22cans to centralize all of its creativity “on one entity, and that entity is Godus”

By Stephany Nunneley

22cans boss Peter Molyneux has suggested Godus could be the studio’s last game, something Molyneux alluded to back in 2012.

godus art

Speaking with GI International, Molyneux said 22cans was founded by the idea of focusing all its energy on one game, and that game is Godus.

“Founding a company, an entity, grounded by the thought that we aren’t just going to go and fill up one idea after another idea. We’re going to be centralizing all of our creativity on one entity, and that entity is Godus,” he said. “I think part of the incredible place that we are in this industry now is that we could support a studio like 22Cans, which is just devoted to one thing and that is to making one game.

“Making a game in the same way, and this is a crazy, stupid analogy but it kind of sums it up, the product company that runs Coronation Street didn’t immediately think when they released their first product Coronation Street what’s the next thing they’re going to do? The first thing that they thought was how are they going to structure a production company so Coronation Street can come up every single day of the week for the rest of time.

“But that’s what they did. That inspires me more because I just imagine what an incredible thing it would be to take people who are playing Godus on this journey. This journey through time. This journey of evolving their people through what happens after you do connect all these people together. What happens? Will they all fight, will they all cooperate, will they be nice, will they be compassionate? That will be a fascinating thing.”

Molyneux went on to say a studio focusing only on one game is “insanely risky,” and he is taking negative feedback on the Early Access version in stride, reiterating Godus is still in pre-alpha and more will be added to the game to make it fun.

“That’s the world we live in,” he said. “If Spiderman 3 comes out and we see a trailer, we make a judgement on that trailer. It’s just 90 seconds and of course we shouldn’t, but that’s the world we live in now. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t reveal yourself. The end always justifies the means. We have to have people play this game. If we closed the shutters and just developed it blind and then released it, I think we would’ve failed, but the very fact that this game has already been played by over a million people… That makes the chances of success far far higher and that’s worth the risk.

“I don’t mind if people turn around and say, ‘You know what, that early access was boring. There’s too much tapping and clicking.’ It would be a sin for me not to respond to that.”

Godus is currently in beta and will released on Mac, PC and mobile devices next month.

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