I am sure many have heard about Peter Muline. Lately there is not much news about him. After Fable 3, he went into free swimming, engaging in various independent projects. But in his long career he left a prominent mark in the history of the game industry and the hearts of the players.
“I love my games and I just like to share them with people. This is just incredible, this is what I always wanted to do, create some ideas and shares it with people. The problem is that they do not always work ".
Like many eminent developers today, Peter Mulin, grew up in the 1970s. This is the era of the emergence of the gaming industry and the penetration of home PCs into wide layers of the population. She fascinated the boys on both sides of the Atlantic and offered incredible prospects. 17-year-old guy Mulinje discovered video games for himself. It was Pong (1972) – Superhit of the time that he met in the Arcadian Automated store: "There was a feeling that the aliens dragged me into their world". Arriving home, he pulled the money from his mother’s wallet and immediately lowered them all into the machines. Thus began the hobby, which became the obsession of life.
“Then there was no such profession as the“ developer ”in the game industry,” says Muline. “But, something in my head clicked and I thought“ This is a whole new world, and I was completely carried away by it ”” ”. At the turn of the 1970-1980s, the UK industry consisted of hundreds of loners and small groups that created games in artisanal conditions, and large gaming corporations only moved from the United States to Europe. Of course, the prospect of creating something new and ozolozh was caused by an enthusiasm of technically competent youth. “When I started working in the industry, we were all just children digging in sandboxes. And the word "industry" could be called only in those rare cases when we gathered together in small halls, sold games to each other " – now recalls Mulinier. Situations when the market was divided by a dozen corporations, and those in turn through debt obligations belong to several banks inevitable, but not at all obvious to young authors who were eager to create. The only thing Peter did not take into account – for 1 good game there are hundreds of samples of all kinds of garbage. And then everyone was sure that it was he who would create that only one, and the rest of the hundreds and thousands would bite the elbows enviously.
After school, he chose the path of the programmer, but soon threw the college. Already in 1982, he took up the sale of a floppy discretus, but quickly realized that selling them with games can be more expensive. And his first game was just a businessman simulator "The Entrepreneur", which he independently developed and released, but it turned out to be nobody needs. Nobody even noticed the game of the mulin. He was a little over 20 years old and so cold reception was so disappointed that he decided to abandon the development of games. Peter united with a certain Les Edgar to organize a trading company – Taurus. They were engaged in the export of bobs of bobs to the Middle East, receiving half a center for each jar. As Les later remembered: "During this time, Peter ate more beans than he sold", "I will no longer take bobs in my mouth" – added a mulin.
Only for a happy occasion, he did not remain a bob merchant. Once in Taurus they called from Commodore, inviting the mulin to see their latest PC Amiga (1985). They sent a car behind him, then drove around the office, showing different new items. He walked with them and decided to ask why they invited him: “I was thinking what the hell was going on? I just sell baked beans ". As it turned out later, they confused him Taurus with Torus, which was engaged in programming. The dumpness of this, of course, did not say about this. He was offered to engage in porting games and he could refuse if ten free Amiga for testing were not attached to the task. The first project of the mulinier was porting Druid (1986) with Commodore 64 on Amiga.
He walked 1987 and he decided that with all this equipment he could again engage in the development of his own games, the first of which was Populous, In it is a founded studio Bullfrog. Although it was difficult to call it a studio, because at first it consisted only of St. Petersburg and Les. "Office" is located in the attic and Sean Cooper (5th studio employee) thought he was in someone’s bedroom. The guys had less money, but there was not to occupy perseverance. And as another employee noted: “He did not even have a pot, not to mention money. But even then Peter was sure that everything would be fine. ". In such an environment, a game was created that will bring him the glory of one of the most outstanding developers.
Idea "Simulator of God", And this is what the genre called the invented filter in Populous, which in the broad sense remained a strategy in real time, arose in childhood. Peter loved to play in the yard and watch a huge anthill. He constantly broke him and watched as ants rebuild him again, he also put obstacles before them and watched them overcome them.
In addition, the merchant was not the best programmer and could not make the units adequately move around the map, so he decided to force the player to change the landscape, directing his wards to bright future. Populous published in 1989 made a splash, becoming one of the best games of the year. Everyone was delighted with the opportunity to turn all these men to their faith and destroy the churches of enemies. And so for 500 unique missions, which suggested an increasingly inventive achievement of the goal. However, the mulinier himself, remembering the failure of his first game, was not sure of success and got acquainted with one of the journalists took him to the bar and drunk as a game and received a simple answer that he did not see anything better. In the same year, she received 10 prestigious awards, and another 12 in the next, and sales exceeded 3 million. copies. During the year, she brought a third of the income Electronic Arts.
