From console to mobile: Game designer Peter Molyneux’s journey to reinvention (interview)

LONDON — You can’t find a more seasoned elder statesman of game development than Peter Molyneux. During a decades-long career, he has created monumental works such as Black & White and Populous. Yet Molyneux admits that he was surprised by the challenges in making the leap from console games (like Fable) to mobile games. And that experience has forced him to reinvention himself and relearn how to make games in the modern era.

It started in 2012 when his startup 22cans in Guildford, England, raised $881,571 in a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to build Godus, a new “god game” for the touch-screen interface. Molyneux had to learn how to craft a free-to-play game that monetized well yet didn’t alienate players with aggressive marketing tactics.