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In IGN’s recent preview of Fable II, Hilary Goldstein mentions that the now-infamous Pub Games “glitch,” which allows one to cheat at a card game to earn enormous amounts of money for import into Fable II, was planned by Molyneux all along. Molyneux claims that having used the cheat will enact repercussions in Fable II once the moolah is imported, which sounds like an incredibly sneaky design decision, albeit one not overly elegant given the lack of in-game warning or clues.

Molyneux’ sneakiness is placed into question, however, when one realizes that the “glitch” was patched recently, suggesting that it wasn’t intended after all, else why patch it? The more likely explanation is that Molyneux wanted to cover his ass and not seem like his studio is incompetent at beta testing. Chances are, any in-game repercussions were added in last-minute, so as to seem competent.

Had the glitch been planned all along, one would think the mechanics for using it would be slicker, and that despite knowledge of it getting out in the first place, any patch issued would simply warn users that there really could be in-game consequences. At a time when our impressions of Molyneux were rising, this debacle is starting to sour us to Molyneux again, which is a real shame. He really needs to let his games do the talking for him.

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