Populous and Black and White are two of Peter Molyneux's most well-known games, as well as the classic role-playing series Fable, and a chaotic campaign that asked people to tap a cube to make them gods in a game that has now been released. You can add the NFT game developer to the list this weekend.
Molyneux announced a partnership with Gala Games on Saturday in Las Vegas. Legacy, a management game that Molyneux first announced in 2019, will be launched by Gala and 22Cans. Legacy will incorporate a new digital currency called LegacyCoin and players will join the game by buying a non-fungible token called "Land." They can form a business in the game, build a town around that business, and compete with other players to increase their LegacyCoin funds once they join. It is supposed to sit in the same genre as Axie, but with different moral choices and management systems.
Molyneux is probably the most accomplished developer to make a serious attempt at gaming in the form of a coin game. He retreated from the public eye in 2015, after a Rock Paper Shotgun interviewer suggested he was a pathological liar, after making huge undelivered promises around the crowdfunded title Godus. Godus was supposed to share its profits with a player who was declared its god, but that didn't happen. He is either an odd fit or the perfect fit for NFT gaming, a sector that is often described as overhyped.
I spoke with Molyneux just before Gala announced it would be launching Legacy. I was curious to know how a developer with a reputation for fine-tuned fantasy worlds would apply his ethos to a game that people would be playing for real money or even a full-time real-world job. I was curious about what the game was about, since the description seemed to promise a complicated fusion of business sim and city management. I was curious about what a blockchain added to the experience. The answers were intriguing, but not always illuminating.
22 Cans is a file with the name Legacyhero.
Interview was edited for clarity.
I watched a trailer to make sure I understood what was in the game. It seems like there is a city building component and also a section where you are trying to make things for your business. You are also selling those things in contests against other players.
You have done the job for me. I thought it would be cool to make everyone feel creative in Legacy. The problem with creativity is that I am completely incompetent when it comes to drawing, painting, singing, writing, gardening, or almost anything. A game that helps you be creative is what we need.
Wouldn't it be great to have a game about starting your own business? In the past, manufacturing businesses used to be centered around little towns and those towns used to grow into cities because of the manufacturing. The city building is where you are responsible for designing all the products that you and your business will sell. You are responsible for getting all the commodities that those design products need, and you are also responsible for winning the design competition that goes on between you and the other players.
I don't think that's enough. It is not enough to have a city builder. It is not enough to have a design table where you can design any product, but you have to have a building design table as well. A fantastic narrative is what we need. Through all of this is an amazing narrative story which can be adapted to what you are doing in your town, what is happening in the larger community, and what your business has been up to.
:noupscale is a file on Legacy Design Carousel.
There is an item creation table.
We call them events where you win something called LegacyCoin. We have events that pit you against other players, and we have the most advanced simulation that I have ever been involved with. The narrative storyline picks at the moral choices.
What kind of business are you going to run? Are you going to be a good boss or are you going to worry about the environment? Are you going to worry about your workers? Do that, absolutely. Are you going to make as much money as the evil bastard that will push the workers and maybe not give them free time that cares about pollution? We have a game that covers all of that. I think it is those sort of big steps that the gaming industry needs.
What does Legacy coin do for the kind of narrative and moral choices you want to capture, and the feeling of creativity you want to capture?
Because you are competing against other players and they are using the same technology that we use, it allows us to compare those players in a really interesting way. Are you going to be a person who gives back or a person who just cashes out? That is so fascinating about having a living world.
I think it is a completely unique living world. You know, every building, every product, every worker that you have. We have an unbelievable simulation and an incredible narrative in the game. We have moral choices in there and competing against each other, all within this totally new world, which is exactly what the internet is all about.
You could do all the things you were describing with a game database. Why is it important?
You have to earn the right, but you can create your own items from within Legacy. If you build a factory where your product is going to be made, the building can look crazy if you want it to. All depends on the blocks that you get. The cool thing is that your whole world is gaining unique experience depending on how your game is progressing. That is in the item. You could make a factory, use it for 100 hours or more, and then put that building up on the blockchain. That is pretty amazing.
Is the idea of a real-money economy in the game? If you want to be a moral boss, it will cost you money in the real world.
If you are doing well in the game and earning points, you can convert them into real-world money.
The experiences that I have had so far, and I won't name any names, seem to forget about the game entirely and become more of a mechanic about making money and less about your game. I think we need to have signature unique titles like any revolution that has happened within the games industry.
It is about ownership, but it is also about consequences, because when you are playing the game, we are measuring those moral consequences within the narrative.
