Peter Molyneux starts bizarre social media experiment

Peter Molyneux has revealed the first title coming from new studio 22 Cans – a game in which players tap at a block. Oh, Peter.

According to New Scientist, the “game” – named Curiosity – is the first of 22 experiments designed to explore the psychology of social media, with the results helping design a game scheduled for launch in about two years.

Curiosity plonks players into a room containing nothing but a black cube. Tapping on the cube causes fractures to appear, eventually cracking bits off, and – as everyone playing is interacting with the same cube – you’ll see plenty of fractures appearing before your eyes. After enough taps, the cube will crack open, and only the person who makes that final tap will see what’s inside. Molyneux claims that whatever’s hidden inside will be “truly amazing, absolutely unique,” and – as he’s not known for exaggeration or hyperbole – I’m sure that… oh, no, wait.

The idea behind it is to see how quickly the information of what’s inside the cube spreads – if it spreads at all – and how people try to prove their claims. “How will this person prove it? That in itself becomes a fascinating aspect of this experiment,” commented Molyneux.

But wait, there’s more: players will be able to purchase a variety of “chisels” to help speed up the tapping. You can buy an iron chisel for £0.59, which makes your taps ten times as powerful. At the other end of the scale is the diamond chisel, a one-off item that makes your tapping 100,000 times as powerful… and costs £50,000.

“It’s an insane amount of money,” agreed Molyneux, before pointing out that this is yet another part of the experiment – will anyone buy it? Will it just be one player, or will a syndicate of players pool their money together to purchase it?

“This is not a money-making exercise; it is a test about the psychology of monetisation,” he added, presumably while not giggling, hopping from foot to foot, and rubbing his hands with glee.

Curiosity is scheduled to hit in a couple of weeks. I’m putting money on the cube containing a voucher for a free turtleneck, and I’m also starting to wonder if the PeterMolydeux Twitter account is less a parody and more a terrifying vision of the future.

Source: New Scientist