This allowed the studio to expand – to remove the normal office, hire more employees. Already in 1991 it came out Populous 2. And between the matter in 1990, the strategy came out PowerMonger on the Populous and Platformer engine Flood. Well, the next major studio game – Syndicate was on the shelves in 1993. It was a step -by -step, tactical, cyberpanic action movie in the best traditions "Running blade". The idea of the game hung in the air during the development of Populous. The mulinier still wanted to add a tactical regime, but the experience was still not enough and the matter did not go further than the design document. Yes, and the whole Syndicate began as an experiment with artificial intelligence, with which things also went tight.
The player received a detachment of cybernetic soldiers under management, fighting for the interests of his corporation with other same soldiers, as well as all those who turned up on the way including civilian. “We realized that it would be much more fun if not only to send agents to the city, but also to allow everything to smash everything there.” – says Mulinier. The most difficult thing for him was to come up with understandable and comfortable weapons icons, and t.D. For 50 missions, the passage of which took about 2 weeks, the player moved from nothing without foreshadowing the introductory missions to the bloody denouement. In addition to the tactical part, the game also contained a strategic, in which we have already steamed the great policy and the struggle of the syndicates in the struggle for world domination.
Critics accepted the game, although favorably, but not so definitely. Most often criticized for the monotony of missions, lousy AI, as well as the absence of multiplayer. But from the financial side everything was wonderful, which guaranteed the continuation that was already followed in 1994 under the name Syndicate: American Revolt, And in 1996 came out Syndicate Wars. But the mulinier had no attitude towards them. In 1994, he moved to the post of Vice President Electronic Arts, which just published all the games of the studios, and in 1995 Bullfrog Production was bought by EA. The last 2 games in the development of which he led were Theme Park (1994) And Dungeon Keeper (1997). The first was an economic strategy for creating a park of entertainment, and the second in the development of its gloomy dungeon.
"The problem is that I am a nightmare tropical-wins.uk PRA".
During this period, starting with the development of Syndicate, the filter becomes more and more a public personality and represents the game of the studio at various events. A successful merchant of bakery beans woke up in him, and the filter himself was slightly over 30. By this time, he became the most recognizable face of the industry, on the level of John Karmak and others. He so willingly distributed an interview and made high -profile promises that he began to give out what he wanted to. For example, a mulinier wanted to create a living world on the Syndicate locations, where every blank will be busy with his own business. But, between wanting to and make a huge abyss. The press, on the other hand, caught every loud promise of the meter of the industry, which, from time to time, coincided with reality. In 1994 in an interview The Guardian Mulinier said that if "In Theme Park, visitors will receive injuries, they will go to Theme Hospital". There was certainly none of this in the game. One of his employees Sean Cooper: "I think what he does is just inventing stories on the go for those with whom he communicates".
Dungeon Keeper was his last game in the walls of Bullfrog and EA. Work on the game went with a creak and the relationship of the mulinier with the leadership was constantly aggravated. The position of the manager greatly burdened him. As the mulinier later admitted, most of all he liked the format of the work of the Populous times – four in the attic, but everyone understood that these conditions were not compatible with life.
Rumors have been going on about his departure for a long time. EA was afraid that he would take employees with him to a new studio, which he had already founded in 1997. It was, famous in the Fable series Lionhead Studios. Dungeon Keeper, he finished sitting at home, because EA forbade him to appear in the office. And Bullfrog itself lasted until 2001. The situation has developed in such a way that the success of the studio depended on her face. The name "Peter Muline" turned into a profitable brand, under which money was willingly allocated. The industry at that time was obsessed with the idea of creating its gold -bearing stars on the model of Hollywood cinema and music so that you can write on the covers of their names with big beech. Employees compared it to Freddy Mercury whose shoulders were popular Queen. But the idea did not take off and the PR managers concentrated on the formation of the image of entire studios, in which there was no special turnover of personnel.
"I was firmly convinced that the first Lionshead project will be my best game".
