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News Media Molecule is laying off 15-20% of it's staff

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www.videogameschronicle.com

Dreams and LittleBigPlanet studio Media Molecule is reportedly laying off 15-20% of staff | VGC

The studio ended support for Dreams in September…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com

Dreams and LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule is to lay off 15-20% of its staff, according to a new report.

Sports Illustrated‘s GLHF says the studio held an internal meeting today and told staff that it planned to lay off around 20 of its 135 employees.

The news comes a month after Media Molecule ended support for Dreams, which was released in early access in April 2019 before officially launching in February 2020.

In an article posted on the game’s official website earlier this year, the studio explained it had “made the difficult decision to discontinue live support for Dreams after September 1, 2023 to shift our focus to an exciting new project”.

Players are still able to play, create and share content on the game, but it will be receiving no further updates. Players also now have a 5GB storage limit for any new creations.

The Media Molecule layoffs are the latest in a long string of mass layoffs taking place across the games industry this year.
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People have already been worried about this studio and....this isn't the best news for it

I guess the only silver lining is since it isn't a very large studio it's not a very large number getting laid off
 
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I will never understand why Dreams wasn’t given a PC port, it seemed like such a golden opportunity once PlayStation games started appearing there.
 
Dreams was the craziest thing.

Sony - "Hey guys you can work as long as you want on this impossible project with almost no commercial possibility of success. Money's no object. Do what you like. Have fun."
MM - "Cool. We have big plans."

MM - "Hey it took years and years but we actually somehow finished it. Can we like, port it to other platforms, or market it on PS+ or anything?"
Sony - "No."

The shame is that it would be such a good way to create VR content for PSVR 2 but because it wasn't ported, well....
 
Heron said:
Sony - "Hey guys you can work as long as you want on this impossible project with almost no commercial possibility of success. Money's no object. Do what you like. Have fun."
MM - "Cool. We have big plans."

MM - "Hey it took years and years but we actually somehow finished it. Can we like, port it to other platforms, or market it on PS+ or anything?"
Sony - "No."
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That’s what so weird about Dreams. Sony funded this highly ambitious game-maker game and… left it to gather dust.
 
I believe there was a moment that nintendo was thinking to buy them but were to late.
Anyway, i'm not a fan of their games. That said, it's a shame that something like that happens within the game industrie.
If Sony is responsible (not sure if this is), shame on them.
 
So the onslaught of Sony cutting its employee count continues. Hopefully, Nintendo poached some of the talent.
 
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meatbag said:
That’s what so weird about Dreams. Sony funded this highly ambitious game-maker game and… left it to gather dust.
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If it’s not a hit right out of the gate then is a failure and will just wither away. I really don’t understand who this game was made for since it doesn’t seem to have sold well
 
Really unfortunate. It was posted in the other thread but the stakes feel higher than ever for literally every single Sony studio. Very little room for failure, and as a result, experimentation. Dreams probably sold well below expectations but I’m assuming it wasn’t this massive flop.
 
Christo750 said:
Really unfortunate. It was posted in the other thread but the stakes feel higher than ever for literally every single Sony studio. Very little room for failure, and as a result, experimentation. Dreams probably sold well below expectations but I’m assuming it wasn’t this massive flop.
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This will keep on happening as long as Sony wants every game to sell gangbusters.
 
I don't think there's any world where Dreams is anything other then a flop. It was far too ambitious of a project and I'm shocked it was ever green lit. What's actually surprising is how long Sony allowed it to flounder before giving it the axe.
 
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xtoc said:
I believe there was a moment that nintendo was thinking to buy them but were to late.
Anyway, i'm not a fan of their games. That said, it's a shame that something like that happens within the game industrie.
If Sony is responsible (not sure if this is), shame on them.
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Yeah this Studio would have been better with Nintendo considering its released games.
 
TreeSign said:
Employee retention will drop drastically as you never know how your game will perform and then you are on the chopping block.
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Or you could do it like Nintendo, admit that a game or a system is a failure, allow the teams to pick up the pieces and feel the security of a stable job, even if it means cutting executive pay, and then the team will learn naturally and start putting out bangers.

See:
Skyward Sword - > Breath of the Wild
Wii U - > Switch
Wii Sports Club - > 1-2 Switch - > Ring Fit Adventure
Samus Returns - > Metroid Dread
Xenoblade X - > Xenoblade 2
Ect.

For example, if the next spiderman game sold 30% of its predecessor, you know that the series would be put on ice, and a lot of insomniac would be laid off. But that's exactly what happened with Skyward Sword and that Comercial disappointment led to Breath of the Wild.
 
