Remember Curiosity? Don’t feel bad if you don’t - in fact Peter Molyneux, the mastermind behind the game, probably doesn’t want you to remember it, given recent findings and current troubles surrounding his current project, Godus.
Curiosity was an experimental iOS game that dropped back in November 2012 that offered a unique reward for one lucky player. The game presented players with layers upon layers of cubes, each encased within each other like a Russian-doll. People who downloaded the app were tasked with picking each layer apart until a lucky player reached the center. The cube’s six faces were made up of thousands of cubelets and presented to players simultaneously through shared servers.So if you drew, say, a smiley face on one part of the cube (and it was vast), that little smiley face would appear on everyone else‘s cube, too.
The experimental game’s popularity was fueled by Molyneux, the games designer, who claimed that a “life changing prize” would be awarded to the person who manages to pick off the final layered cubelet. The life changing prize he was referring to was the chance to become the “God of Gods” in Molyneux’s latest game, Godus. Perhaps more importantly though, the winner would also receive a cut of Godus’ profits.
Bryan Henderson was the winner of Curiosity. He was promised fame, money, and the opportunity to rule as God in 22cans’ next game, Godus. Fast-forward to 2015, and things have changed. Godus is reportedly struggling, its development team having been dramatically cut down to work on 22cans’ new project, Trails (though Molyneux has said that Godus has generated “millions” for the studio, and continue to generate a good amount of revenue). The studio can’t even get multiplayer to work, thanks to technical problems preventing them from realizing the scope of Molyneux’s ambition (haven’t we heard this before?). Now, in a very interesting recent interview with Eurogamer, Henderson has said that nearly two years since he won Curiosity, he has not received any money. And to make matters worse, Molyneux and 22Cans have neglected to maintain contact with him.
“For a moment I was excited,” Henderson told Eurogamer’s news editor, Wesley Yin-Poole. “My general feeling was, depending on how well the game does, I was thinking in terms of worst to the best, I could get £10,000 to £500,000 at the very best. Still, that would be awesome. But so far not a penny.”
The fundamental issue is that Henderson’s “God of Gods” role in Godus is supposed to be implemented in the game’s multiplayer section which hasn’t been introduced yet (despite the Godus’ PC launch back in September 2013). At this point, Molyneux can’t even guarantee that multiplayer will ever come to the game, which means that Henderson may never receive anything at all.
Take a look at the Eurogamer article for a more detailed explanation of what’s going on with the apparently not so lucky Bryan Henderson in relation to Godus.
Oliver Zimmerman
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