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Many have been wondering what legendary game developer Peter Molyneux has been up to since leaving Lionhead Studios to found his new studio 22Cans last March. Now, the fabled developer (I had to) has revealed his next venture: Curiosity, a new “experiment” that Molyneux says will explore how social media affects games and human behavior. The game, if it can be called that, is rather simple. Each player will be presented a black cube in the middle of an empty room. Everyone who plays the game will be looking at the same cube, and will be tasked with chipping away at the cube, communally fracturing it further and further until it finally breaks apart. The number of strikes needed to crack the cube is unknown, but one can only assume that it’s enormous. There are a couple of catches to this, though. The first is that only the player who lands the final strike will be able to see the mystery at the heart of the cube. 22Cans are most likely hoping that this lucky winner will then share his revelation across various social networks, demonstrating this “social” aspect of gaming so prevalent in the internet age today. 
“It’s an insane amount of money,” says Molyneux. “This is not a money-making exercise; it is a test about the psychology of monetization.” Molyneux says that Curiosity will be the first of 22 total “experiments” of this nature from the now appropriately-titled 22Cans studio. If nothing else, the game has that trademark ambition we’ve come to expect from a man of Molyneux’s pedigree. Will Curiosity really lead someone to spend nearly $80,000 on the unknown? How many strikes can the cube take? Is anyone still looking forward to Fable: The Journey? Answers to most of these questions will begin to take shape within the next few weeks, when Curiosity is released. By Jeff Dunn |