NEWS - Thursday, June 4, 2009
Molyneux Promoted to Creative Director
Molyneux will oversee the creative output of all internal studios as well as Microsofts third-party development partners, acting in a leadership role to help ideas come to fruition as well as ensuring better communication and understanding within the group.
"The best way for us to make sure our platforms evolve in a way that enables the best creative experiences is to make sure our creative leaders are closely tied into the work thats going on with the platform team," detailed Phil Spencer, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz.
"What were asking Peter to do is a creative director role for us in Europe, overseeing all of the creative work that goes on at our studios in the UK and Europe, and the different projects that we have with external partners.
"His role there is to not only help the collaborations and to bring both the thinking from that region back to the platform and Microsoft Game Studios as different things are incubating and being worked on, but the reverse is also true, of taking global knowledge of our platform efforts and different efforts at MGS and help provide context and guidance to those teams."
Molyneux said the promotion isnt about leaving his own mark on other studios titles, but rather helping internal and external talent realise their creative visions within the Microsoft development ecosystem.
"What youre not going to see is ten Peter Molyneux games. The value of this role is for someone like myself going in and making those little tiny lights of an idea shine as brightly as possible and ensuring everybody within the organisation clearly understands why were making those titles, the purpose of those titles and their importance to Microsoft overall.
"All Im going to be doing is making sure those lights are as bright as possible. People at Rare and other European studios are super, super bright and creative people and Ill learn as much about design from them as they would from me."
Molyneux said he hopes to help foster the passion of individuals, and in turn push Microsofts talent to drop preconceived ideas about game design and strive for innovation.
"Im definitely not going to go in and say this is a dumb idea and this is a good idea. Im more about making sure they really are doing the experiences theyre passionate about. Because passion is really central.
"Thats probably going to involve innovation, Im going to be pushing them more on the innovation side, especially with project Natal, and saying, look, dont think youve got all of your design comforts here any more, lets think of a new way of doing all that."
He also made it clear that he will still remain studio boss of Lionhead, and continues to work on the two titles currently in development at the studio.
Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/