Peter Molyneux Fails To Honour 'Life Changing' Prize to 'Curiosity' Winner

It seems that legendary videogame developer Peter Molyneux isn't very good at keeping promises. The developer hasn't honoured the promise of delivering a "life-changing" prize to the winner of his experimental iOS game known as "Curiosity."

Back in November 2012, Molyneux had launched "Curiosity" on iOS and later ported it to Android as well. The puzzle game challenged players across the world to collectively chip away at the multitudes of layers of a large cube. Each of the thousands of players worked together to solve hundreds of thousands of smaller cubes constituting each face of the larger cube. The entire process took over seven months for a vast number of players, but only the lucky one who picks off the final cube would be deemed the winner, according to Gamespot.

The lucky winner was identified in May 2013 as British gamer Bryan Henderson. His reward was supposed to be the much-hyped "life-changing prize" that Molyneux had publicised. The prize was the distinction of becoming the God of Gods in the developer's next game "Godus." The Kickstarter funded project was a god game that allowed players to essay the role of gods in the vein of Molyneux's hit title "Black & White."

Henderson's reward wasn't just notional. As the God of Gods he had the ability to influence the multiplayer component of the game. More importantly, that epithet also came with a revenue-sharing contract that gave him a 1 percent cut of the game's revenue. He was told by the developer 22Cans that the earnings could amount to anywhere between GBP 10,000 to 500,000.

However, after almost 2 years since winning the game, Henderson has neither seen a single dime from the revenue-sharing agreement, nor has anyone from Godus developer 22Cans has been in contact with him. This was revealed after Henderson spoke to Eurogamer about how the Molyneux had practically reneged on his promise.

"For a moment I was excited. 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 pounds at the very best," said Henderson expressing his initial feeling of excitement at winning the prize. "Still, that would be awesome. But so far not a penny."

However, the revenue-sharing agreement came with a catch. The deal was subject to Henderson assuming his role of God of Gods. Unfortunately for him, that role couldn't be assumed until the 22Cans added a working multiplayer component to the game. "Godus" hadn't received the component even after its Sept. 2013 launch on the PC or the more recent Android release last year.

Technically speaking, without a multiplayer mode, there can be no God of Gods and there can't be a revenue-sharing deal devoid of that. Interestingly, Henderson's contract with 22Cans doesn't have any timeframe for the completion of the multiplayer mode, which is a prerequisite for sharing revenue with him. In a nutshell, there's no saying when he will see the money – if at all.

When probed by Eurogamer, Molyneux stated that the team was working towards adding the multiplayer component. However, the developer refused to give any guarantee, as most of the "Godus" development team had been diverted to the company's upcoming game called "The Trail."

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Curiosity - what's inside the cube winner video (credit: 22cans YouTube channel)