{| align=right cellpadding=2 class="toccolours" style="margin:10px; padding:5px; z-index: 1; width=62px; font-size:85%" ! colspan="3" align=center | |- |! colspan="3" align=center | |- | valign=top | Mode | Commuter bus |- | valign=top | Operator | ACT Government |- | valign=top | Founded | 19 July 1926 |- | valign=top | Areas served | Belconnen, Gungahlin, Canberra Central, Woden Valley, Weston Creek, Tuggeranong |- | valign=top | Corporate colours | Green, orange and white |- | valign=top | Slogan | Going your way. |- | valign=top | Bus stations | Belconnen (3 stations), City, Woden (Phillip), Tuggeranong (Greenway) |- | valign=top | Depots | Belconnen, Woden (Phillip), Tuggeranong (Greenway) |- | valign=top | Website | www.action.act.gov.au |}

ACTION is a public bus service operating in Canberra, ACT, Australia. It is operated by the ACT Department of Territory and Municipal Services. The name ACTION is an acronym of Australian Capital Territory Internal Omnibus Network.

Other bus services in Canberra are operated by Deane's Transit Group and Royale Limousines, who operate the Airport Express service.

There are no other modes of public transport operating within the ACT.

History

thumb|right|ACTION's first Mercedes-Benz O.305 bus at Spence Terminus. Within Australia, the Canberra Bus Service (later known as "ACTION") was:

one of the first operators of the AEC Renown buses (1926)

one of the first operators of AEC Regal buses (1933)

the first operator of a diesel bus (1943)

the first operator of an AEC air suspended bus (1960)

the first Government operator of a Leyland Leopard (1962)

one of the first operators of AEC Swift buses (1967)

one of the first Government operators to buy a rear engined bus (1967)

the first operator of Volvo City buses (1972)

the first Government operator of MAN SL200 buses (1975)

the first operator of a German VÖV designed bus (MAN SL200) (1975)

the first operator of an articulated bus (MAN SG192) (1976)

the first operator to buy buses with integral retarders (MAN SG192/SL200) (1978)

the first operator of a Mercedes-Benz O.305 built essentially to the German VÖV design (1981)

the first operator of anti-lock brakes on buses (1981)

The first public bus service in Canberra was run by the Commonwealth Department of Public Works for the benefit of the workers constructing buildings in the new city. Starting in October 1923, the service originated from construction camps and 'tent cities' at the Causeway and Pialligo and the temporary railhead at Eastlake (now Kingston). Two Charabancs carried people to various building sites in Canberra City and Parkes.

The general public was first served in July 1925 when a private operator, Mrs Helen Barton, began running buses between Ainslie and Eastlake into the only shopping centre in Queanbeyan. Although a privately owned service linking Queanbeyan and Canberra still operates today, private operations within Canberra were short lived because the Federal Capital Commission started its own service in July 1926.

Four AEC Renown buses provided the Commission's service that ran between a southern terminus at Eastlake and a northern terminus at Ainslie, using several different routes. This route pattern was maintained for the next 25 years.

With the opening of Parliament House in May 1927 and the associated relocation of Commonwealth Government Departments to Canberra, the frequency of service offered by the Canberra City Omnibus Service increased as the population of the new city grew.

During the early 1950s bus services were expanded to Narrabundah, Yarralumla and O'Connor. These routes were extended further in the late 1950s with the development of Dickson and Campbell. Almost all the buses served the Kingston and Manuka shopping centres.

The first Woden Valley (Hughes) service was introduced on 19 August 1963 following the first occupancy of houses in 1963. Similar early services were provided for other areas. From 1961 the new Russell Offices complex demanded a growing number of additional peak services, including feeders from the City. The Canberra fleet had grown from 25 buses in 1942 to over 90 by 1966.

On 25 March 1968, after much consultation and consideration, a reformed bus system for Canberra began. This involved new bus timetables and driver schedules, based on not less than half–hourly services on all routes throughout the day with synchronised movements through the main centres. This new system included the first express bus service between Woden and the City (Route 16) and created the need for an interchange at Woden between express and local services. A temporary 'on street' interchange was established on Melrose Drive, Lyons.

