AngryLittleAlchemist said:
Im pretty sure Molyneux left a few years before Bullfrog closed |
My point is, Molyneux destroyed his company when he (together with his partner) decided to sell it to EA without getting the guarantee to run the company the way they wanted. If he wouldn‘t have sold the company to EA and given away artistic control, he would have made another stupid business decision which would eventually have led to Bullfrog‘s demise. Molyneux is (respectively was) a great game designer but a terrible business man. (I loved Magic Carpet, Syndicate and especially Dungeon Keeper, btw.)
See Westwood as counter-example: Most people don‘t know that "Westwood Associates" had already been acquired by Virgin Interactive 6 years before they got acquired by EA (thanks to financial troubles at Virgin). In the early 90s, after their initial success with (especially) Eye of the Beholder, Brett Sperry & Louis Castle wanted to make games with bigger budgets. In order to get more money they decided to sell their company, but it was most important to them to keep full control (that‘s the difference to Molyneux). So in 1992 they declined offers from other companies like Sierra Entertainment in favor of Virgin Interactive as the latter company was the only one to guarantee Westwood full artistic control and worldwide self-marketing. Under Virgin the (now renamed) "Westwood Studios" created Dune II (one of my all-time favorites and one of the most influential games ever created), Command & Conquer series, Lands of Lore I&II, The Legend of Kyrandia trilogy and Blade Runner (I loved and played all these games).