TreeSign said:
Makes me also think that Japan Studio would have fared off better under Nintendo as well.
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IIRC someone looked into it and a not-insignicant number of Japan Studio employees actually ended up being picked up by EPD and MonolithSoft.

In particular I remember Bloodborne's lead map artist is credited on Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
 
Lozjam said:
Or you could do it like Nintendo, admit that a game or a system is a failure, allow the teams to pick up the pieces and feel the security of a stable job, even if it means cutting executive pay, and then the team will learn naturally and start putting out bangers.

See:
Skyward Sword - > Breath of the Wild
Wii U - > Switch
Wii Sports Club - > 1-2 Switch - > Ring Fit Adventure
Samus Returns - > Metroid Dread
Xenoblade X - > Xenoblade 2
Ect.

For example, if the next spiderman game sold 30% of its predecessor, you know that the series would be put on ice, and a lot of insomniac would be laid off. But that's exactly what happened with Skyward Sword and that Comercial disappointment led to Breath of the Wild.
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We all wished the world ran like that and not be a fantasy
 
Dark Cloud said:
We all wished the world ran like that and not be a fantasy
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The thing that gets me, is from a shrewd capitalist and economic sense, Nintendo's move is actually far better. Look at the market share Nintendo has been able to get, from last place to first in the span of 4 years. Not only that, but they are now one of the biggest exports of Japan as a whole, so much so they drive a lot of the economy of japan. Nintendo is consistently more profitable than Playstation, is selling far more systems and selling far more games. Because they didn't downsize their teams, and focus on consistent and slow growth, they are able to easily put out at least 1 game per month, and 1 big game per quarter. And they have utterly decimated their competitors of their domestic market.

And this isn't even limited to games. Costco, is consistently the most stable grocery market to invest in. Because they focus on good benefits, wages, and stability of their workers, alongside good customer benefits. They have consistently outperformed many of their competitors, and their slow and steady growth will probably lead to massive control of the US retail space, even in spite of online shopping.
 
Such a bummer, but unfortunately economics have changed in the last twelve months. Unlimited growth is no longer a thing, and most companies are in cost cutting mode. I hope that everyone lands on their feet and that MM's next title is a hit. I loved Little Big Planet and Teraway.

Also, MM's official statement.
 
WestEgg said:
I will never understand why Dreams wasn’t given a PC port, it seemed like such a golden opportunity once PlayStation games started appearing there.
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I agree. It is a head scratcher. Putting Dreams on PC and giving it keyboard/mouse support seemed like a no brainer.

Best I can figure is that Sony had advance metrics/numbers at their disposal and decided that the ROI just wasn't there.
 
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Lozjam said:
The thing that gets me, is from a shrewd capitalist and economic sense, Nintendo's move is actually far better. Look at the market share Nintendo has been able to get, from last place to first in the span of 4 years. Not only that, but they are now one of the biggest exports of Japan as a whole, so much so they drive a lot of the economy of japan. Nintendo is consistently more profitable than Playstation, is selling far more systems and selling far more games. Because they didn't downsize their teams, and focus on consistent and slow growth, they are able to easily put out at least 1 game per month, and 1 big game per quarter. And they have utterly decimated their competitors of their domestic market.

And this isn't even limited to games. Costco, is consistently the most stable grocery market to invest in. Because they focus on good benefits, wages, and stability of their workers, alongside good customer benefits. They have consistently outperformed many of their competitors, and their slow and steady growth will probably lead to massive control of the US retail space, even in spite of online shopping.
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All of this is true but suits are dumb and swayed easily by their own stupidity.
 
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It's a huge shame - I do wish some of the titles they created in Dreams had their own standalone releases as they're up there with MM's best work. Tren especially was such a treat a couple of months back but got basically zero eyes on it due to the strategy they had for Dreams. Might not have saved many jobs but could have been a way to get money in.

The fact that they didn't (or possibly weren't allowed to) release Dreams on PC or get a PSVR version going really harmed it's long term potential.
 
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Rhythm Shift said:
I've only played Tearaway on the PlayStation Vita made by the studio. That game was incredible.

Best of luck to those affected. :(

A lot has changed over the years with the PlayStation brand, and not necessarily for the better.
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Sadly, the old Sony is dead and gone. The moment they chased Western video gaming it all went downhill.
 
2020's Sony doesn't deserve Media Molecule. Some wonderful and talented devs over there, hope they land on their feet and the ones that remain are allowed to make something excellent.
 
touchfuzzy said:
2020's Sony doesn't deserve Media Molecule. Some wonderful and talented devs over there, hope they land on their feet and the ones that remain are allowed to make something excellent.
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Not all developers are fit to create AAA titles and Sony needs to realize this before they completely kill off their teams.
 