Canberra's first off street bus interchange at the Woden Town Centre was opened on 4 December 1972. It was one of the first purpose-built suburban bus terminals in Australia.

On 14 February 1977, a new system was unveiled - the Australian Capital Territory Internal Omnibus Network (ACTION) - in association with a major program to upgrade the service by the purchasing of new vehicles, a new range of pre-purchased tickets, passenger facilities such as shelters and a new colour scheme for the buses.

In June 2008, to coincide with the launch of Network 08, ACTION's logo and corporate colours were modified.

Routes

ACTION's route and timetable information can be found at http://www.action.act.gov.au/routes_timetables.html.

ACTION operates two separate networks of bus routes; one during weekdays and the other on weekends and public holidays. The latest change to the bus routes and timetables occurred on 15 November 2010.

Blue Rapid

Blue Rapid services provide a high-frequency link between the City and the bus stations at Belconnen, Woden and Tuggeranong Town Centres. Blue Rapid services consist of the 300 series routes on weekdays and route 900 on weekends and public holidays.

During weekday daytime, Blue Rapid routes commence from suburbs in Belconnen or Tuggeranong then travel through all bus stations along the trunk (or common) route and terminate at the last station (and vice-versa). At night the Blue Rapid service consists of Route 300 which travels only between bus stations, but does not extend to the suburbs.

On weekends and public holidays, Route 900 travels between all stations as well as the Erindale Centre. Some Route 900 services on Saturday service only Woden, City and Belconnen.

All Blue Rapid services are scheduled to be operated by wheelchair accessible buses and most by buses fitted with bicycle racks.

Red Rapid

Red Rapid Route 200 is a limited stop service between Gungahlin Town Centre, Northbourne Avenue, City Bus Station, Russell, Barton, the Canberra Railway Station and Fyshwick. It operates every 15 minutes between 7am and 7pm weekdays.

The service commenced on 16 November 2009 under the name ''Redex'' (Rapid Express Direct) as a trial service between Gungahlin and the Railway Station. On 15 November 2010, the service was renamed Red Rapid, renumbered as route 200 and extended to the Direct Factory Outlets centre in Fyshwick.

All Red Rapid services are scheduled to be operated by wheelchair accessible buses and most by buses fitted with bicycle racks.

Regular route services

ACTION's regular weekday services are identified by a one- or two- digit route number. These routes operate either as feeder services to a single town centre or connect two or three town centres via suburban streets.

During weekends and public holidays, all bus services use a three-digit route number in the 9** range. These services generally do not provide the same level of service as the weekday services.

Xpresso

Xpresso services are routes which operate during weekday peak hours to provide direct links to the City, Parliamentary Triangle, Airport Business Parks and Fyshwick or direct services between bus stations bypassing the City. These services are designed to reduce the travel time for commuters to get to and from work.

Xpresso services are numbered 7**, except for route 170, which is classed as an Xpresso Route but travels along the Blue Rapid trunk route between Woden and City Bus Stations.

Other peak services

Other weekday peak hour services operate as an extension to existing route services. These routes are numbered as 1** and 2** where ** represents the two numbers of the regular route service. The 100 series routes travel along the Blue Rapid trunk route between Woden and City Bus Stations. The 200 series routes travel via Barton, Kings Avenue, Russell Offices then either Constitution Avenue and the City or to Campbell Park.

School services

School services are provided by ACTION to public and private primary schools, high schools and colleges. These have route numbers between 401 and 899. These services can only be accessed by school students and staff, and are not used by the general public. They are not listed on timetables at bus stops.

Details of school services can be found at http://www.action.act.gov.au/school_services.html

Ticketing and fares

Cash fares (purchased on bus)

Effective from 1 July 2010:

! Ticket type	Adult	Concession & Students (A)	! Notes
Single trip	$ 4.00	$ 2.00	Ticket includes 90 minute transfer - no distance limit.
Daily	$ 7.60	$ 3.80

A - Student fares apply to Australian Primary, High School and Secondary College students and full-time students attending an accredited Australian tertiary education institution, not including a member of the Defence Force, who undertake at least 15 hours per week class time.

