Adam Doree | Fable & Lionhead Studios Documentary w/ Peter Molyneux, B&W2, Populous, Project Dmitri & The Movies @AdamDoree | Uploaded 1 year ago | Updated 1 hour ago
Newly remastered from the archives is this documentary-length, behind-the-scenes video interview feature with Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios team. Online video features of this length were unheard of back in 2004 (before YouTube even existed!) but we wanted to take things up a notch in online games media - and being such a compelling interviewee, Peter Molyneux was one of the first in the business we thought deserved this canvas, so we've been looking forward to remaster it (as good as we tried to make the WMV download quality 19 years ago, the tools of today are much kinder to the source material!).

This remaster was originally published as two separate video features (one focusing on Fable and the other on everything else - including Black and White 2, The Movies, the mysterious Project Dimitri and -- **uncensored for the first time in this edit** -- Populous); all of this was recorded on the same day at Lionhead Studios in Guildford, UK, and presented here as one combined feature.

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Key Interviewees
• Peter Molyneux (Lionhead Founder, Director)
• Dene Carter (Co-MD of Big Blue Box, Lead Designer)
• Simon Carter (Co-MD of Big Blue Box, Lead Programmer)
• James Leach (Writer)
• Kareem Ettouney (Concept Artist)
• Andy Robson (Head of Testing)
• Nathan Smethurst (Assistant Head of Testing)
• Sam van Tilburgh (Community Manager)

Chapters:

00:00:00 Intro/Fable
00:01:31 Finishing Fable
00:04:05 Expectation vs reality
00:06:50 Story vs freedom
00:08:54 AI systems and economics
00:13:15 Changes in Japan
00:14:10 Lionhead office tour
00:14:43 James Leach - Writer, Fable
00:21:11 Be Ridiculous!
00:22:27 Dene & Simon Carter
00:24:23 Freedom hype
00:25:48 Fable game structure
00:27:16 Global RPG influences
00:28:57 Not punishing players
00:31:41 Fable, the hippie zen RPG!
00:32:50 Silly Statistics
00:34:30 Test Team - Andy Robson and Nathan Smethurst
00:35:14 Kareem Ettouney - Concept Artist
00:36:48 Peter on Fable future
00:38:20 Best RPG Ever?
00:41:02 More Lionhead Projects!
00:42:48 Black & White 2
00:45:02 The Movies
00:46:11 Lionhead's role
00:47:20 More on AI
00:48:20 S*x in Games
00:50:21 Sensitivity and censorship
00:52:41 Project Dimitri
00:55:11 Next gen development
00:58:24 Games too complicated?
01:01:34 A soccer game?
01:02:16 Introducing Mark Healey! (Rag Doll Kung Fu)
01:03:17 Lionhead global expansion
01:05:00 Making Successful Games
01:09:10 PC vs PS3 vs Xenon (Xbox 360)
01:12:45 UNCENSORED! Populous
01:14:09 Outro & Outtakes

Interview conducted by Adam Doree and Alex Wollenschlaeger 15 July 2004, first published August 2004 here:
http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/fable_vidint_feature.asp
http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/petermolyneux_vidint.asp

Peter went on to share a lot more with us over the years. A list of these encounters can be found here:
http://www.videogamesdaily.com/features/200910/gaming-idols-top-50-we-ever-interviewed/3