Sony Has a '10 Year Vision' for Dreams, One of Shuhei Yoshida's Favourite Projects Ever

That does inspire confidence, yet some of my concern still lingers because it seems like the initial public reception is muted (Even Snacks on a Train’s development seems to have been.... derailed 😉)
If the game/project is consistently losing money, then I can’t imagine they keep throwing financial support at it for 10 years. I’m rooting for Dreams to work out for Media Molecule, but 10 years is a long time to fund something that’s tanking the bottom line. We’ll see.

This is great news. However, even though I purchased Dreams when it was released, I still haven’t got round to starting on it yet, although I most certainly intend to at some point.

we know how this will go, it will be a 15gb download once a week when they are gonna fix bugs. they should rename dreams to "nightmares", im starting to get fed up with these never finished GaaS games. i guess little big planet is done for good now too, since dreams will be going on for 10 years, rip sackboy

So does this mean Snacks on a Train will be games as a service?

Pre-order cancelled.

Lets see how long this "10 year Vision" lasts. Remember the last "10 year Vision" i remember.... Anyways whens Dreams 2 Lol

I can see it lasting 10 years heck little big planet did and this is much bigger

Already bought the early access at launch, I really think dreams will be youtube of gaming where players play random games just for fun, like watching youtube compared to watching a movie.

Since it was first revealed in 2013. I assume that means it’s only four more years until the full release.

@Quintumply You should send your CV to Fumito Ueda

Dreams is cool and all, but I really can't get behind anyone saying "we have a 10 year plan for X game". Once those 10 years have passed and the game is still going strong, then give me a call.

Although I have no desire to create my own games (I'm just not that creative or patient) I bought the early access on a whim after reading about all these 'amazing' creations gamers have come up with and .....meh. Theres nothing on there I would play for more than 10 mins and I certainly wouldnt go back to any of them. Some of them look ok but I can never see this being the utube of games as many have suggested. Give me proper games made by professionals any day

@thebakerswife
Yup lol

Personally, Dreams is the single most important piece of software I've ever used. I'm thrilled to hear it could remain relevant for up to ten years.

@Quintumply Is Dreams released? I'm confused... have I really missed this ...?

Unrealistic expectations from spoiled brat gamers are by far the worst thing about the gaming industry. These are artists with often horrible fans who are never happy . Stop s******* on everything and make your own games if you hate everything so much. Dreams is Amazing if you realize it is an idea sketchbook for game designers

_{Language please! - Quintumply}

@Deljo 100% agreed. I want to know where all these amazing games are people keep on about! I mean, I get that it's clever they were made at all by someone in their bedroom on a PS4, but it doesn't make me want to play any of them.

I still feel like this needed to be released this year.

Looking at these comments. I'm like blah blah blah. It is £30 - for a full game development studio. I'm thick but patient and made this a few months ago;

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FDJUT-F40lU

I'm currently working on a game as the sound designer in the mould of star-trek which will release next year. Here's a sample track;

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zn2_Dt3s378

I have posted these a few times now. My mates are working on a goldeneye remake, crayola sketch game, Sekiro like battle system and various platform games. It's a great piece of kit. Comparing it to any other game is pointless, if this falls flat on its arse - I will still have built my own stuff. How's that for customisation?

As for not finding games at release - it just released. There's a plethora of worthwhile experiences right now!

@TheBuzz you do realise that Dreams isn't following a games as a service model. It's in early access at £30.

Stop comparing dreams to ps now or xbox game pass. This is adobe creative suite for ps4. There are amazing experiences if you are not looking for a sequel to Mortal Kombat 1000000. Yes most are short but some 60$ games are 10 hours of play with zero replay ability. I can replay dreams every month with new unique experiences.

Ok sure, not for me, I don’t get it.

@TheBuzz It doesn't have updates all the time and updates it has are aren't that big. Its early access right now because for the type of game it is the game needs that, it has zero MTX or paid DLC and everything update wise is free and everything in the game is free for everyone who has brought it to use.

@Trajan Oh, I was not being critical of the game itself, I agree with you about the software. I am only being realistic about the game’s financial viability for 10 years — I have no idea if it will lose money, but I’m thinking about the cost of development so far .... Media Molecule has a team of over 50 people; This is their only project as far as we know since 2012; Those people are certainly being paid and don’t work for free for the last 7 years. Now add the cost of all the support for the game (albeit I’m sure a smaller team will be able to keep it going after final release) for the next 10 years. That’s a huge sum of money the game needs to create to support just the cost of development and maintenance.

Dreams has only been generating revenue since April; We don’t know sales figures but in June it was estimated that a little over 100,000 copies had been sold in Early Access. Even if we are are optimistic and say it’s tripled by now (doubtful) at 300,000 copies at $30 a piece it’s made around $9 million. Compared to the cost of 17 years of development and maintenance of the game, that’s surely a drop in the bucket. Now obviously the game is going to sell a lot more copies in the coming years at full price (maybe $60? We don’t know what it will cost) and maybe there will be DLC and other revenue sources, but it needs to still create a lot more money for Sony before they break even on costs.