MyWay (pre-purchased fares)

MyWay is the pre-purchased ticketing system for use on ACTION buses. It uses credit card-sized contactless smart cards onto which credit is loaded. Passengers are required to 'tag on' when boarding the bus and 'tag off' when exiting, at which point the appropriate fare is calculated and, if required, deducted from the stored value in the MyWay card. MyWay cards were made available to ACT Seniors Card-holders on 21 February 2011 and released to the remainder of the community on 7 March 2011.

The MyWay system uses Parkeon software and equipment including ''Wayfarer 200'' consoles and ''Axio'' card readers. The system was built and installed by Parkeon's Australian distributor, Downer EDi. Instead of being developed from scratch, MyWay was adapted from Transperth's SmartRider system which also uses Parkeon hardware and software.

MyWay fares

Effective from 14 February 2011:

! Fare type	Adult	Concession (A)	Tertiary Student (B)	School Student (C)	! Notes
School Day Single Trip	n/a	n/a	n/a	$0.95	Includes 90 minute transfer.
Weekday Single Trip - Peak	$2.52	$1.26	$1.26	$1.26 (G)	Includes 90 minute transfer. (D)
Weekday Single Trip - Off Peak	$2.00	$0.55	$1.26	$1.26 (G)	Includes 90 minute transfer. (E)
Weekday - Daily Fare Cap	$7.60	$3.80	$3.80	$3.80	Fare charged will not exceed this amount per day. (F)
Weekend / Public Holiday Single Trip	$2.00	$0.55	$1.26	$1.26	Includes 90 minute transfer
Weekend / Public Holiday Daily Fare Cap	$4.60	$1.70	$1.70	$1.70	Fare charged will not exceed this amount per day. (F)
Default Fare	$1.48	$0.74	$0.74	$0.74	Additional fare which applies if passenger fails to correctly tag on or off bus.
Monthly Trip Cap	36	36	36	26	Once this many Single Trips (excluding transfers) have been made during a calendar month, free travel applies for the remainder of the month. (F)

A - Concession does not include Students or Children B - Tertiary Student fares apply to full-time students attending an accredited Australian tertiary education institution, not including a member of the Defence Force, who undertake at least 15 hours per week class time
C - School Student fares apply to Australian Primary, High School and Secondary College students D - Applies to trips commenced before 9am and between 4.30pm and 6pm. E - Applies to trips commenced between 9am and 4.30pm and after 6pm. F - Fare caps apply only if all trips are tagged on and off. Default fare will apply when trips not tagged off. G - This fare only applies on non-school days

A further 5% discount (for single trip fares) will apply if the MyWay card is topped-up using direct debit or BPAY.

Fleet

ACTION's regular service fleet comprises 430 buses, made up of the following models:

Renault PR100.2 (Ansair "Metro" ''MkI'', rigid) - 32 (20px|Bike 'n Ride - 2) Renault PR100.2 (Ansair "Metro" ''MkII'', rigid) - 112 (20px|Bike 'n Ride - 88) Renault PR180.2 (Ansair "Metro" ''MkI'', articulated) - 26 Renault PR180.2 (Ansair "Metro" ''MkII'', articulated) - 7 20px|Bike 'n Ride Renault PR100.3 (Austral Denning "Starliner", rigid) - 42 Dennis Dart SLF Euro II Diesel (Wright "Crusader", low-floor medium rigid) - 25 ''These vehicles were built in the United Kingdom with the chassis built at the Dennis plant at Guildford, England and the bodies at Wright's plant at Ballymena, Northern Ireland.'' 20px|Bike 'n Ride Irisbus Agora Line Euro II Diesel (Custom Coaches "CB60", low-floor rigid, air conditioned) - 20 20px|Bike 'n Ride Scania L94UB CNG (Custom Coaches "CB60", low-floor rigid, air conditioned) - 54 20px|Bike 'n Ride MAN A69 18.310 HOCL-NL CNG (Custom Coaches "CB60 Evo II", low-floor rigid, air conditioned) - 16 20px|Bike 'n Ride MAN A69 18.310 HOCL-R-NL Euro IV Diesel (Custom Coaches "CB60 Evo II", low-floor rigid, air conditioned) - 2 20px|Bike 'n Ride MAN A69 18.320 HOCL-R-NL Euro V Diesel (Custom Coaches "CB60 Evo II", low-floor rigid, air conditioned) - 75 ''ACTION has ordered 87 of these buses to be delivered between August 2009 and May 2012.'' Scania K320UB 6x2*4 steer-tag Euro V Diesel (Custom Coaches "CB60 Evo II", low-floor rigid tri-axle, air conditioned) - 18 ''ACTION has ordered 26 of these buses to be delivered between February 2010 and June 2012.'' 20px|Bike 'n Ride Scania K230UB CNG (Custom Coaches "CB60 Evo II", low-floor rigid, air conditioned) - 1 ''This vehicle is on loan from Scania. It is fitted with a OC9 G04 270 hp CNG engine.'' Bicycle racks have been fitted to the front of many buses in the fleet (as denoted by 20px|Bike 'n Ride ). Each rack can hold two bicycles. Passengers may load a bicycle onto the rack for free, but must pay a regular fare to travel on the bus.

