Molyneux's Lionhead cuts staff, axes projects

There goes Black & White for the DS...

I had high hopes for that one too.

Let's try this again: "wary of offering"

Good. He's all hype and no substance. And none of his games are fun. At all.

I bought The Movies mostly because Peter Molyneux had his finger in the pie and wanted to support Lionhead.

I grew up on Populous, Syndicate, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper and Black & White. He always delivered on providing amazingly fun game titles that pushed the limits.

The Movies is a really fun title and I somehow suspect it to be in cahoots with Alien Technology, since I would often experience lost time when playing that game :)

I sincerely wish Lionhead Studios a much rosier future, indeed!

They expect a sequel to the average "Fable" to take them out of trouble.

Is Peter Molyneux serious?

#1: Black & White Creatures for the DS is being developed by Majesco, not Lionhead, so there is still hope!

Molyneaux is the worst hype man in the games industry. I used to play Populous on my Amiga 500 until my eyes bled. It was an awesome and extremely innovative game that practically single handedly created the god-game genre. Then the accolades went to Petey's head. Black & White: it was more concept than actual gameplay and the critics falsely over-praised it, Fable: okay but absolutely not what he promised it would be and not to mentioned that it was delayed for years, Black & White 2: wow, that game was a huge waste of my time and even more so than the first one, The Movies: at first it seems to be intriguing and fun but then quickly turns into a tedious excercise in tyring to keep your studio from getting dirty and falling apart.......yawn.

He has nobody to blame but himself. Start spening more time on the GAME aspect of these games instead of coming up with all these lofty concepts that become flawed when they are actually implemented.

Like it or not, Fable sold well enough to become a platinum hit on Xbox, so it only makes sense that they would concentrate on a sequel. I didn't think it was great, but it was a fun title.

I think Lionhead's biggest problem is development time and hype. Fable was critically killed by it's colossal hype--which, admittedly, Molyneux spurred on. Had Lionhead delivered a timely, decent title, I think the reception would have been much better.

Meanwhile, BC was supposed to be the next great Xbox game and has all but disappeared.

Molyneux is a good designer and really believes in games. He is active in the game development community and I'd hate to see him drop out.

By the way, anybody know what happened to BC?

To be honest, I'm deeply disappointed by the news that the Black & White 2 franchise is disappearing. In my opinion, the game introduced many extremely fun and origninal gameplay elements which were a refreshing change from the normal C&C generic base building. Admitedly the game had its flaws, and the critics were far from united in praise for the game, but it easily kept my attention through its massive freedom to fruitfully interact with the surroundings. I developped a strong connection with my townspeople, and would love watching them and then sacrificing or drafting them whenever I saw fit (for the good of the community, you see)

The biggest disaster, and I think most people can agree on this, even if they were not fans of the first two games, is that there will therefore not be more. I'd read of plans to possibly create the future games in newer time periods, working up to the present day. Many new ideas could have been generated, which overall, would have been a good thing for the community. I therefore mourn Lionhead's retreat into bland sequels.

I hate to say it but all the rants are right. It is Peter's own fault. His ambitions were grand but he couldn't back them up. Black and White was a stale and overly difficult experience. The Movies is a good idea but it fails to capture the business side of Hollywood and the movie-maker is worthless unless you're willing to spend a lot of time (and some money) with other video programs.

I hope he learns his lesson but I sincerely doubt it. And I know it will take some pretty hot reviews before I but another Lionhead title.

This is a good example of what Nintendo has been saying about the increasingly complex game and growing development costs. Here is a studio that is capable of making some decent games, not great ones as suggested above, but decent. However since these games haven't become blockbusters they are losing money and are forced to downsize. They are also forced to go with the safe bet, i.e. sequels versus original games. There has to be a shift away from games with long development cycles and increasingly complex game play and graphics. This will only serve to put smaller studios out of business when a game flops. Flops are expected sometimes, but it shouldn't cause a company to downsize or go bankrupt. Too many studios are putting their eggs in one basket, as well as counting them before they hatch.

They should have killed him after he fucked up Fable so bad... I wish him all the worst.

CORRECTION: Black and White for the DS is being developed by Full Fat

http://games.ign.com/objects/027/027664.html

...Majesco is PUBLISHING the game.

Woah, what's with all the animosity towards a respected game developer wh has proven himself very capable in the past and has always put the enjoyment of the game first?

I'd understand if this was an article about J. Romero. Come on guys, ease up on the agro there kids.

WEll what do you expect...there are just some people who are unable to express themselves without resorting to childish namecalling and hate filled speech.

Sounds like Peter needs to jump on will wright's 'procedural-generation' bandwagon... I dont care what anyone above me has said, the man has innovative ideas and 'The Movies' is a great game that I reinstall at least every 3 months.

With a smaller more-focussed programming team working on procedural techniques it would mean a need for less content and therefore much lower development costs. Peter would find himself in his own real-life sandbox, having the power to try almost every wacky idea he comes up with, with minimal financial loss.

This is definitely a critical year for the game industry, and I am looking forward to E3 '06 and finding out all the secrets everyone has been keeping from us :)