22cans are working to restore faith in fans and make good on Godus. After a lot of bad publicity and the infamous interview by John Walker of RockPaperShotgun, 22cans restructured their management and Simon Phillips was declared CEO in Molyneux’s stead while he focussed on game development.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Phillips talked about the events of late 2014 to early 2015, the state of Peter Molyneux at that time and the lack of promises kept to Godus backers, specifically Bryan Henderson, the man who won Molyeneux’s Curiosity reward and never saw anything from it.
Phillips goes in detail describing how Molyneux had too much to deal with and should have focussed himself to a specific position, instead of attempting to manage business, development and promotion all at once. In the interview Phillips recalls a conversation with Molyneux where he discussed managing the business while Molyneux focusses on games:
“But you need to get back into designing games. Don’t try and do everything. Don’t try and glue it all back together because it’s just going to crumble down. You need to make games. That’s what you enjoy. I quite like business. I’ll do the business. And it seems to be working quite well so far.” – Simon Phillips
On the topic of fulfilling Godus promises, Phillips tells Eurogamer that he’s been in touch with Curiosity winner Bryan Henderson “I’ve made it my goal to talk to him and say, ‘Look, we know we f***ed up with this, let’s try and do something.’ I’m in contact with him now. It’s my remit to talk to him.” In relation to Henderson’s reward of being the god of gods, Simon spoke that it could take years of development but he is determined to keep the winner in the loop until that point.
It seems as if the new CEO is baring all. Knowing the amount of damage Peter Molyneux caused with his unrealistic promises, I’d wager it’s in Phillips’ best intentions to restore the faith in 22cans, build the community back up and at least make sure Godus gets some of what was promised.
I for one am pleased to see a business-savvy mind take control, leaving Molyneux to maybe recreate some of the magic he gave us years ago with the likes of Populous and Dungeon Keeper.
Peter Molyneux’s Studio Working to Make Good on Godus Promises [Gamespot] Meet the man cleaning up after the Godus disaster [Eurogamer]