The Irisbus Agora Lines, Scania L94s, MAN A69s and Scania K320s sport a green, orange and white livery. Apart from buses with all over advertising or special designs, the remainder of the ACTION bus fleet have a livery featuring ACTION's former corporate colours of blue, orange and white.

The ACT Government has ordered twenty Scania K360UA articulated Euro V Diesel buses (Custom "CB80", low-floor, air conditioned) to commence delivery in July 2012. These vehicles will be used replace the Renault PR180.2 buses on a one-for-one basis.

ACTION's ''Special Needs Transport'' division operates a fleet of mini buses (Hino AC140s and Fuso Rosas). These buses do not operate on regular route services.

ACTION's vehicles also include Toyota Hiace Commuter vans which can be used to transport passengers in case of a bus breaking down, Hino Dutro trucks used by mechanics to attend broken down buses and a single Mack tow truck.

Infrastructure

Bus Stations

ACTION operates six bus stations, which act as hubs for the districts of Canberra.

City Bus Station (opened 1982 and remodelled 2000) serves Gungahlin and Canberra Central;

Woden Bus Station (opened 1972, second stage opened 1982) serves Woden Valley, Weston Creek and Tuggeranong;

Tuggeranong Bus Station (opened 1991) serves Tuggeranong;

Located in Belconnen Town Centre are three bus stations - Cohen Street (opened 2009), Westfield Belconnen and Belconnen Community Station (opened 2010) - which serve Belconnen and Gungahlin.

City Bus Station is located on East Row, Mort Street and Alinga Street with some services departing from Northbourne Avenue during peak. Limited local access is permitted on Mort and Alinga Streets, while East Row is a bus-only street. Woden and Tuggeranong Bus Stations are off street stations which permit access only to buses, essential traffic and emergency vehicles.

Belconnen Town Centre is serviced by three bus stations all located along Cohen Street. Cohen Street Bus Station is located outside the Belconnen Bus Depot near the intersection with Josephson Street; Westfield Belconnen Bus Station is an off street station near the intersection of Cohen and Lathlain Streets and Belconnen Community Bus Station is located on Cohen Street near the intersection with Benjamin Way (at the site of the former Belconnen Interchange). All bus routes travelling to or through Belconnen Town Centre service all three stations. Additional stops are located on Emu Bank and Eastern Valley Way which are serviced by most routes which travel through Belconnen Town Centre.

Bus stops

Yellow and black signs and posts mark bus stops in the ACT. Most stops consist of a steel pole with a rectangular "Bus Stop" sign, however there remains some stops with a wooden post with the words "Signal Bus". Orange bollard stops, which include detailed timetable and route information, have been installed at major bus stops and along the Blue and Red Rapid routes.

Many Canberra bus stops feature a concrete bunker bus shelter (see photo) which were first installed in 1975. These shelters are an iconic feature of Canberra. There are a variety of other bus shelters within the ACT; currently Adshel holds a contract to install and maintain bus shelters (both with and without advertising) in the ACT.

Depots

ACTION has three bus depots to house its bus fleet.

Belconnen Bus Depot, Cohen Street, Belconnen, includes a bus wash, workshop, undercover bus parking, diesel refill, drivers amenities and administrative area.

