The sheer vastness of the amount and kind of stuff Dreams allows its players to make is staggering. Already, people are using the game’s extensive and accessible tools to produce some truly wonderful things, from recreations of older games, to “demakes” of upcoming ones, to entirely new creations altogether.
A lot’s been said about the potential of Dreams, and the significant impact it can have on the industry, and the way Media Molecule have been speaking about their vision for the game definitely makes it seem like they want to capitalize on that potential. Time and again, they have spoken about allowing player-made creations to be sold in some form or another eventually, about how they feel it is a no-brainer.
Speaking recently in an interview with VGC, Mark Healey – co-founder of Media Molecule and creative director of Dreams – spoke about that once more, and talked about another idea that the developers have for monetization of user-generated content, and how it might be implemented. Essentially, Healy feels it would be “a no-brainer” to take the best of the best content produced by players, and then allow those to be sold as individual, standalone games on the PlayStation Store.
“One of the obvious things I think—this is a slight update if you like—one of the obvious things that I think we should do as a no-brainer is handpick some of the content that’s brilliant and go through the motions of taking it out as a standalone product and putting it on the PSN Store,” Healey said.
In fact, he seems determined to make sure this feature is implemented, and says he will “make that happen.”
“It would make a fantastic story and seeing how the community has developed over such a short period of time,” he said. “There’s already stuff in there that’s close to PSN worthy, I think, so that at the very least will happen I’m sure, I’ll make that happen.”
Healey does, however, also concede the obvious fact that there are several complexities involved here, mostly surrounding legal issues, and more fundamental things such as what the model in place for such a structure even be.
“The ultimate aim is for people to be able to monetise their stuff somehow, but it’s a delicate balance,” Healey said. “It’s not just about, ‘how do you get things past the lawyers?’ It’s also about, what is it you want to get past the lawyers in the first place? What’s the model?
“It’s a tricky one because you don’t want to spoil that sense of people sharing and collaborating, you want to keep it friendly and money can easily make things turn a different way.
“Especially when you see the quality that’s starting to come out of it as well, it’s just an obvious thing. I mean some people are already making money from it really, just from their YouTube channels showing, ‘look, watch me develop a game in 20 hours in time lapse.’”
Dreams is out now for the PS4. In the same interview, Healey also spoke about the possibility of Media Molecule’s latest release eventually launching on PS5 and PC as well- read more on that through here.
