22cans: Molyneux left Microsoft, ran a cube test, raised £500K for Godus (interview)

22cans is an independent game studio founded by Peter Molyneux in March 2012 after leaving Microsoft's Lionhead Studios.

A small indie studio can reinvent the god-game genre for mobile and PC with a community-funded game and a player who becomes the first 'God'.

Over £500,000 from more than 17,000 Kickstarter backers for Godus (per Molyneux).

In the interview, Molyneux says he decided to give up a comfortable career at Microsoft's Lionhead Studios and start 22cans in March 2012 to recreate the god-game genre he began with Populous. He says he then realised he did not know who he was designing the new game for.

He says the team built Curiosity to gather analytics on how players interact and test ideas about emergent gameplay, expecting at most 50,000 downloads. In late May 2013 18-year-old Bryan Henderson tapped the last cube and won the right to be the first God in Godus, with a say in the rules and a share of royalties for six months before others could challenge him. The Godus Kickstarter ran late in 2012; the game was in alpha with 1,000 backers, to widen to 10,000, with a release hoped for that fall.

Molyneux says Zynga's heavily monetised world game angered him enough to leave a secure Microsoft job

He did not know who the game was for, so Curiosity doubled as audience research and analytics gathering

Crowdfunding via Kickstarter gave the studio funding without a publisher

Handing the 'God' role to a stranger created a community story and a challenge mechanic

Using a cheap, viral experiment to learn about your audience before building can double as marketing; Molyneux's own Kickstarter advice was to test campaigns, ask for half and be clear.

As of 26 June 2013 Godus was in alpha with backers and had no firm release date; Molyneux said development would continue long after launch. The interview reports no sales or player figures for Godus itself.