Tuggeranong Bus Depot, Scollay Street, Greenway, includes a bus wash, workshop, undercover bus parking, CNG and diesel fuelling facilities, drivers amenities and administrative area. Located next to the depot is ACTION House, which was previously ACTION’s administrative headquarters, but is now leased to the Australian Government for a department of Medicare Australia.

Woden Transport Depot, Prospect Court, Phillip, stores the ''Special Needs Transport'' mini bus fleet and buses which are not in service.

References

External links

ACTION

MyWay

Deane's Transit Group

Canberra Airport Express

ACT Bus

Parkeon

Custom Coaches

Adshel

Category:Contactless smart cards Category:Fare collection systems Category:Bus transport in Canberra Category:Bus companies of Australia

de:ACTION

name	Philip Wan-Lung Ng
birth name	Philip Wan-Lung Ng / 伍允龍 / 伍允龙 / wŭ yŭn lóng
birth date	September 16
birth place	Hong Kong
occupation	Actor / Action Choreographer
yearsactive	2003 - present
website	http://www.alivenotdead.com/philipng Philip Ng }}

Philip Wan-Lung Ng (traditional Chinese: 伍允龍; simplified Chinese: 伍允龙; pinyin: wŭ yŭn lóng) is a Hong Kong based actor, martial artist and action choreographer.

Biography

Ng was born in Hong Kong to Sam Ng and Frances Ng. He spent the majority of his youth in Chicago, Illinois before returning to Hong Kong to pursue a career in acting and martial arts choreography in film and television. He holds instructor certifications in various martial arts. Trained in Ving Tsun Kung Fu under the late Sifu Wong Shun Leung, Ng is also a sixth generation disciple of Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu, under the tutelage of his father; Sifu Sam Ng. Philip is also trained in Hung Gar Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Jiujitsu, and Escrima. In addition to acting, Ng is also an accomplished fight choreographer.

Filmography

Film

! Year	! Title	! Role	! Notes
2012	''Once Upon a Time in Shanghai''
2012	''Princess and Seven Kung Fu Masters''
2012	''Naked Soldier'' (絕色武器)	Black Dragon
2011	''Beach Spike'' (熱浪球愛戰)	Coach
2011	''Treasure Inn'' (財神客棧)	Eagle King
2009	''Hands of the Dragon ''	Jack Lee
2009
2009	Bodyguards and Assassins (十月圍城)	Assassin Lip Chung Ching
2009	Somebody to Love	Jeff
2009	Tactical Unit - Human Nature (機動部隊-人性)	Fire
2008	Sixth Floor Rear Flat 2: Happy Funeral (六樓后座2)	Pete
2008	Playboy Cops (花花型警)	Robber	guest appearance
2007	Invisible Target (男兒本色)	Tiger
2007	Love Is Not All Around (十分愛)	Micheal
2007	Hui Lu	John Wei
2006	Undercover Hidden Dragon (至尊無賴)	Hung Fei
2006	Marriage with a Fool (獨家試愛)	Philip
2005	Dragon Squad (猛龍)	Lee Chun Pei
2005	Fight For Love	Hoi Tung (teenage)
2005	House of Fury (精武家庭)	King
2004	Enter the Phoenix (大佬愛美麗)	Bo
2004	New Police Story (新警察故事)	Philip (Wing's team member)
2003	The Twins Effect
2001

Television

! Year	! Title	! Role	! Notes
2010	Kung Fu Quest (功夫傳奇)	Host	RTHK documentary - http://www.rthk.org.hk/special/kungfuquest/
2007	Wing Chun (詠春)	Chan Wah Shun
2004	Dragonfly: Invincible (天下無敵)	Leo
2004	Made In Hong Kong	Main subject/actor	American Movie Classic documentary/drama

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director:

! Year	! Title	! Role
2011	Bloodtraffick	head action director
2009	Mr. & Mrs. Kok (神探妙夫妻)	head action director
2008	Kinta 1881	assistant action director
2005	Dragon Squad (猛龍)	assistant action director
2005	Mulawin: The Movie	assistant action director
2003	Star Runner (少年阿虎)	assistant action director

References

External links

Official blog and fan site

HKMDB profile

Philip Gongfu Town (Hong Kong fan site)

Philip Ng International Fans Club

龙行天下(China fan site)