TreeSign said:
Not all developers are fit to create AAA titles and Sony needs to realize this before they completely kill off their teams.
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sadly enough I think that is a bit too late, they have seen how much their blockbuster cinematic games + Spider-man have grown and sold while the smaller studios that haven’t had the same success get the boot.

There is a reason why Sony has been slowly abandoning their smaller IP’s and focusing on the big ones
 
I do think MM's next game needs to be more of a welll...game and less of a tool. At the very least have a decently lenght campaign like LBP did
 
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Mr Swine said:
sadly enough I think that is a bit too late, they have seen how much their blockbuster cinematic games + Spider-man have grown and sold while the smaller studios that haven’t had the same success get the boot.

There is a reason why Sony has been slowly abandoning their smaller IP’s and focusing on the big ones
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Still, it would be nice to have smaller games to help for the wait for bigger games like Dark Cloud.
 
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Sony has said they want to increase their output so hopefully that includes aa games
 
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I can't honestly say I was ever much of a fan of Media Molecule's work, but this... well, it fucking sucks. It's perfectly clear where the journey is headed if you're a smaller studio under Sony's umbrella - and that probably means you're not a studio that has produced a big prestige title or a multi-million seller.

TreeSign said:
Makes me also think that Japan Studio would have fared off better under Nintendo as well.
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The problem with Japan Studio is - or rather, was - that their downfall wasn't just the result of their games selling poorly.

SIE has consolidated a lot of power at their San Mateo HQ and one of the side effects was that regional branches were reshaped to answer directly to SIE HQ. Japan Studio, was, in effect, not just another studio under the Sony Worldwide Studios (which is what PlayStation studios was named until... 2020, I believe) umbrella, they were pretty much the regional branch for everything software-related in Japan, doing not only development work - both in-house and in conjunction with studios like Media.Vision and Level-5 - but also licensing, third-party relations, software support for external studios (including Square) and localization for Sony's other studios. Most of these things were gradually moved over to HQ - the change to the first three became obvious once SIE started cracking down on games with sexual content (often mild - there's a rather famous censorship screenshot on how SIE didn't want a CG to show a bikini-clad woman and ended up putting rays of light over her chest and crotch, which, if you know your way around ecchi material, has very specific implications) and demanded Japanese studios translate their games' text to English for approval by the US teams, and as for localization, it is highly believed that this particular branch was ripped out from Japan Studio as well some time later (around 2019), as some people noticed some... peculiar choices in the Japanese translation for Ghost of Tsushima.

What was happening to Japan Studio wasn't exclusive to them either - in 2019, SIE downsized their European branch as well, after having previously closed Cambridge Studio, also due to a move to concentrate more power at their (now) American head office.

And as for their games - well, truth be told, Sony never really seemed to have bothered to market them to the same capacity they did with their American games after a certain point. I distinctly remember games that were still a ways off - like the 2018 God of War reboot - getting more attention the years prior than smaller games that were slated to release the same year like Gravity Rush 2 in 2017. And when I say "more" I mean "more than none". Even Japan Studios "last" big effort - Bloodborne - felt like a very lowkey release in hindsight to the point where I wish From Soft would take the IP back and have their current partner, Bandai Namco, handle a potential re-release.
 
I echo the sentiment and really miss their AA and smaller output from the PSone to PS3 era. I haven't been a very big fan of their leadership and management for quite some time. Sigh
 
Thank god Andrew House is not in charge. He would have shut the studio down immediately. Just like he shut Zipper and Cambridge Studio down... :(
 
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Mr Swine said:
sadly enough I think that is a bit too late, they have seen how much their blockbuster cinematic games + Spider-man have grown and sold while the smaller studios that haven’t had the same success get the boot.

There is a reason why Sony has been slowly abandoning their smaller IP’s and focusing on the big ones
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Now it’s all about the live service aspect of gaming which seems to have stalled before it even started.
 
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It's really going to be a bloodbath when there's so many live service games and only like a couple, if any, will be a "success". Awful practice.
 
Dreams would have probably been better off if Media Molecule figured out how to split from Sony while taking the project with them. like what happened with IO Interactive and Hitman.

Lugia667 said:
Project Spark by Microsoft suffered a very similar fate
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that was a unique case in that it was an attempt from Microsoft to turn the free "Kodu Game Lab" (which was a project created at Microsoft's R&D branch with no ties to the staff at Xbox) application into a larger-scale thing.

they had no idea (this was before Game Pass, of course) how to monetize the project, with the infamous Conker DLC being one such attempt. so it eventually died out.
Kodu, on the other hand. is still getting updates surprisingly. with one launching back in April.
 
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