The first project of the studio was Black & White. Until the end of 1997, the meetings were held at home at Mulin. He then lived in his own mansion and the studio’s office was removed a few minutes walk from the house. The main thing for the author was the idea of good and evil, which is reflected in the name. There was even the idea to create a game about the mafia, but there was no strength for this. As a result, many ideas migrated from the Populous concept, but which a team of 6 people could not realize. Now it was not much easier, because only 9 people worked in the new studio. In the future, the staff grew up to 24 people, and the budget to $ 6 million. The source of inspiration was King Cong. It is from it that the idea of a creature who is worshiped by the natives and who needs to be followed. Of course, Peter managed to make many high -profile promises. The game hung up to Alpha in 2000, but to correct numerous bugs, he had to turn to EA. With difficulty, but the game still released in 2001. The new God’s simulator was favorably accepted by players and critics, In 2001, winning in 2 BAFTA nominations of 6. And only in the USA in 5 years she earned $ 18.7 million., And according to the editorial office PC World She became the best game of 2001.
“It was then that the opinion of people about me has radically changed. I became those who, with their promises, sowed grains, which were not destined to prophesy. ".
– Peter Muline about the Fable series
The next game of the studio took as many as 4 years. The Project Ego, which later became Fable, was the idea of reflecting the hero’s actions on his appearance and an adequate reaction of the world to his actions. And all this in the genre of action-RPG and fabulous surroundings. Of course, the filter out of habit made a promise of one another grandiose, promising that it would be "The best game from either created". And in general, authority has so far made such statements. Peter then apologized:“After Fable, it was rather gloomy times when people looking at the game compared it with all my promises that I distributed to the press and felt deceived”. His logic was quite understandable: “When I worked on Fable 1, I constantly said that we are doing the best RPG in history. And how could it be otherwise? Why do something at all that will not become the best RPG in the world? Why make a game that you do not plan to build to the very top? So I thought and still think. And then headlines like “Fable will be the best RPG in history” appeared. It is not surprising that since then I have had a lot of problems. ".
The result, of course, was very dispersed with promises, but what was done caused well -deserved respect. But such a promise as trees and leaves on them growing in real time looked doubtful due to their meaninglessness and uselessness. Against the background of gloomy adventures from BioWare And Piranha bytes, Fable captivated her fabulous atmosphere, which was compared with books Terry Pratchetta. In order to emphasize this fairy tale, Muline even strictly divided the actions into kind and evil without halftones, which, with improvements, but remained in the series.
Over the next two years, Lionhead has released Black & White 2 And the simulator of the film The Movies. It was possible to manage its own studio, teach actors, write scripts, make films and, of course, try to earn money for all this. The only thing he did not realize from the plan is the opportunity to remove the sequels of his tapes. But he managed to promise her. At one of the presentations, he was so carried away by a description of the upcoming opportunities that he asked the assistant to show this system in action, although he knew that he was not there.
But not everything is so unambiguous. After all, all major games are demonstrated at game exhibitions like E3 or GDC, when there are several more years before the exit: “And, of course, when you need many, many years to finish the game, and you show some of its functions, you can’t even say exactly if these functions will remain in the final version of the game. In the end, it turns out that you have to talk about what can not be in the game. " – says Mulinier. On the other hand, when you give abstract promises to people it is easy to think out for yourself a lot of everything that the author did not even plan: “They presented an ideal game in their head, but the result turned out to be so far from their expectations. They didn’t like it ".
In 2006, Lionhead Studio was boughtMicrosoft And, in the development, Fable 2 He became exclusive Xbox 360. The mulin did not invent the bicycle, but transferred the action from the Middle Ages to the early New times, leaving the player to go through the same path of the hero, but in a much more extensive and diverse world with many new mechanics like creating a family, searching for business, business organization and cooperative. And all this, as before, in the atmosphere of a fairy tale. And if you make enough effort, then You can even become the emperor of Albion, who is sketched from England. This was the first time in a long time, when Mulinya fulfilled all his promises, although not in full.
The second part went out in 2008 in everything surpassed the original and was rightfully considered one of the best games at the Xbox 360, and the mulinius learned a lesson in high -profile promises: “Every time I said something, everyone around them recalled that Peter Mulinius made conclusions from the consequences of promises to players impossible … no one took me seriously, regardless of what I said”. Although, one cannot fail to note here the role of journalists who were always happy to inflate any promises, even if you need to tear phrases from the general context.
Fable 3 came out in just 2 years and was much less ambitious. The game takes place only 50 years after the second part and the main character has to overthrow the tyrant in which the son of the protagonist Fable 2 turned, heading the revolutionary underground. The game taught positive criticism, although it was scolded for the lack of innovation and a slow start. There was also a branded fabulous atmosphere in the surroundings of the industrial revolution, which added similarities to creativity now Charles Dickens.
