In case you missed the news, developer Media Molecule is taking a step back from Dreams in the near future. Its highly ambitious creation suite is staying online and is going nowhere, but the studio's live service updates and events are coming to an end from 1st September.
This was announced back in April, when Media Molecule confirmed the final few updates heading to the game before this deadline. Some of these have gone live in the game, while others are still to come — including Tren, which we recently went hands on with at the studio.
Of course, it's unfortunate news, but there was never a clear reason as to why the team felt it was time to move on to its next project. So, in a new interview with two of the directors, we asked them. Why is Media Molecule putting an end to its live service efforts in Dreams?
Siobhan Reddy, studio director, gave us an honest and impassioned answer. "We're obviously really, really proud of Dreams. And I think, Tren being the release we're making next is the thing that's been very galvanising for the studio to kind of come together around that, because we are really proud of it," she says. "We just sadly couldn't find a sustainable path for it."
From the outside looking in, it always appeared that Dreams didn't reach the level of community size and engagement it really needed to justify extended support. Unfortunately, it sounds as though that's exactly why Media Molecule is shifting its focus to its next game.
"It doesn't mean we don't love it," Reddy continues. "It doesn't mean we're not super proud of it, and that we have just been blown away by what everybody has created, and are still creating... It's complicated because we are very, very proud of this beautiful thing that we made, but when we sat down and had a look at what we needed to do as a studio, we just couldn't find that sustainable path, so we had to make that decision."
She reaffirms that the game itself is sticking around for the foreseeable, and that the last handful of updates will improve Create mode and give players something meaningful to enjoy with Tren. Creative director John Beech adds that a recent server migration assures the game's online longevity, too, so you needn't worry about that.
Our full interview can be found through the link, focusing mostly on Tren and its journey from side project to full game. Are you still creating and playing around in Dreams? Let us know in the comments section below.
Comments 31
It wasn't sustainable as there was no MTX in the game in the form of expansions or season passes. Its rare a live service game can survive without those.
Even if it was given away as a playstation plus game ages ago it still wouldn't of generated them any more money.
Hopefully they can go back to making a great single player game like LBP and Tearaway.
It was never going to be sustainable when creators had no path to profit from their own creations. The game is an amazing tool that was blocked from its own potential by greed.
I own Dreams from the start and like the tool and the creativity. The once promised possibility to release your game in an in-game store was never build. Mm could have monetized from that sale a percentage and that could have resulted in a longer support for the tool.
Thankfully the tool has an amazing community that will keep it alive and interesting for many years and everyone who likes to experiment with game, art or music creation can find a powerful tool in Dreams.
@Tielo That would of been a great idea, even if the money we got from sales were just playstation store credit it would of encouraged a hell of a lot more people to invest in the game.
And yeah with the game going to playstation plus Essential and Extra I see a lot more creations getting added over the next few months which means il deffo be playing again, it was fun playing the horror games people had created.
I played it last night for the first time in awhile, the first 4 levels of mM “A Long Climb Ago”, when I got stuck and decided it was just a lame Trine clone so I didn’t need to waste my time on that. I’m still looking forward to the train game Tren but I’ve decided I’m not going to miss Dreams after all.
Ultimately MM made a game that was incredibly difficult to market, with no means of having recurring revenue.
Art and business have always had a complicated relationship. Just look at the film and TV industry right now where the art/business dynamic learns far too much on the business side.
Dreams sadly was the opposite, too much art that wasn't able to sustain itself.
They should end it sooner, way sooner on ps4 and move on with a new games.
I personally would love to have been privy to some of the internal conversations around this. They spent ten years designing, building, and updating a live service game that had no business model.
While it's admirable what they did, and many loathe microtransactions for good reason, you can't justify ongoing development support if you've got zero income coming in.
I bought dreams in early access and im amazed they were able to work on it for so long tbh. MM are clearly nowhere near the level of productivity Sony will require from a first party studio. It didnt strike me as a game that would have a particularly long tail at retail and also clearly would have benefitted from a pc release with cross play support to increase community creations.
Media Molecule really need to work on something new at this point
People will moan at Jim Ryan and Herman Hulst being all about the money, but its difficult to hold it against them in this instance
It’s one of the most impressive suites out there. Got it near release and love everything about it. You can go on and on about sustainable business models but that’s not on Media Molecule, they crafted exactly what they set out to do. This is on Sony and their insistence on sucking any creativity dry.
It's amazing how they lasted as long as they did in the first place. Hopefully they will be back to developing single player games.
@Rob_230 Feel like the biggest issue with Dreams is it might’ve had vastly expanded creative tools over the likes of the Little Big Planet games,but lost the "fun" factor of LBP 1 & 2,which had a great,fun single or co-op campaign alongside its add-ons both in paid dlc content & the free community content created levels & mini games!
A lost opportunity not to bring them & even LBP karting & add the mod nation style track creator & there was guaranteed engagement!
