Peter Molyneux Leaves Lionhead

[Flabio]

Noone ever leaves a company cleanly at the end of a project. I've been credited on games that didn't come until 2 years after I left.

I don't know how many people did leave Rare to form Free Radical. But given there were hundreds at Rare and Free Radical wasn't anywhere near that at their beginning, it's wrong to say that 'a whole team left to go form a new company'.

Take Simon and Dene's new company. The press talk about it as if it's a mass exodus from here to there, but there are 5 people there and still 200 or so here. When Media Molecule was founded, that was only 6 or so people leaving here. Annoys me that people think that a few people leaving constitutes a 'team' all quitting. It's not fair on the many that remain.

I have friends at Rare who got really depressed reading article after article saying how **** they are now their best guys left, despite the fact that was years ago.

Those of us grunts who do the work, it seems people forget we exist.

[Wil]

Urban myth. Only about three or four of the team left to create Free Radicals. Just so happens that one of them was the 'newsworthy' Dr.Doak. As for the rubbish games after they left well, like I said, that's a whole other argument.

Anyway, on-topic. I hope Lionhead goes on and on without the Moulinator. I suspect that, much like the Stampers, he was a go-to figurehead rather than hands-on.

[Daragon]

Noone ever leaves a company cleanly at the end of a project. I've been credited on games that didn't come until 2 years after I left.

I don't know how many people did leave Rare to form Free Radical. But given there were hundreds at Rare and Free Radical wasn't anywhere near that at their beginning, it's wrong to say that 'a whole team left to go form a new company'.

Take Simon and Dene's new company. The press talk about it as if it's a mass exodus from here to there, but there are 5 people there and still 200 or so here. When Media Molecule was founded, that was only 6 or so people leaving here. Annoys me that people think that a few people leaving constitutes a 'team' all quitting. It's not fair on the many that remain.

I have friends at Rare who got really depressed reading article after article saying how **** they are now their best guys left, despite the fact that was years ago.

Those of us grunts who do the work, it seems people forget we exist.

I've never been of the mind that if a few key members of staff leave then that's the entire team. In fairness however, Rare's Xbox based successes have never matched their Nintendo ones and I think people are quick to point the finger at the developers simply because the games aren't as good.

[fishbowlhead]

Im fairly sure that Miyamoto oversaw a lot of Rares finest n64 games personally didn't he? checking in on quality control and such fairly often?

[EvilBoris]

Not just Miyamoto was it? I was always under the impression that all of Ninty's games went through rigorous gameplay and bug testing from Nintendo's internal teams.

I always thought it was no coincidence that when a game was taken under Nintendo's wing it was almost instant gold and when they didn't get that support the quality would drop.

Metroid Prime is a good example of that, brand new studio set up by the founder of Iguana, Metroid Prime was in a different league to the Turok games or Iggy's Wrecking balls!

[Tig]

Peter Molyneux's twitter page is pretty entertaining at the moment.



"Well after 6 hours of coding, I realise I need to be structured but I am just too excited ATM."

(later)
"Looked at yesterdays coding efforts, and in my judgement everything i did was rubbish."



He's also agreed to pose with @petermolydeux for a photoshoot