When asked who else he would like to see win a BAFTA Fellowship, Fable creator Peter Molyneux had nothing but kind words for Minecraft mastermind Markus “Notch” Persson.
Last night at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) videogame awards, Lionhead mastermind Peter Molyneux was honored with a BAFTA Fellowship for his work in the industry. IGN caught up with the man after the awards, and asked him who he thought would be in the running for a Fellowship award in ten years’ time. While the big-dreaming Molyneux could have chosen a dozen different names in the industry, he chose to praise one in particular – Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson.
“That’s a good question, and it brings up an interesting point,” said Molyneux. “I wish you – people in the press – would focus on some of that up and coming talent, because there isn’t enough focus on it in my opinion. People like Marcus Persson who did Minecraft, he’s a fantastic person to talk to, and I think Minecraft is a complete work of genius.”
Anyone who followed the Lionhead boss on Twitter might have had an inkling that Molyneux was a Minecraft fan from the way he invited everyone to join the server he was playing on with his son Lucas Molyneux (last seen begging Valve for Half-Life 3). Unfortunately, says Molyneux, the risk you run when inviting everyone to play Minecraft is that everyone will actually show up.
“It was a disaster!” said Molyneux. “Me and my son were playing with it, and he was bullying me saying he wished he could get more people into our world so I set it up and he was a bit disappointed that no-one knew about it, so I just tweeted the web address. That was the worst thing to do – within ten seconds of me pushing the Twitter button there were ten people, within 20 there were 50 people, and in a minute there were 200 people and we were bombarded until the point where the whole server crashed.”
Luckily, said Molyneux, the newcomers couldn’t destroy his son’s work. “I opted that they couldn’t have permission to change anything – but if you could imagine, there was this hill completely full of people, like a forest of people. It was quite scary, actually.”
But to Peter Molyneux, this event only enforced the power of Minecraft. “In Minecraft your designs tend to be quite personal – and that’s the genius of it – and to think there are all these people just going there and looking, it was quite funny.”
“I think Minecraft‘s the best thing I’ve played in the last ten years,” lauded Molyneux, “[And] what’s so brilliant about it – and I’ve met Marcus and he’s a real inspirational person – he did everything on his own, and I think how brilliant and inspirational that is, to not need the full force of publishers and marketing people. He did everything on his own.”
The full interview isn’t just Peter Molyneux praising Minecraft – though that is an admittedly large portion of it – and it’s worth reading over at IGN, if only to take a look into the mind of one of gaming’s most eccentric auteurs.
(IGN)
