Tim Schafer defends Peter Molyneux, criticises “extremely rough treatment” by games press

Double Fine Layoffs

Tim Schafer’s given an update on recent progress on the second half of Broken Age, Double Fine’s crowdfunded point and click adventure, outlining some of the milestones he and his team have hit in the last month.

Dialogue is now finished and recorded in both English and German, and external QA testing of the game has started, which means Broken Age’s rear end is busy being buffed and polished to within an inch of its life.

Schafer also took the opportunity to give his thoughts on recent events concerning Peter Molyneux’s troubled Kickstarter project, Godus.

Molyneux has been under fire from both the games press and from within his own community, following a series of high-profile failures surrounding his Kickstarter project. The developer admitted to “horrendous mistakes”, having not delivered on some of backer promises made during development of Godus.

His previous game, Curiosity, had alsofailed to provide its winner with compensation commensurate with Molyneux’s enthusiastic description of the game’s life-changing prize, while a recent Rock Paper Shotgun interview has been seen by many as overly aggressive. Molyneux has said during his last round of interviews that he no longer intends to speak with press.

Schafer extended support to his fellow developer in response to “extremely rough treatment of Peter from the internet and the games press”, describing the coverage as “unfortunate, unfair and unhealthy”.

“I’m not saying that developers like Peter and I shouldn’t be responsible and accountable to deadlines,” Schafer continues. “I’m just saying the reaction and tone to recent events has been way out of proportion to the seriousness of the events themselves.”

Here’s the full video.