• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Media Molecule Co-Founders biggest regret with Dreams was not focusing on multiplayer.

It actually did have early access.

Early access start April 2019. The game released in February 2020.

Less than a year before release was probably way too late to gather feedback from the community on what needed to be done here. Just think about how long a PC port would take.

Did they get feedback about monetization of creations, which should have been an obvious feature? And was there enough time to implement that based on the early access?
 
Boku no Natsuyasumi was that before Animal Crossing. One of my favorite Sony series.
And yeah, Tren was great, it shows that Media Molecule has still got that Tearaway feel.

thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best

To your point, I think Sony should produce more games like this, that are cheap and with the right mechanics and polish can have significant success on Console, Handheld, Mobile, and PC.

Releasing a game like this for 5-10 dollars would sell a lot of units potentially. I think getting the price right is the key and obviously this isn't a game you sell for 50-70 dollars.
 

nial

Gold Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best

To your point, I think Sony should produce more games like this, that are cheap and with the right mechanics and polish can have significant success on Console, Handheld, Mobile, and PC.

Releasing a game like this for 5-10 dollars would sell a lot of units potentially. I think getting the price right is the key and obviously this isn't a game you sell for 50-70 dollars.
Regarding Bokunatsu, SIEI (JP branch) is simply weird, the series was consistently selling well in Japan up until 2010 on PSP, yet they suddenly decided to stop making them. They always behave like that.
Regarding Media Molecule's next project, well, it will happen anyway. I told you this in another thread, but I remember Hermen Hulst saying that they were looking to produce more family-oriented games, or something along those lines.
SIE has not entirely lacked them after the PS2 era like some believe, but a lot of those simply flopped, which resulted in not many people knowing them at all (e.g. Monkey King: Hero is Back and Concrete Genie in late 2019, though you can say the same for a lot of those PS2 games).
 
Regarding Bokunatsu, SIEI (JP branch) is simply weird, the series was consistently selling well in Japan up until 2010 on PSP, yet they suddenly decided to stop making them. They always behave like that.
Regarding Media Molecule's next project, well, it will happen anyway. I told you this in another thread, but I remember Hermen Hulst saying that they were looking to produce more family-oriented games, or something along those lines.
SIE has not entirely lacked them after the PS2 era like some believe, but a lot of those simply flopped, which resulted in not many people knowing them at all (e.g. Monkey King: Hero is Back and Concrete Genie in late 2019, though you can say the same for a lot of those PS2 games).

I think they'll have to entirely rebuild their studio infrastructure to support family oriented games. They should look at Toys for Bob if the Paramount deal goes through. Making Spongebob the Toys for Bob mascot would be iconic.

But I think the reason they didn't continue making these games is just that the team moved on to work on Switch titles in a much similar fashion. One of the games did release on PS4 but was not published by Sony.

I think specific mechanics and marketing are required for these games.
 

nial

Gold Member
I think they'll have to entirely rebuild their studio infrastructure to support family oriented games.
Eh, I don't think so? Though I'm not so sure what you actually mean with this.
But I think the reason they didn't continue making these games is just that the team moved on to work on Switch titles in a much similar fashion.
And it was lame as hell in almost everything. But they already made a 3DS
exclusive several years before, it was just a general trend of some of these console developers moving onto dual screen Nintendo handhelds.
I still think SIEI had something to do, though, some other series like Patapon also went through the same situation.
 
Last edited:

nial

Gold Member
I think to take on a lot of paramount's IP particularly the nickelodeon IP: Spongebob, ATLA, Dora, Rugrats, they will need to farm a lot of it out.
I don't think bolded have any audience on these consoles. The rest, sure.
It will probably take some Sony Group's initiative for that to actually happen, and well, it had in the past, in Japan.
I think we're going a little bit off-topic, though.
 
😅

Not going to lie, the new Rugrats game actually has me a bit tempted.



This looks fire. I'd buy it for 5 bucks, maybe 10 if I was feeling nostalgic and the reviews were good. 34.99 and physical only for now? Zero chance.

I don't think bolded have any audience on these consoles. The rest, sure.
It will probably take some Sony Group's initiative for that to actually happen, and well, it had in the past, in Japan.
I think we're going a little bit off-topic, though.

I think they all have an audience if you build it out right.
 

chlorate

Member
Dreams was fundamentally a bad joke: an empty box with a steep price of admission where you make the content, Sony makes the money, and you have to make the content on a platform/UI that sucks for making content.

Why would Zeekers ever develop Lethal Company on Dreams instead of PC?
 
Last edited:
The reason this failed wasn't a lack of PC release, it was that you couldn't monetize your creations.
Exactly. They could have monetized stuff while only being on Playstation. But for that they needed to have online multiplayer and... a way to monetize creators!

Also the tool lacked charisma. They should have bundled it with a real game and a complete template to make more of that game, the way Nintendo did it with Super Mario Maker. People knew what they were buying. A mario game + a tool to make more mario games.

Thing is they had a good game with tons of charisma: LittleBigPlanet and sackboy. And instead of selling a LittleBigPlanet Maker (with tons of charisma) they instead sold this faceless tool with uninteresting characters, zero charisma. Mind blowing stuff.
 
Last edited:

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
'member GribbleGrunger?

I 'member.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Just like tons of free mods ?

How do you mod a game with dreams exactly? u don't. Mods are basically fans of the game or even developers / old developers that work on new content because they are fans of it. And even then u can support them.

Dreams offers nothing. If u make a new game what dreams is all about u better of stop wasting your time as u better start to get known into engines on the market already and get money from it.

Dreams is only good for little kids that want to build something, but there are games out there that already do that in the form of minecraft etc.

So the 1 or 2 people that want to learn there kids how to make games in a easy note through dreams are such a incredible niche, i have no clue who thought this was going to work out well even remotely.

What dreams needed, was PC support and a platform where they could sell the game they made on steam or even playstation.
 

Shifty1897

Member
I knew this was going to be the first comment. There are plenty of PC games that underperformed that didn't have a console release and ain't no one saying anything about those.

I believe that should have made a PS5 version at launch and it would have been just fine.
This is a creation suite, it would have thrived on PC more than any regular game. The biggest problem was making any kind of asset in game was a pain with the PS4 controller. Mouse and keyboard support and the ability to export the things you make into other stuff would have been a no-brainer for a lot of game making enthusiasts on Steam. It's the same reason those RPG Maker games sell on there.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
It's such a weird decision they didn't even try to release it on PC. It's much more suited to that environment, projects would be easier to preserve plus people with better PC's wouldn't have to deal with harsh limitations.
 
Top Bottom