If people start playing your game and making enough money that it becomes a full-time job, it would be like Axie Infinity. There is a decision you have to make with the game that is going to make it less profitable and change the economy. How do you balance the fact that people will lose their jobs?
When you have a complex simulation, you have to get the balance and refinements right. We have all the features in the game, so we are balancing the simulation so that it doesn't tilt to one side in extreme.
If players find a way to make a lot of money in the game, and they need that money because this is their job now, but it makes the game less fun, what happens? What are you going to do in that situation?
Careful monitoring and self-balancing mechanics. We have to see how the world reacts to small changes. I have worked on many designs and games, but to think that someone could be playing my game and earning money is something that would be incredible. We have to be very careful.
How much of your design is based on understanding real-life economics and how much is not?
I learned this lesson when I did two games, Theme Park and Theme Hospital, and the temptation is to be inspired by what happens in the real world. The economics of a theme park. The economics of running a hospital. The temptation is that. If the logic of what you are doing gets in the way of the game, you should resist the temptation. I wouldn't want to go to a hospital that was inspired by Theme Hospital, and I wouldn't want to go to a theme park that was designed by Theme Park.
I want people to imagine the reality of playing a business, not the reality of running a business.
Legacy is a game where you are building and running a company town.
Yeah, that is. If you want to see a perfect example of this, you should look at Bournville Chocolate. When they founded the company, they paid people in Bournville Chocolate token. They built all the houses for the people to live in. Everybody in Bournville was employed by the chocolate factory. I know a lot of Chinese companies that design houses for their workers to live in. There are examples of it in the modern world.
In America, company town has a negative connotation. It is seen as synonymous with companies controlling the lives of their workers and making it hard for them to leave. Is that not intentional?
I am not saying that my monthly trips to Redmond were any inspiration. It felt a little bit like that, but you never know where inspiration comes from. Everyone went to the gym and worked for Microsoft. Being naked in front of a human in a changing room is terrifying, because I am English. It was even more frightening when you realized that there was a former Microsoft CEO over in the corner and someone else over there.
If I mention it, a lot of people are going to think that this game is really bad. I am wondering if that is a fair read or if that is not the way that you mean for it to be read.
I want to give you the ability to make the perfect town, to make sure that all the workers are happy, that they have cafes and cinemas and schools. People get married, they have kids, and they need to go to school. I want you to be able to do that.
I want you to know that there are consequences to that. My business is more successful than yours. I can approach this in a completely different way because it is a simulation. I don't want to build cafes and cinemas. I would like to build another factory. If you build a lot of factories close together, you will notice that the trees around it will start withdrawing, and more workers will have bad coughs. It is fascinating that there is a whole range.
I have been obsessed with giving people the freedom to make that choice for almost two decades. I have been working on a plan for years to make you want to be good or bad, but not to force you down any of those bad ways. It is going to be fascinating to see what people do with this, because it is in the blockchain world.
People's items can live outside of the game, one of the promises of the game. For whatever reason, you decide to shut down the game after someone creates a thing and mints it as an NFT, and it is not usable anymore. Is it still available in some fashion because of something?
That is a good question. I don't know what the answer is, to be completely honest.
If you make something in your world and then trade it to someone else, that item will carry with it all the benefits that you have sown in it. I think it is exciting that the things you acquire on the ledger will make your world a better place. If you put a worker in a mine, he will become an expert miner over time. If you put the worker to work in the pub as a landlord, he will become an expert landlord. That sort of experience can be found in the whole of Legacy. It is an all- connected system.
I am still trying to figure out what the future holds for the real-money economy, because all the stuff you are describing, you could just make a central database and you could just fill that database with the items. There is no reason for it to use a criptocurrency ledger.
They had exactly what you don't want to happen, and that's why. They had a central database. I am not going to say that I am sorry, but I just did. The system is a really delightful one.
I think it is the best thing that has happened to the internet, because it gives it a certain sense of honesty. This marketplace won't be spammed because LegacyCoin means that it's going to cost you. That is the first thing.
The second thing is to remember that Legacy is a game that makes you feel creative. The fact that you feel creative is great. I like spaghetti Bolognese or a beautiful picture. If no one ever buys it, you might as well not have done it.
The fact that your design is appreciated by other people that make money is the big thing. People can make money while playing a business simulation, and that is part of the reason why this is a game.
Is Godus and Godus Wars ever coming out of Steam Early Access?
I would love to see them out of Early Access and a happy ending to the Godus story. We have a team that is dedicated to Godus working at 22Cans. They are excited. We will be announcing our first new features for Godus in almost two years before Christmas. I hope that I won't be killed for saying that, but that is coming out. In a perfect world, yes, I would love that.
