Are you the kind of gamer who leaves titles half-finished? If so, you officially irritate Lionhead chief Peter Molyneux, who says he "hates" how only a small percentage of people complete games. With this pet peeve in mind, Molyneux today unveiled a dastardly plot to make sure that everybody who buys Lionhead’s Fable 2 on the Xbox 360 goes on to finish it.

So, how’s he going to manage that? Well, in a nutshell, players of Fable 2 will be able to finish the game by using just one button in combat, so everything’s easy for granddad. There’s a pay-off, however, as those players who do rush through the game hammering on just the one button won’t gain the same power-ups as those who fight with style, and will have the growth of their in-game skills stunted.

"I hate that we spend millions of dollars designing our games and only 1 percent of people finish them," moaned Molyneux to an audience of press and industry professionals at the Develop Conference in Brighton. "If they don’t finish the game, it’s like leaving the movie halfway through, so it’s a rubbish movie to some extent, and that responsibility is on our shoulders.

"We often make casual gamers feel dumb, stupid and intimidated. We want to make those people feel as good as hardcore gamers," he added. "If we as an industry don’t address this [wider] audience, we’re going to shrink."

It’s pretty easy to see where Molyneux is coming from here; by letting both casual and hardcore players complete the game in their own way, hopefully a higher proportion of people will be watching the Fable 2 credits roll when the game is released next year. It's a growing trend, also - regular readers will recall how the Wii version of Resident Evil 4 shipped with an "Amateur" difficulty setting, to make the game even easier than before.