Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

February 19, 2008 - 9:00pm

In a recent interview,Lionhead boss and Black & White creator, Peter Molyneux, expressed his feeling that PC gaming is in a tragic state.

"I think it's a huge tragedy. I mean, you might as well say PC gaming is World of Warcraft and The Sims... The weird thing is everyone's got a PC, they're just not buying software for it," he explained.

The creator of Fable doesn't believe that the current growth of casual gaming is the answer. "There's an enormous amount of gaming happening with PopCap, Big Fish and Reflective. The fascinating thing is when they first started, all these games came out like Peggle and Mystery Files and Alice Greensleeves and Diner Dash, and it felt quite exciting. There was a lot of innovation going on. Okay, there weren't great graphics, but there was innovation."

"In my view, that has completely stopped. They're doing the same game over and over again with a different wrapper. It's like a mini-universe in itself which is emulating what's happening in our industry".

"The second thing is, you've got The Sims and World of Warcraft sucking all the air out of the PC market. It's just incredible", Molyneux concluded.

Comments

Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

Say what you will about world of warcraft, but did you notice that pretty much every mmo since WoW has been a cheap WoW imitation? It's a s**tty game, but blizzard innovated. they innovated and launched one of the biggest trends to hit the gaming industry.As for the Sims, I think he pulled that one out of his ass. The Sims introduced a whole new demographic to pc gaming that wouldn't be involved otherwise! women! housewives! oh yeah, will wright is definitely killing the gaming industry whereas you're just everyone's hero for games like black and white.And remember how every game after black and white just seemed to blindly imitate black and white? ...Oh yeah. They didn't. It sucked.

Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

Agree with anonymous below, WoW didnt innovate ANYTHING, its simply far more carebear than any other mmo was when it launched. No pking, no looting player corpses. Its a game for kids, old people and young people who cant play real games. Others immitated cause it was a success, not because it innovated anything. And this bald guy, shut up and go have a good idea instead of whinning about others.

Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

Nobody seems to realise we all became consumer whores who now judge a video game as "good" only when it has overloads of 3D effects, violent scenes or more polygons in boobs. Peter knows what he's talking about because he's been there since the early age of PC gaming with games that ALL had different inovative ideas. They didn't need a 3D technologies to make their games great. Gaming became an industry and it's now something like MTV for music: a pile of junk that only tries to aim the largest population for money sake. not for entertainment anymore.

Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

oh yes Sims2 does. Maybe you forgot to open your eyes on the game's concept which is to make people think of themselve in the game (for most players) and then getting stuck in it. How many Sims players are actually playing it as a way to escape their s**tty life and try to make a better one there (just like some others do in Second Life) or try to experience what it is like to own a house (virtually, since they can't in RL).And yes, Fable 2 is also aiming for better 3D, bigger boobs and s**t... but i'm asking you why? answer: that's what the consumer wants. These are the only things that attract players today. I highly doubt people would play their old games like Magic carpet, Syndicate, or Theme-something (which concept has already been ruined by sim-anything and anything-tycoon series) now that we have Geforce 8 or 9 and eating 3D s**t from EA.

Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

I love WoW and I've been playing WoW for a very very long time, but please don't say that WoW inovated! The only thing that blizz has is a kick ass marketing office! They took every old RPG striped anything that the majority of users didn't like and stuck it all together.Basicly they just took the old formula and made it better but using quite mostly old elements. No inovation at all (except for one or other thing). That's their trick... Kick ass marketing.

Peter Molyneux: WoW, Sims And Casual Games Killing PC

Oh, almost forgot to say that I agree with some of Molyneux's points. Real innovation is feared by the entertainment industry - they want proven performance, and that means endless copycatting. What they don't seem to realize is that rehashing doesn't have the legs that it used to. The Sims and WoW succeed not because their aimed solely at casual gamers - their targeted at ALL gamers. Most WoW players I know are extremely hard-core PvP types..but I also know a few who only play a couple hours a week and have been playing almost two years without hitting level 70. The Sims is kind of the opposite, with only a small number of players being intense about it (AFAIK). However, you are free to be an obsessive Sims fanatic if you want, so again: mass appeal. The fallout is that every new WoW or Sims clone has to be at least as good as what its copying or it will most likely fail. This creates a PC gaming landscape littered with the broken remnants of failed clones where any real innovation MUST appeal to the "casual" gamer or it won't be greenlighted. Thats what I think Peter M. is really saying, and I tend to agree.

Add new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.