Yu Suzuki or Yuji Naka next year, please.
    Edited by Ryze at 22/03/11 @ 17:35