Again, I’m not being critical of the game, I’ve not played it yet and it looks fabulous for what it is. But you only need to look to Drive Club and Evolution Studios to see what might happen. Drive Club sold over 2 million copies in less than 2 years and Sony still shut down Evolution Studios, presumably because they couldn’t afford to keep them open. And now, 5 years after the game’s launch, they are shutting down the Drive Club servers. They shut down Gravity Rush 2 servers in less than 2 years. Sony has shown us that they are not averse to shutting a game down if it’s not making money.
Now they have also shown that they will be patient with studios when their projects take a long time to develop (The Last Guardian, etc.) but I can’t see them supporting a game’s servers for years on end if it is not financially viable, no matter what Shuhei says. The stockholders won’t allow for that.

So yes, I hope the game makes money eventually, but it will probably need to sell a lot more than Drive Club did to keep it going to 10 years. I was planning to eventually buy it myself when it officially releases out of early access, but I’m not sure. Like I said, the public reception has been okay, but the buzz for it seems to be a little muted compared to what I was expecting.

.. I bought the beta a few months ago... and I've gone through a lot (some?) of the tutorial(!).. it's really involved... and from some of the demos / experiences on there it's going to be REALLY good fun... the fact that it'll be fully VR-integrated too shouldn't be ignored - it'll be the PSVR killer time-waster if nothing else...

I think its incredible!!! I was always drawn to "make your own game" games. Back in the day i had a rom for a japanese super famicom game which i forget the name of, something like Domomoro or something where you can make your own shooter ala raiden. PS2s fighter maker! Omg this was almost a dream come true for me. I sank SO many hrs into LBP 1 and 2. And now dreams which is just the ultimate game creation game. If only i had more time for it.

@Th3solution
Well dreams saving grace is there is no other way to make games for ps4 for $30. Even if a small fraction of ps4 owners ever use it, it can be used as a tool for real game developers to experiment with ideas. A ps4 development console costs thousands of dollars. Dreams is one of a kind for ps4.
Must read article:
https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-for-playstation-4

@WallyWest its gonna last 10 year and its gonna be free, get real, nothing is free and free for 10 years is just ridicules to think it will be. clearly you have not played lbp and seen all the dlc they sell.

@themcnoisy do you realize you pay 30 dollars to be a beta tester?.. practically you work for free as a beta tester and pay for it. if you have been a hired beta tester you would be paid 30 an hour or more, let that sink in... and to expect you are gonna get free stuff for 10 years are ridicules.

@TheBuzz Do you actually believe what you have posted or playing devil's advocate? You seem extremely ill informed which is disappointing as a member of the community.

I am not a beta tester. I'm actually developing my own tools, logic, sounds, sculptures and gameplay mechanics for use of the wider dreams comunity. For a start you think Dreams is an a-typical GaaS, it's not. I paid over £200 for a Reason licence to make music on my PC, you get a compromised Digital audio Workstation in Dreams but it's amazing for getting ideas together and that is one section. You have a sculpting studio, painting studio, music studio, animation studio, logic studio and all the tools necessary to work in a group.

You could say AAA game programmers get 100k plus a year and top musicians get paid millions. The reality is that's few and far between and I actually fancy getting my own game together within the dreams framework and for free. If that leads somewhere then awesome, if not then at least I've built my own stuff.

Before shui even mentioned the 10 year thing - I personally think Dreams is going to tank as its too complicated for people with less than average intelligence and gamers with no patience. That doesn't mean it's not awesome. It is.

Let that sink in :/

@Th3solution I reckon it sits at about 200k sales as a guess. Every new player automatically subscribes (follows in dreams talk) to a particular user owned by media molecule. At one point it was at around 130,000 about 5 weeks ago. Factor in the additional time and the fact you can unfollow users I reckon that is a fair guesstimate. So £6,000,000 in revenue. That covers about 2 years worth of wages, servers and rent.

Yup it's going to tank. 10 years is crazy talk.

@themcnoisy Yeah, man - I know how much you’ve enjoyed it and so I hope that it explodes over the next few years. Maybe it’ll be a slow-burn like Minecraft which will continue to attract new players for years and years to come. Problem is that large companies don’t have the patience to wait for profitability. If a project doesn’t have financial returns in the first couple years then they get trigger happy with the firing line.
Do you think the VR tools will boost the accessibility? That might help, but I don’t know if there are enough VR units out there to pull many more sales.

@jess3a3 I think there will be a passionate userbase, but a relatively small one, especially early on. Those that learn to use it are going to love it. Budding game developers will eat it up. But there won’t be large numbers of sales. It will be up to Sony to decide if the good press, design awards, and investment in future game developers is worth a lack of ROI. I hope they are long sighted on what the game brings to the table, but history would say otherwise.

@TheBuzz You do realize that anyone who gets the Early Access version gets the full game "free" on release, all i've done is buy the game early really.