Peter Molyneux's Godus Debacle Should Not Be a Surprise

Everyone is angry at Peter Molyneux for the apparent failure of his video game, Godus. It's been in development hell, and we're long past the estimated seven to nine months for a full PC release, with no final version in sight.

Molyneux also recently announced that his studio, 22Cans, is cutting jobs and moving people onto a new project. He's also sworn off the media after a spectacular debacle of an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun (though take that with a grain of salt).

Not surprisingly, backers of Godus, which raised almost $800,000 on Kickstarter, are not happy with the news.

Ultimately, though, this is not Molyneux's fault. It's our fault because we should know better.

You probably know the fable of the scorpion and the frog. A scorpion promises not to sting a frog as it takes him across a river, but halfway across the river it stings the frog anyway and they both die. When the frog asks why, the scorpion explains, "It's in my nature."

Peter Molyneux is the scorpion king of game development.

Did trees grow from acorns in Fable? No. 

Could you even make sequels in The Movies? No. 

Did Syndicate let you play DVDs on billboards? No.

Did the "winner" of Curiosity have his life changed by the amazing secret of what's inside the box? No. 

Did Project Milo have anything to do with anything? No.

Guys, seriously. If you gave money to Godus, you kind of deserve the disappointment. In way, that's the real game.

Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowdsourcing platforms are fundraising systems built entirely on promises. Peter Molyneux is a game developer known for never fulfilling his promises. Backing a Kickstarter from Molyneux is more foolish than walking into a GameStop and saying, "I want to preorder everything that's coming out, and get extended warranties and disc protection for everything!"

Molyneux has an incredibly brilliant legacy of PC games. He made Populous, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, and Magic Carpet. He deserves credit for these games. They were fantastic and influential, and we really do need another Dungeon Keeper that's not free-to-play mobile garbage.

Molyneux is not simply a hype-man who pitches vaporware. His career has been much more than that. He didn't really invent the god game genre, but he developed enough interesting, compelling, and memorable titles that he has a place among gaming industry greats despite the last decade-plus of disappointment.

But he should also be recognized as a developer who has a seemingly pathological habit of wildly over-promising features on games in development. His best games are from the days when my computer had to boot into DOS before it could boot into Windows. Black & White was an intriguing god game, but it was inconsistent and awkward, and remembered more for giant cows pooping on things than on the ideas it tried to explore. Fable was a decent action-RPG, but it wasn't special or memorable in any way and would have been forgotten if Microsoft didn't desperately market it as a tentpole brand for the Xbox and Xbox 360. And his games have gone downhill from there.

Don't let this sour you on Kickstarting games, though. There have been many excellent indie games to come from Kickstarter. Just not from Peter Molyneux.