Chinese discussion forum

lovehkfilm.com profile

Ng Family Chinese Martial Arts Association

Category:Hong Kong actors Category:Chinese choreographers Category:Stunt performers Category:Hong Kong kung fu practitioners Category:Chinese Wing Chun practitioners Category:Chinese wushu practitioners Category:Martial arts school founders Category:American actors of Hong Kong descent Category:American people of Hong Kong descent Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign alumni Category:Living people Category:American people of Chinese descent

Name	Peter Molyneux
Birth name	Peter Douglas Molyneux
Birth date	May 05, 1959
Birth place	Guildford, Surrey, UK
Death date
Resting place coordinates
Nationality	British
Occupation	Video game designer
Awards	Order of the British EmpireChevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Footnotes	}}

Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE (born 5 May 1959) is an English computer game designer and game programmer. He created the god games ''Dungeon Keeper'', ''Populous'', and ''Black & White'', among others, as well as business simulation games such as ''Theme Park'' and more recently, the RPG series ''Fable''.

Despite the success of his games, both critical and financial, Molyneux has acquired a reputation for issuing over-enthusiastic descriptions of games under development, which are found to be somewhat less ambitious when released. The most well-known case of this was with ''Fable'', released in 2004 without many of the features talked about by Molyneux in press interviews during development. After the release, Molyneux publicly apologized for overhyping the game.

Awards

Molyneux was inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame in 2004 and was honoured with an OBE in the New Year's Honours list announced on 31 December 2004. He was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in March 2007. In July 2007, he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Southampton. In March 2011, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Game Developers Choice Awards and has received a BAFTA Fellowship at the 2011 British Academy Video Games Awards.

Early career

Peter Molyneux began his career in 1982 by distributing and selling floppy discs which contained video games for Atari and the Commodore 64. He believed that including games on the discs would improve sales, and later decided that the games were the main selling point.

He created ''The Entrepreneur'', a text-based business simulation game about running a fledgling company. "In those days you could literally call a game 'Space Blob Attacks Mars' and sell about 50 million copies. So what did I do? I did a business simulation", Molyneux later said. Molyneux published the game himself in 1984 by duplicating hundreds of tapes on two Tandy Corporation recorders. After taking an advertising space in a game magazine, he prepared for the game's success; he later stated in an interview, "I was utterly convinced that this game would sell tons. I thought, 'You know, this letter box is just not big enough. It's just not going to fit all the envelopes.' So I cut – and this is no joke – I cut a bigger letter box". However, the game received only two orders, one of which Molyneux speculated was from his mother. (The effort may not have been totally wasted; in 2007, a GameSpy reviewer commented that the economic gameplay mechanics in Molyneux's ''Fable II'' may have been a descendant of ''The Entrepreneur'', stating, "I'm a little concerned that it's Molyneux sneaking in a remix of his first game, ''Entrepreneur''".)

Due to the game's failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impex Limited—a company that exported baked beans to the Middle East —with his business partner Les Edgar. Commodore International mistook it for TORUS, a more established company that produced networking software, and offered to provide Molyneux with ten free Amiga systems to help in porting "his" networking software. "... it suddenly dawned on me that this guy didn't know who we were", Molyneux later said. "I suddenly had this crisis of conscience. I thought, 'If this guy finds out, there go my free computers down the drain.' So I just shook his hand and ran out of that office". Taurus designed a database system for the Amiga, called Acquisition - The Ultimate Database for The Amiga and after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, the program was released and became a moderate success.

Bullfrog Productions

Using money earned from the database program, Molyneux and Les Edgar founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987. Molyneux provided the original concept for ''Populous'', the first god game for the personal computer. Released in 1989, ''Populous'' was a major success for Bullfrog and went on to sell over 4 million copies.

Electronic Arts, Bullfrog's publisher, acquired the studio in January 1995. Molyneux had become an Electronic Arts vice-president and consultant in 1994, after EA purchased a significant share of Bullfrog. Molyneux's last project at Bullfrog was ''Dungeon Keeper'', which was released in July 1997 to high critical praise. Molyneux left Bullfrog in August 1997 to found Lionhead Studios. The last title released with the Bullfrog logo was published in 2001, and in 2004 Electronic Arts merged Bullfrog Productions into EA UK.

