After his first game venture failed, Peter Molyneux started a baked bean export business. Commodore International mistakenly offered him ten free Amiga systems because they confused the baked bean company’s name “Taurus” with a software company “Torus”, and he used the hardware to create a database system for the Amiga, which was successful.

Which is just such a weird story.

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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.[5][6] Commodore International mistook it for Torus, a more established company that produced networking software, and offered to provide Molyneux with ten[5] free Amiga systems to help in porting “his” networking software.[2][7] Molyneux later said “it suddenly dawned on me that this guy didn’t know who we were. 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.”[2] Taurus designed a database system for the Amiga called Acquisition – The Ultimate Database for The Amiga[5] and, after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, released the program to moderate success.

    • merridew@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Wish they finished the game because it was pretty fun.

      Were we playing the same game?? When I played it in 2013 it was a tedious, RSI-inducing cow-clicker with lootboxes and “premium” gems, and according to Steam I played for less than an hour before abandoning it.

    • TaldenNZ@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      I played the hell out of Populous and Populous II back in the day… Including a fair bit of multiplayer too - running a link cable between Amigas in our flat.

      I wonder if I’d enjoy an upscaled port today as much as I did then.