Peter Molyneux

Peter Molyneux is one of the UK’s most ambitious and well respected game developers, behind era defining titles like the Fable series, Populous and Theme Park.

But it didn’t start out that way.

He created his first game back in 1984, a text based business simulator called The Entrepreneur. He planned to distribute the title himself and was so convinced it’d be a smash hit he actually installed a bigger letterbox in his office to prepare for the rush of orders he expected to flow in.

It didn’t quite work that way though…he only received two.

Peter decided it might be best to take a step back from software development and instead started Tauros, a company that exported baked beans to the Middle East.

Strangely enough it was this step away from software development that led him back into it.

Computing giants Commodore mistook his firm for a company with a similar name and requested help in developing a database system for the Amiga.

He cleared up the misunderstanding, and helped them out anyway.

The money he made from this led to him starting Bullfrog, a games company which released some of the most innovative titles of the late 80s and early 90s.

From there, he went on to found Lionhead in 1997 which released games like Black & White and the aforementioned Fable franchise.

In 2012 he left Lionhead to form 22Cans, a company he’s still with today.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Abertay in 2003.