Lionhead Studios and Microsoft

Molyneux came up with the concept for Lionhead's first game, ''Black & White'', and convinced his small staff to take on the task in late 1997. He paid the $6 million in development costs himself. After three years, in 2001, the game was finally released.

In April 2006, Lionhead Studios was acquired by Microsoft Game Studios. At E3 2006, Peter Molyneux gave several interviews in the press, in one of which he stated that "I think you're going to see a lot more fantastic games from Lionhead because of that relationship [with Microsoft]." On 4 June 2009, he was promoted to Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios, Europe, although he continued to produce video games with Lionhead Studios.

On 7 March 2012, Molyneux announced that he will be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft — after the completion of Fable: The Journey — to begin work at a company founded by former Lionhead Studios CTO Tim Rance called 22Cans.

Media fame

As one of the industry's leading and best-known figures, Molyneux has appeared on many television shows and video gaming news discussion or documentaries. He has been repeatedly interviewed for shows that include: GamesMaster, Game Over, Games Wars, Gamezville, Bad Influence!, Gamepad, CHEATS, Gamer.tv, Rapture, Games World, Blue Chip, LanJam, Ultimate Gamer, and GameStars. These however are just the UK productions, and there are a huge host of international broadcast media outlets that have also interviewed him since ''Populous'' first debuted. In the Scottish web series Consolevania, he is often portrayed as a dull, uninteresting character.

An entire episode of G4's games retrospective series ''Icons'' was devoted to him, during its third season. More recently, a comprehensive two part interview was filmed of him during the 2006 Brighton Games Developer Conference by leading UK website Eurogamer. He was also featured in the fourth episode of the Discovery Channel mini-series ''Rise of the Video Game'' alongside Will Wright and Sid Meier, fellow developers of simulation titles.

He gives keynote addresses and speaks extensively at worldwide conferences, including Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, Games Convention Asia in Singapore, Develop in Brighton, England, and the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California.

Molyneux was given the tenth position in "Top Ten Game Creators" Countdown by GameTrailers website.

Molyneux has gained a great deal of infamy in regards to his over-hyping of games he has worked on, dating back to ''Black & White''. He has a habit of making too many promises about features and content in his games that end up either not being included or not actually as good as he made it seem. In spite of this, these games are successful both financially and critically.

Games

Pre-Bullfrog

''The Entrepreneur'' (1984) (designer/programmer)

''Druid 2''

Bullfrog Productions

''Fusion'' (1987) (designer/programmer)

''Populous'' (1989) (designer/programmer)

''Powermonger'' (1990) (designer/programmer)

''Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods'' (1991) (designer/programmer)

''Syndicate'' (1993) (producer)

''Theme Park'' (1994) (project leader/lead programmer)

''Magic Carpet'' (1994) (executive producer)

''Hi-Octane'' (1995) (executive producer)

''Genewars'' (1996)

''Dungeon Keeper'' (1997) (project leader/designer)

Lionhead Studios

''Black & White'' (2001) (concept/lead designer/programmer)

''Fable'' (2004) (designer)

''Fable: The Lost Chapters'' (2005) (designer)

''The Movies'' (2005) (executive designer)

''Black & White 2'' (2005) (lead designer)

''The Movies: Stunts & Effects'' (2006) (executive designer)

''Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods'' (2006) (lead designer)

''Fable II'' (2008) (lead designer)

''Fable III'' (2010) (lead designer)

''Milo and Kate'' (formerly known as ''The Dmitri Project'') (cancelled) (lead designer)

''Fable: The Journey'' (TBA)

References

External links

''The Worlds of Peter Molyneux'' from Wired.com

Keeper Klan's article about Peter Molyneux

Populous - Classic Game Postmortem (much autobiographical information)

Category:British video game designers Category:English computer programmers Category:Video game programmers Category:People from Guildford Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Lionhead Studios Category:British people of French descent

ca:Peter Molyneux cs:Peter Molyneux de:Peter Molyneux es:Peter Molyneux fr:Peter Molyneux gl:Peter Molyneux is:Peter Molyneux it:Peter Molyneux hu:Peter Molyneux ja:ピーター・モリニュー pl:Peter Molyneux ru:Молиньё, Питер fi:Peter Molyneux sv:Peter Molyneux