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What Is Going On With Peter Molyneux’s Twitter Account?
Update: The tweets suggesting Molyneux's retirement have been deleted. The tweet about the hacking remains live along with one other.
@pmolyneux right all cleared up! (I hope) just to be clear I am not Retiring, quite the opposite, humm it's quite nice to talk again.
— peter molyneux (@pmolyneux) January 28, 2016
Original Story:
We were just moments away from posting a story that Peter Molyneux was retiring from the game industry. In a series of three tweets, “Molyneux” announced his departure, the removal of Godus from Steam, and that Fable III was his biggest mistake. And none of it is allegedly true.
The tweets started at 4:07 p.m. Eastern. At the time of publication they remain live:
We’ve reached out to 22 Cans for answers, but what we know right now is that in a follow-up Tweet, whomever is now in control of Molyneux’s account says it was a hoax and that his account was hacked.
A former colleague by the name of Jack Attridge claims to have been on the phone with Molyneux and affirms that the tweets were a hoax. We expect that 22 Cans might have something to say about the incident.
Molyneux and 22 Cans came under fire in 2015 regarding promises made to a young man named Bryan Henderson. Henderson won a competition, called Curiosity, run by the studio. The prize was supposed to be a prominent role as the supreme deity of Godus’ multiplayer mode.
Godus never received that feature and Henderson did not have the opportunity to step into his post. Unfortunately, this also meant that Henderson did not receive the promised funds from fulfilling his supernatural duties.
According to GameSpot, the developer has confirmed the hack and that the tweets announcing the game's removal and Molyneux's retirement were untrue. We're hopeful that we will receive a complete statement that we can share.
Our Take
This is a potent reminder that while Twitter is a valuable source for information, verification remains crucial. This strange situation could have gotten completely out of hand had the account not been recovered so quickly.
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