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Molyneux Rumour Control
Gamespot has an article up looking at some of the current rumours swirling around designer Peter Molyneux. Best known for the Black and White series, Molyneux's Lionhead studio is heavily favoured to be the next acquisition target for Microsoft. He canceled a GDC session with no notice on Friday (one I was hoping to go to, I might add), and there's been much speculation since last week. From the article: "Over the subsequent month, the rumors festered. On March 3, Lionhead laid off between 50 and 100 people, and reduced its number of projects-in-development from three to two--a Black & White 2 expansion and a Fable sequel. Today, the floodgates of speculation re-opened, when Molyneux's session at the 2006 Game Developers Conference in San Jose was summarily canceled."
Rumors are all very good and all... but they're just that--rumors. The same things would happen if the studio was floundering because they aren't making enough returns from their investments. Fable was, disappointing, to say the least. There was lots of hype surrounding it, but it just didn't live up to all the hype. Sales were fairly good, but a game of that kind isn't exactly inexpensive to make. Black & White 2 just came out too far after the original Black & White and is another game that definitely isn't inexpensive to make... I personally don't think that the studio is doing that poorly, but I'm just playing devil's advocate and pointing out that these are signs of things other than a possible buy out...
Read my blog posts on usability.
Anyone know which game got cut? In the writeup it reads reduced its number of projects-in-development from three to two, but fails to mention anything about that third game.