Molyneux: Milo Appeals to Dark Thoughts of Humanity

While its status remains somewhere between an official game and a mere demonstration of Kinect’s capabilities, Peter Molyneux’s Milo continues to intrigue and bewilder gaming enthusiasts. It also lends itself well as the butt of jokes, many of which – predictably – happen to be about pedophilia.

How could they not? The entire concept of Milo is to interact with an 11-year-old boy in eerily realistic ways. Even discounting the pedophilia angle, it’s creepy. If Itagaki was still with Team Ninja, he’d no doubt use the technology to make the ultimate Dead or Alive fan service game, if only for his own personal use.

In a recent interview with USA Today, Molyneux was up front and candid about the way his project might be viewed – in fact, unsurprisingly, he seems to relish the controversy. “There’s a lot of huge mountains to climb before that [Milo is released] happens,” he said. “The reason for that is it is enormously contentious for us to do a game, a story, an experience, about a boy. You are immediately appealing to all the dark thoughts of humanity.

“I actually love that, the idea of being so contentious that it makes people turn around and say, ‘You can’t do a story about a boy.’ But, for me, doing that in that way is absolutely right.”

Ignore Molyneux’s irrelevant About a Boy reference (which, by the way, is “about a boy”), and all he’s saying is that he likes to stir the pot, shake up the hive, steam people’s clams – you get the idea. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows gaming industry news, as Molyneux seems to constantly have both feet in his mouth. At least his shoes are probably made of tasty Italian leather.

Anyway: “After all, for me one of the best films I saw last year was about an old man and a boy scout,” he continued. “It was called Up. If I described for you this story, ‘It’s about an old man and a Boy Scout, strangers meeting and living together and going on adventures, you’d say, ‘You can’t do that. It’s out of the question.'”

That may be so, and it may not. It depends on the context, mainly, as well as the execution. If that old man had been more like Herbert from Family Guy, some Pixar fans may have left theaters somewhat disillusioned. The problem with Milo is that players would be able to take on any role they choose. Who knows how the virtual kid would respond to being told to “get his sweet ass over here?”

Just what does Molyneux see as the perfect formula for making a game “about a boy”? “What you look for in drama and story is uniqueness,” he said, “and you look for experiences that people haven’t had before, and I think it’s good to get it on a contentious level.” Well, it’s good for us would-be comedians, at least.