The third part of the mulinier had much fewer opportunities to deal with, because back in 2009 he became the creative director of the European unit MIcrosoft Game Studios, and in the same 2009 he demonstrated on E3 pProject Milo For the coming in the near future Kinect (Then yet Project NATAl) – it was a project of artificial intelligence developed since 2001. Then the technology was used in Fable: The Journey (2012).
This was the last project of a mulinier in Microsoft walls. In March 2012, he left Lionhead Studios and founded a new studio 22cans Together with the former technical director of Lionhead Tim Rans. The first project of the studio was Curiosity – What’s Inside The Cube? -An experimental game that boiled down to the fact that you need to nonsense non-stopping a virtual cube in the hope of getting something at the end. This turned out to be a video in which Muline announced his next game and promised the winner to make him one of the game deities consisting in the possibility of determining the rules of the game and getting a percentage with each transaction. But in the end, he could not keep his promise.
This game was Godus, in the already familiar genre of the Simulator of God. In 2013, she went to Steam Early Access. The mulinier stably distributed an interview about the game until he encountered in 2015 with a journalist from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, who immediately called him "Pathological liar". After this story, several employees left the 22CANS studio, and Mulinier himself thought about retirement: “This was one of the most difficult moments in my life. My world has turned over after this interview ".
Indeed, the situation did not look very nice. This time, the filter spent the money of the players that he collected on Kickstarter, not publishing and was far from the completion of the program at least. The Guardian noted that today the reputation of the mulinum "Pushes into shreds". The story of the winner of the social project was especially surprised by all Curiosity – What’s Inside The Cube?, to whom the developer promised the Golden Mountains, and then he simply forgot about his words, and did not remember until Eurogamer not erupted in material on the topic. The mulinier continued his work, promising that after 6-9 months he will be able to bring everything to mind. The Guardian noted that the game designer was more likely to pity throughout the interview, but … having made another promise – not to communicate with the press immediately violated him.
After negative assessments, Godus never went out in the final assembly. Instead, the studio released in Early Access Godus Wars, in which the authors tried to correct all the shortcomings and which combined the real -time strategy with the achievements of the previous part, including the company’s landscape change,. All Godus owners and depositors of the Kickstarter campaign got a new game for free as an update. Steam users mainly accepted the game negatively: 68 % of the reviews about it turned out to be negative (a little less players – 66 % – criticized the original GODUS).
The idea of the game came up with a mulinier while walking with a dog in the park
In 2016, Mulinier released a mobile game The trial Almost nothing about her before the exit. The Trail was the choice of the editorial office in the App Store on iOS, And, according to Muline, this is his most popular game. And in April 2017, he announced The Legacy, which is on a very early development, but he assured that it will be "special". He connected his previous failures with the fact that he completely pulled away from programming directly and for working on The Legacy he learned to program again.
In one of the last interviews to the question, he would like to change something in his career, he replied: “I would change a lot. Was it worth me to leave Microsoft? It is unlikely. Was it worth it to sell Lionhead Microsoft? It is unlikely. Was it worth it to sell Bullfrog Productions Electronic Arts? It is unlikely ".
In conclusion, I would like to say that Peter Prayer is far from the only person who promises something that is not in the finished game. Most of the studios sin by this. Recall the same Ubisoft, who showed trailers from year to year, schedules in which noticeably exceeded the final material to recall at least Watch Dogs or older stories with the “Living Ecosystem” Far Cry 2. Or cut schedule The Witcher 2 and 3. Although the mulinum was unfulfilled by the promise were more ambitious.
The main thing is that, despite all the promises that were not fulfilled, the Games of the Fleet and the entire team that he headed were original, in many ways unique and invariably kept a high string of technical performance. It seems to me, therefore, many are sure that he could do everything, but did not, because balabol. The feeling of deceived expectations is fair, but only if the image of the game in the player’s head corresponds to what the Creator himself conceived and promised. Well, if you judge Peter Mulin, first of all for what he did, and not what he promised. And then we will see that he has enough achievements in the gaming industry by ten and not just he was immortalized in Hall of Glory of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (Hall of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) Together with designers such as Sigar Miyamoto, Sid Meyer, John Karmak And Will Wright. On Game Developers Choice Awards In 2011, he was awarded the award for Lifetime Achievement Award). And back in 2004 he was awarded the title of gentleman of the Order of the British Empire.