IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Molyneux Says Rapid Innovation Will Create New Genres

Posted June 4, 2010 by M.H. Williams

Peter Molyneux, game designer extraordinaire and creative director of Lionhead Studios, believes that whole new genres will spring forth from the intersection of social gaming, emotional intent and motion control. Molyneux spoke with Gamasutra recently, saying that a number of forces were “all coming together at once.”

Molyneux's first point is the advent of motion controllers, like the Nintendo WiiMote or Microsoft's Natal, which he's heavily involved with. "The hardware manufacturers have really realized, 'Look, if we really want to revolutionize things, it's not about faster processors and more memory. It is actually about things that are being held in the player's hands'," he notes. 

"And then you've got the side where, at last, we're starting to get what online really means,” says Molyneux, pointing towards online and social features in Lionhead's upcoming Fable III.

“You've got us as software engineers and designers and creators actually saying, 'Hey, we can make emotional experiences'," said Molyneux. "Games like Heavy Rain give you a true emotional roller coaster ride."

Together, Molyneux says the three tiers put the industry far ahead of where it was just a few years ago, ready for a paradigm shift. 

"You put all of that stuff together, and you start to realize that, in two to three years' time, when we all get used to all of this new stuff, all these new colors and the paint palette of design -- it really is going to make new genres happen."

M.H. Williams has been writing in some form or another for ten years and has been a hardcore gamer since the NES first graced American shores.  You can catch him on Twitter as @AutomaticZen, Google+ as himself, or on his personal Facebook page.