PS Plus Has Already Pulled in 100k New Dreamers on PS5, PS4

Dream to make believe

by Khayl Adam Thu 3rd Aug 2023

With Media Molecule's Dreams set to cease live service on 1st September, the surreal creation engine has come to PS Plus, drawing in more than 100k new Dreamers already. You can see all kinds of cool Dreams-related stats over on the aptly-named DreamStats website, although even there, functionality is beginning to break down as the game's service aspect draws to a close.

If you're curious to dive in, why not let Push Square's own Assistant Editor, Stephen Tailby, guide you on your Dreamiverse journey? He's been covering the game since the beginning, reviewing it for the site, and chronicling community creations. In a pleasing bit of symmetry, he even embarked on an exciting adventure to Media Molecule to speak to the creators themselves about what comes next for Sony's most imaginative first-party studio.

Do you have any Dreams creations of your own to show off? Have you been playing since it came to PS Plus? Let your imagination run rampant in the comments section below.

[source dreamstats.me]

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the most succulent of PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

1
Americansamurai1
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

Big mistake not adding it to plus a long time ago

2
zhoont
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

Even a small resurgence will only be bittersweet. They wasted a decade on this. THIS! My favorite studio as a kid, and haven't released another game yet.

3
RawnDawn
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

Out of all the games Sony has ported to pc, this should've been number 1.

4
HotGoomba
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

@KaijuKaiser honestly I completely forgot about star points

5
AdamNovice
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

@RawnDawn Wouldn't have made them money compared to their other IPs.

6
ATaco
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

Instead of letting it die they really should have made a PS5 version. So many great creations were limited by the very long load times and limited power of the PS4.

7
PsBoxSwitchOwner
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

100k? isn’t there like 50million essential+ subscribers?

It shows that people really just aren’t interested in the game (outside gaming sites)

8
Kidfried
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

@Khayl posted about this on the forums as well, but why are still no articles on Trend post-release? Like a review or at least an acknowledgement it has released? It's weird after the preview article for it.

9
Kidfried
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

For everyone on the fence: Dreams is crazy good. I got into the creation stuff for a bit, which is great. Made a few nice tunes.

That being said, I've been playing the game again since last, only playing through other people's dreams. And just doing that is worth the price of admission alone. What is there is so much fun, and I found games on there better than many "full" games I recently played.

10
Zisssou
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

I've played a few, and genuinely surprised at how good it is. But I still think I wouldn't have bought it, and I must admit I probably won't play it very much either. It's just a case of there's way too many games to play.

11
tameshiyaku
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

@KaijuKaiser I'd really be interested how much engagement Sony is actually generating with the stars program.
I like the idea, but the execution is poor. Just recently I saw it being advertised for the first time on the console itself (after having launched months ago), but still no integration on the PS4/5.
It's just one of those things Sony makes, doesn't promote and then let it die off. Just like dreams.

12
Decoy_Snake
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

I downloaded and had a few rounds of Tren, i kinda hope it gets released standalone as well it's a neat little game

13
themightyant
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

That's cool to hear, but it's also not that many relatively for a 'Free' game on a service with 47ish million subscribers, will need more than that to give it a lifeline.

14
themightyant
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

@tameshiyaku Can't imagine it will be a lot, the user experience is obfuscated AF. It has to be done through the PS app and it's almost like you have to know exactly where to click to find it, or to redeem anything. Compare that to Microsoft where it's relatively front and centre and Nintendo where it literally has a check box on the store to use your existing credit from previous purchases.

In my eyes it's deliberately designed to get as little engagement as possible, one to try and silence us enthusiasts ("We listened, we added rewards for you") without them actually spending much. Smart business on their part, but disappointing on ours

15
liathach
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

Tren is great and shows what can be done. The root problem with Dreams is that success required a strategy for developing a social platform where the focus has been on making a development/creator platform. The ratio of consumers to producers is always going to be at least 9:1. Producers need a consumer audience to incentivise them to create. The core problem is Dreams put the social platform behind a paywall, limiting the number of consumers from the outset. To succeed the product needed the support and promotion of Sony to build the social network - to make consumption free within a 'creator' tier of PS Plus, perhaps, whilst the development tool could carry the cost. Really, the bold thing would have been to integrate it into the PSN platform for free. The issue with that is that this would cannibalise gaming time, potentially hurting sales and subscriptions, and the bottom line. As with Home, Sony hasnt known what to do about something which is powerful but potentially disruptive and left it to wither on the vine.

16
Burntbreadman
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

Would have been a perfect time to do one of those best dreams creation articles.

It would have benefited new users and people like me..... someone who hasnt booted the game up in a while. It would have been nice too see whats new (without having to reinstall)

17
ChakaL00T
Thu 3rd Aug 2023

@Burntbreadman
I might not understand but do you mean something like this?
https://www.pushsquare.com/features/best-dreams-games-to-play-while-its-on-ps-plus

18
SuntannedDuck2
Fri 4th Aug 2023

Is it cool yes. Do people check it out, don't understand it, don't care, maybe play the campaign, find it frustrated with the motion controls, find it boring, do it for Star points like Microsoft Rewards. Yes.

Will it have much an audience no. Briefly yes. Enough wanting to continue then those that already did I doubt it but maybe a sizeable amount just not a lot.

A moment like this is kind of necessary though for player counts but at the same time I do think it won't do a lot either. Even if it's longer than Project Spark lasted on Xbox at the wrong time and an audience likely even less interested then Nintendo or PlayStation audiences do with Little Big Planet or Mario Maker/Game Builder Garage besides just so many fan games show people would love tools to create creations of any sort in games, music, whatever.

I mean how many music apps existed on Xbox (saw one in a retro game store one day), PSP (Beaterator by Rockstar) and many more.

I do agree that a Dreams creation article would help for sure for the small audience that is planning to use it longer than the PS+ period let alone highlight some creations helps out those creators too of course.

How many people heard about games from PS+ even other than those familiar with such studios (major or Indies).

Media Molecule especially I assume too if they didn't play LBP games or like creative games.

19
Balosi
Fri 4th Aug 2023

@tameshiyaku I think they need to make it accessible from the console, it's own section, for it to be more popular. I mean I'm aware of it and like the idea, but I've missed loads of quests just because I can't be bothered to keep checking the phone app.