It’s a shame about Dreams but the story mode was kinda dull and depressing. They should have made the story mode brighter and more uplifting to help market the game (like Astro’s Playroom), rather than the gloomy, artsy style they went with.
dreams is quite the head scratcher. i have to wonder how this game was greenlit in the first place if there was never a sustainable model thought out beforehand. even so, why wasn't there an honest effort to shake things up after launch and build a model that would make the game viable? i.e. why did mm not release a game (within dreams) every couple months and monotize that? i think $5-10 experiences built by the mm team would be worth experiencing and would help to pay the bills. they could have brought in some assets from other 1st party ip as well... skins, character models and environments that i think some dream developers would glady pay for (if the price was reasonable that is). giving the community the option to monetize their own work, if they were confident enough that it would sell, is another option that should have been implemented all things considered.
o yea, there was also very little marketing and many ps4 owners likely didn't even know dreams existed.
I would have loved a psvr2 update, especially as its now hitting plus. Such a missed opportunity but, at the end of it all, they need to make money off it to sustain it. They havent so cant and its hard to hold that against them.
I feel like Dreams had the potential to be the Roblox of the PS4/PS5, but for adults and not just little children.
If Sony and Media Molecule actually thought about providing a monetary incentive for creators to craft games within Dreams, it may have been a profitable venture to keep alive for a long time.
I don't think it would have achieved the same kind of financial success as Roblox, but I'm pretty sure Dreams would actually have been one of those mystical Live Service Games that could have had shelf life of a decade, at a maximum.
Couldn’t find a sustainable path is a dumb answer when PC was right there and they ignored it.
@Robocod yes i completely agree! Tearaway was brilliant too. MM took the creation aspect a little too far in my opinion here, and forgot to hang it off a full game. Thats what worked so well with little big planet.
Ironically i think sumo digital perfected the concept with the fantastic little big planet vita edition
Sad to hear it failed, but it can be seen as a good thing if we get more single player games like Tearaway from MM.
Live service games are never to be supported regardless. It's great they're finally moving away from garbage and getting back into making actual games.
I mean, no PS5 port doomed it. If they were going to support it this long, they needed to put it on PS5 to keep it relevant, and they chose not to.
It gave still turned out this way, but a proper effort wasn’t made.
@UltimateOtaku91 media molecule is probably going the road of the dodo.
In the past 10 years they brought out 2 games. Both selling maybe 2 million games.
It would only smart from sony to make a good lbp game by another studio that us focused on making games.
@Jaz007 probably because sony saw the ps4 sales for dreams not surpassing 1 million.
Tearaway also sold bad and took them 5+ years to make.
Dreams 2 then?
@Jacko11
Exactly this. They would have gotten a ton more sales.
I still believe this game was hobbled out the gate by not releasing it on PC day and date with the PS4 version. And a PS5 native version should have been available within a few months of the PS5’s release.
Simply, the game requires too much work to get anywhere near a worthwhile game, it would be far more worth your time to learn a more universal game engine and make a career of it than this fenced off eco system.
@get2sammyb That's true but man the monetization like in every current game is also insane. Everything is monetised to hell and back.
Gambling ,liveservice, battle passes, season passes, gatcha, always online (even when not needed singleplayer) , promised roadmaps and zero game preservation.
If you look at MK11 stuff is unlocked online even things like moves like brutalities and the a lot of the cooler skins. With Streetfighter 6 can unlock skins offline? Or is most of the game lost to time when the online modes go offline.
It's quite a pity that when you look at older games you can play games from 20 years old with completely. The newer games games are build to last untill the newer versions are released and become useless when the new game releases.
The new games are awsome but made to be forgotten digital is not for preservation its for controlling the market 100%.
@get2sammyb How long do you think Hello Games can keep it's No Mans Sky free updates going for? I know they made absolute buckets at launch, but their latest set of accounts (to YE 31 Oct 21) still shows revenues for the year of ~£27m, a large chunk of which I'd wager is NMS sales. If you want to knock out the impact of their 2020 release, The Last Campfire, then their 2019 accounts show revenues just shy of £19m. Again, it's a guess, but I'd wager that Joe Danger sales are minimal by that point.
Isn't there an argument that a game that receives meaningful content updates will continue to sell?
@TheCollector316 Selling more copies still wouldn't have been sustainable even on PC if they had no business plan to monetize it. So where does the extra income come from on a live service game?
Is Dreams compatible with keyboard and mouse or are we still stuck using a controller to create and edit? It’s been quite a few years since I played it last, but the recent articles about it have piqued my interest again. After I tire of Diablo 4, I may just swing back into Dreams and see what I’ve missed. It’s a pity that Sony didn’t give Dreams away in PS+ until now. A couple of years ago, it would’ve been a good, relevant and topical PS+ addition. To release it on PS+ now just seems like a last supper before an execution.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...