Dreams Dev Media Molecule: Layoffs Affect Community Plans

Media Molecule, the developer behind the PlayStation 4 game Dreams, has announced on their blog that recent layoffs will impact the game's community and curation support. Initially, the UK-based studio, which also created LittleBigPlanet, had plans to provide ongoing support for Dreams, but due to a reduction in staff, they will be unable to fulfill some promises made in a previous 2023 blog post.

The Dreams curation team will be disbanded in Spring 2024, and features such as The Impsider editorial will no longer be pursued. Despite the cutbacks, Media Molecule is dedicated to maintaining support through social channels and will continue to stream content to engage with the Dreams community. As live support for DreamSurfing and DreamShaping ends this April, the studio aims to launch new playlists to ensure Dreams remains a self-sustaining platform, allowing creators to reach audiences for their games, animations, and music.

There has been concern among fans about the future of Dreams, especially after the layoffs were first announced in October. However, Media Molecule has reassured players that there are no current plans to bring Dreams offline. The past year has posed challenges for the studio, but they remain committed to their new project, which will be discussed at a later date.

This downsizing is part of a larger wave of layoffs by Sony, affecting around 8% of the global PlayStation workforce, impacting other renowned studios like Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla. The significant aspect of this layoff includes the closure of PlayStation’s London studio and the cancellation of several in-development games. The changes at Media Molecule and the broader Sony layoffs reflect ongoing shifts in the gaming industry, which will inevitably affect future game development and support.

The layoffs will result in the disbanding of Media Molecule's Curation Team by spring 2024, affecting ongoing community and curation support for Dreams. Some planned features, like The Impsider editorial, will be scrapped, but the studio is still set on transitioning Dreams into a self-sustaining platform with community support continuing through streams and social media channels. The studio reassures there are no plans to take Dreams offline despite the cuts.

Dreams, released in February 2020, is a unique user-generated content game on PlayStation 4 that allows players to create, share, and play within an endless dreamiverse of games and experiences. It has been praised for its innovative approach to game design and creation, offering an extensive suite of tools for players to create virtually anything imaginable, from games and animations to music and art. As an ever-evolving platform, Dreams has a passionate community of creators and has been used for educational purposes as well as entertainment.