Media Molecule ‘exploring monetising Dreams user generated content’

“We definitely want to be able to reward creators somehow,” says co-founder

Media Molecule has said it’s exploring the possibility of monetising user generated Dreams content.

The upcoming title, which is currently in early access, is billed as “a platform where you can create anything you can imagine, then share it with the world using just your PS4”.

Media Molecule creative director and co-founder Mark Healey told MCV that for him, rewarding users for their creations is “a no-brainer ambition”.

However, he admitted the studio hasn’t worked out the finer details yet, and everything needs to be approved by parent company Sony, which “involves talking to lawyers is probably all I need to say”.

“We definitely want to be able to reward creators somehow,” Healey said. “We’re just looking into the different ways that we can possibly do that and at the same time preserve the sort of delicate nature of wanting to keep the community very sharey and collaborative.

“So it’s something we want to do, for me that’s just a no-brainer ambition, but we’ve just got to do it right.”

Communications manager Abbie Heppe also said: “[Monetisation] would be a very very big thing. It’s absolutely something that we want to explore but nothing that we have any update on for now.”

Dreams entered early access in April, offering users a tool set for creating and interactive tutorials. All user creations will be carried over to the full game, which will also include a campaign, when it launches.

During her BAFTA Games Lecture in August 2018, Media Molecule studio director Siobhan Reddy said that democratising technology is key to inspiring a new generation of game developers and elevating the art form to the next level.

“At Media Molecule I’ve found a group of people who are passionate about a particular challenge, and that is demystifying the digital arts so that anyone can express themselves in our medium,” she said.

“We believe that making games should have the same accessibility as using a camera, a guitar or a pencil, something that you can start just by picking it up.”