The best parody account in gaming hangs up its hat after 17 years: Peter Molydeux is retiring

Masters of Albion is coming in April, and after that designer Peter Molyneux says he’s done: It will be his last game ever. Whether that holds up over the long term remains to be seen, but his promised retirement from the industry has also triggered the end of one of the best and longest-running videogame parody social media accounts: After 17 years, Peter Molydeux is calling it quits.

The Peter Molydeux account was launched on Twitter in 2009 by artist Adam Capone, poking gentle, even affectionate fun at Molyneux by posting short, bizarre ideas for game concepts: “Imagine a game in which you can date and form a deep meaningful relationship with your weapons,” for instance, or, “Imagine a game where you can do anything but once you do it you can never do it again.”

It didn’t take long before the account exploded in popularity, and if you have any doubt about that, be aware that there’s an entire, impressively detailed Wikipedia page dedicated to it. Some of the ideas shared by Molydeux were very funny, but it didn’t take long before something even funnier happened: People began to notice that some of them were actually kind of interesting, too.

Peter Molydeux inspired the MolyJam in 2012, resulting in 280 games inspired by Molydeux tweets; MolyJam 2, the following year, shifted directly slightly by basing game concepts on actual Molyneux quotes, like, “I still have nightmares about holding German sausages over my head.”

(Image credit: Peter Molydeux (Twitter))

I think one of the big reasons the Peter Molydeux account was successful is that it was never mean-spirited. I called Molyneux “the game industry’s biggest bullshitter” when the Masters of Albion launch date was announced earlier this week, but I also said it’s a term used by most of us with a certain affection, and Peter Molydeux had a similar outlook: Molyneux’s overly-excitable ambition may have caused all of us to groan and say “come on, Peter” at least once, but it always seemed genuine, too. He wasn’t selling something, like a high-priced executive on stage in a leather jacket or cool t-shirt: He’s just a weird dude with impossibly huge ideas.

I think that was most aptly reflected by Molyneux’s participation in that 2012 MolyJam, which he kicked off with an impassioned speech about the need for innovation and creativity instead of “the same pap that’s being pumped out year after year.”

“We’ve got all this technology now,” Molyneux said. “We’ve got cloud and we’ve got Smart Glass and we’ve got countless inventions happening all the time. But there isn’t the creativity that should define us. And it’s people in this room coming together and giving up their spare time and working on those crazy ideas that could just change something.”

Which brings us back to Capone’s decision to retire Peter Molydeux. “I started this account back in 2009, around the Xbox Arcade era, when indie games were beginning a real resurgence such as Braid, Limbo, and others,” Capone wrote in a farewell message.

“Back then, Molydeux-style ideas felt genuinely outrageous. Over time, so many indie games emerged that even Peter Molyneux’s wildest concepts stopped feeling unusual. You could play as a hole (Donut County), progress by taking photos (Viewfinder), or experience mechanics no one would have greenlit years earlier.

“The same goes for diversity and accessibility. Tweets that once felt provocative like being ‘shocked’ that a woman took up more space on a box cover (The Last of Us) or joking about a difficulty mode so easy you could just focus on the story gradually became—normal? And rightly so. What once felt radical and bizarre (‘Imagine a game where you play as a cat’) had become more commonplace.”

Capone mourned Molyneux’s decision many years ago to stop speaking publicly, saying “that kind of unfiltered excitement has been replaced by carefully rehearsed pitches and bullet points.” He also expressed gratitude for Molyneux’s contributions to the game industry, adding, “I hope every generation creates its own Molyneuxs.”

“As the industry continues through a difficult period (I recently lost my job when Ubisoft Halifax shut down), I still believe games will keep evolving in the right ways,” Capone wrote. “Creative risks (not technology or metrics) are what truly push the medium forward. Looking back over the last two decades, we now have far more flavors of games, for far wider audiences, than we did in 2009.

“As the industry inevitably rebuilds, I’m convinced it’ll be the small, weird games from over-excited enthusiastic designers in control of their games as they continue creating new experiences and nudging us forward, step by (baby?) step.”

Masters of Albion, Molyneux’s “redemption title”—and I really hope it is—is set to arrive on April 22.