Molyneux Malignantly Muddles his dignity

He can't stop falling

I'm pretty sure it's no controversial opinion to say that Peter Molyneux is something of tragic character in a greek play, in that he's destined to debase himself more and more when all he wants to do is change the world. And I do genuinely believe the man want's to change the world. Is he a pathological and compulsive liar? Yes. But will he hide that behind grand dreams that stretch beyond the mere ken of programming limitations? Everyday of the week. Because Peter is a factory of ideas, and sometimes he even knows how to implement them too, but far too often we're left with a Peter who sizzles out before the landing and, unfortunately, it's the missed promises that linger in the mind more than the hit and runs. It just feels more personal, like a childhood sleight. When you break a promise you shatter a glass heart, and glass can never be put back together the same way.

But we all know this about Peter, who he is and why that makes him such an unreliable spout of infomation, yet I think it bears reminding just so you know the depths to which he has sunk so far. Right now I think it's fair to call him a mostly well meaning business man who may have slipped out of touch with reality a while back and never quite managed to get back on the train. He directed fantastic titles once upon a time, but now his name attached to anything is like a death sentence, one a lot more reliable than any of his predictions for what his final games may hold. And to be clear, I don't hold him to the same regard as Sean Murray. (at least, not anymore.) Murray made one good game, for comparison, and tied a lot of behind the scenes talks into out-loud interviews without comprehending what the concept of 'marketing' was. The difference is, it took some time but Sean learned from his mistakes, he knows the team is best served showing what they're close to completing rather than candidly sharing some mild speculation last whispered over the water cooler a couple days back. Peter didn't learn. Peter never learns. And like the Greek tragedy, it's this fatal character flaw that will bring him down time and time again.

It's what bought him to overpromise with Fable back in the day, what had him grow disquiet when he received his 'lifetime achievement award' and act out on his own. What had him try and sell a tech demo as a game. (I bet his developers just loved him for that) What bade him to wantonly overpromise with his mobile app, then again with Godus and now, with the latest big craze. But you may be wondering exactly what vice the great M has gotten muddled up in this time. What strange juvenile delight has captured his perpetually mid-life crisis brain? Prostitution? Drug running? Nay, my friends, something much more dire and deeply dastardly. He's become a cryptobro, or rather, a feeder of these cryptobros, because our man has jumped aboard the NFTs.

I know, I know; I don't wanna hear about Non Fungible Tokens for the fifteenth time this last hour! But you know, I've been hearing regular updates about these things since around about March and I've done a wonderful job keeping them out of this blog until now! But all good things must come to an end and the video game industry loves to taste shoe every now and then, and so here we are, talking about the rampant surge of NFTs in our videogames. Yet I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the industry has spedrun it's way to the single worst possible implementation of NFTs in gaming, so news is likely to only go up from here. (It can hardly get worse) I'm being serious, when the idea of tying blockchain purchases with the video game world was first seriously considered, this was the cartoonishly worst-case scenario we all thought up but never believed anyone would be so mindnumbling idiotic as to pursue. But then that's the reason I introduced Peter Molyneux at the beginning of this story, now isn't it?

Molyneux want's to change things, just like he always does, only this time he wants to break the chains of modern design limitations, blur the lines between game and life, pioneer a new genre and create the world's first Strand-like ga- wait, that's something else. Actually, Peter Molyneux wants to sell you land. Virtual land, of course. His new game idea 'Legacy', will have people (turn to the entry 'Morons' in your textbooks) purchasing NFTs pertaining to ownership of land, upon which they will (and he has been very vague about these specifics) design and sell products that are 'real'? (NFTs is what he means, I assume.) Of course, the economy will be backed by real people and the products sold will be... virtual, I guess? Oh, and you'll be able to rope in others by selling them licences to start their own business selling your product, making them partners in your endeavour.

So essentially what we're looking at here is a sort of plan, or 'scheme' if you prefer, whereupon the first person makes up an idea to sell products and then sells the rights to sell that product to some people below them. Thanks to the nature of the blockchain, kickbacks head upwards so the person at the head will make money from everything that the people below them have set up, and those people will likely want to reach out to contractors of their own. Essentially we'll have made a business structure that resembles this sort-of Christmas tree-shape or a traditional triangle. Maybe even a pyramid. Which means that Peter's newest game will be in giving players the unmatchable honour of participating in this Pyramid-shaped scheme, wherein (of course) Peter and his team will be at the tip-top raking in those NFT royalties. When did gaming become everyone's 'get-rich quick' disposable dishrag again?

It's infuriating, because what started as a genuinely creative person with hopes and dreams behind him has devolved into a a swindler, plain and simple. There's no way to twist this into a good intention turned sour, he's a figure made famous for his creativity repackaging and reselling the idea of pyramid schemes in the guise of a video game. A game which, incidentally, doesn't even sound the slightest bit fun. And this isn't even a product made with actual game fans in mind either, it never is about the fans when NFTs get involved. Because typical fans aren't the one's going around dropping hundreds of thousands on intangible digital assets, they haven't got that capital. NFTs are just bait to drum up a community of stupid rich cryptobros to enter into an incestuous cycle of trading the same NFTs back and forth until this whole bubble bursts, meanwhile the guys lucky enough to be behind these communities are getting their cut of every single transaction without having to risk a cent. Is that laid out plain enough, do you think?

Of course, it doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks because this has already worked. People have fed Molyneux's vultures over 50 million dollars just in their purchasing of fake land in this preliminary phase before the game actually comes out next year. And doesn't this all just remind you of something? It's pretty much that Earth 2 scam from a while back, with the only difference being that Peter actually has a team that can code so there'll probably be a game to use all these assets on by the end of this. Will that game be total trash? Who knows, I sort of hope not. But then again, considering the nakedly avaricious taint to this entire leg of Peter's life story, maybe I hope it is trash so that this sort of greed strewn swindling doesn't get enabled anymore than it already has. I wish I could say you've disappointed me, Molyneux, but in truth you've just lived up to the stereotype you've built for yourself. Merry Christmas.