I started by looking as far back in Lionhead's history as I knew of already, knowing Bullfrog had been started by Peter Molyneux, I knew nothing about how Molyneux had reached this point in his career. I was not surprised to learn about his first self-supported, single handed development endeavour, and if this case study has taught me anything new about Molyneux it is that he has maintained his enthusiasm from his youth to his present position as Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios, Europe . I tried not to focus on the criticism he has received in the past for over-hyping games, as I feel like this is what he has become famous for of late, overlooking his incredible passion and skill as games designer that has got him so far. I did touch on this subject though, and expressed my empathy for his honesty, and how I respect him for this. My opinion on Sir Peter Molyneux has not changed during this project and I admire him as a creative individual and director.
Learning about Bullfrog I realised the economic drive that Molyneux has as a businessman, and how the economics of Lionhead as a company used Bullfrog as a template to build upon. As a bigger company, workplace ethic was a larger concern and I have learnt a lot about employee rights and equality from the Lionhead website and their internet presence. I now know how work is distributed and how employees can have a say on any part of the development even if its not within their own field, the video diaries were incredibly insightful but no doubt just as controlled and staged as they were helpful, to show Lionhead in a good light.
I do believe however, that their policies on what can be shared about their work has not been restricted since being bought out by Microsoft and I have noticed the changes that have been made, but I strongly feel that Lionhead have managed to retain their own identity as a company. If I had more time I would compare Lionhead to another company owned by Microsoft to see how much freedom they allow their studios, such as Bungie. Lionhead employees have strong rights to share their work progress through blogs and webcams, video diaries and the Lionhead community forums, and as a company they have adapted extremely well to communicating through social networking. I suppose all of this helps to control speculation as well as fan input in the development, something that has been important to Molyneux throughout his career. I later looked at employee equality again and rather unexpectedly sexual discrimiation in the Lionhead workplace. I was shocked to find this at all, and at the conclusions Microsoft came to, but I feel it may be something you would need to know more details about to have a fair opinion on.
I went on to look at the cultural contexts of Lionhead games, after discovering exactly where the company is based. I already knew from primary research playing Lionhead and Bullfrog games that the company is proud of being British. Game content refers back to British culture in the choice of voice acting and setting, proving popular overseas and in the UK with its distinct humour and contemporary popular culture intertextuality. The company has had a constant strong aim to revolutionise what players expect of digital games and gameplay, especially concerning a player's emotional attachment and emotional contribution to the game - how this can directly influence gameplay. To keep this relevant to my four focus areas I looked at how this has had effects on society, including the public's and industry professional's opinions on Project Natal and its emotional communication possibilities.
From these opinions and discussing the Project Natal demo videos with other course members and friends, Natal seems highly controversial and the same issues arise with most conversations. Issues such as engaging in a 'fake' relationship has concerns that this may be damaging, and some think that we should spend more time engaging with real people considering the state of our society at present. Some people just don't like the idea of moving around and being restricted by their physical existence, whereas others are sceptical the motion sensing will even work at all. Despite these views there is a lot of positive interest from developers in particular and a lot of people already think Natal could and will revolutionise gaming culture and possibly society as a whole. Personally I am on the sceptical side, but I await trying it for myself. I also think that drawing on the dependency of fans of the
Fable series to sell Project Natal is quite unethical, but I have no doubt it will work and for that it is a clever marketing move on Microsoft's part.
Again, given more time I would lengthen my investigation to look at how different cultures are represented in Lionhead games, and gender equality as well as sexual orientation. I really feel that I should have looked at these areas within this study to give the areas that I did cover more of an accurate context and I regret not spending more time on this. I also feel I could have looked more at Natal.
The methods I used to gather information were mostly internet sources, a lot of them Lionhead hosted and maintained, which is as close to a primary source a website can be. These sites held a lot of useful information about the company and I used the main site as a starting point for my entire investigation. I feel that the internet and magazine articles I used were all trustworthy sources, either quoting a Lionhead or Microsoft employee or representative. I found my sources fairly easily, which shows just how much Lionhead and Peter Molyneux are in the public eye, and how prominent an internet identity and community they have. Some of my sources I already knew of before starting the investigation, from subscribing to magazines and the Lionhead Twitter feed, and just having a general interest in the company.
My opinion on Lionhead as a company when I first began was positive, I had just discovered Bullfrog and Lionhead were connected, and I always enjoyed reading articles on Molyneux in magazines and looked forward to seeing what they would produce next. I still have a positive opinion on the company, especially its workplace ethic and regulations. I am less sceptical now of Microsoft's influence since acquiring Lionhead in 2006, but I remain sceptical for now of Project Natal.
