Media Molecule Confirms Report of Layoffs, Has Begun Consultation Process

They should just have media molecule make smaller indie like titles to try and give their line up some variety

Happened with Naughty Dog too. I just hope it doesn't lead to the closure of the developers...

Hm maybe ai is starting to affect the industry.

They should have released Dreams on PC. People would have been much more inclined to use it there. Trying to create games with a controller was just awkward and off putting.

@pushL7 they really did manage dreams poorly, it had a lot of potential that was wasted.

Mm is more of a prestige studio (bafta winner) so them getting shut down is unlikely.

They probably scaled up with how long Dreams has been supported/developed for & unfortunately that didn’t work out.
Sucks for those getting let go, but Mm should get back to basics & start putting out actual games again- rather than a platform.

In a perfect world Mm start putting out ‘smaller’ more experimental games every 2-3 years, while the others work on the massive blockbuster’s that take 6-7 years.

Media Molecule kinda suck tho, they don’t release many games and when they do it’s normally something niche, I think they should had kept it simple and created another action adventure platformer.

All the lay-offs are unsurprising. 2020-21 and the global lockdowns caused an abnormal growth in the games industry as people sought out some escapism. Go back 2 years and you will see article after article about how devs were finding it hard to retain and attract people. Lots of individual developers would have been hired or retained through the use of salaries and other incentives. Now that the world has reverted to a new-normal, the industry is contracting again.

The truth is Sony may not be willing to continue to invest into games that aren't giving much back in return. Instead of spending millions each year on a studio who's games hardly sell, that money could be saved and used towards acquisitions of studios who's games will make more of a profit for sony.

I prefered LBP under MM and Dreams was a cool idea but most people just aren't interested in these types of games, I think MM would be better off going third party and branching out to other platforms especially Nintnedo who would suit their game style and ideology. Would rather that happen then seeing MM disappear altogether.

I love Media Molecule but it baffles me how they can be profitable for Sony.

I miss the good old ps3/360 days. Before the expectation that every game had to be a AAA 50-60 hour, bloated, open world, live service. I’ve been gaming since the 80s and watching all these layoffs is really making me think that the current marketing trends are not sustainable. Part of it is the developers, but part of it is the current community, who crucify every game that doesn’t meet their idea of an ideal “game length”. Expectations weren’t like this before.

MM need to get back to their basics - LBP4 would be a welcome return from them.

@Optimus Unfortunately gaming & players expectations have changed. Gamers want as much as possible for as little as possible.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a 8-10 hour game. People would not be there for that at launch for full price like in 2007.

I’d love to go back to that time, but it’s not happening. It’s worse than ever with subscription models & F2P games devaluing premier games.

Lay offs are happening with everyone right now, including Microsoft (10,000+), Amazon (18,000+) and Google (12,000+) and of course now with Sony (30+), compared to the rest of the tech industry Sony laying off less than 100 people doesn't look so bad.

@clownshoes imagine defending a corporation that laid off 10000 staff this year and attacking a smaller corporation for laying off under 100 🤣

Regardless of the petty stupidity of users here, this is a shame and the point stands that Sony can rent out the sphere but are laying off staff left, right and centre.

@nessisonett

well so did Microsoft and they offloaded 10000 people.
In the end business gonna business. Just the nature of the beast.

@TheCleaner aye they just rented out the sphere too tbh

I wonder what good news tomorrow will bring.

Cue the ‘and just like that, he was gone *poof’ gif

@TheCleaner @Shepherd_Tallon Well he's now banned again, although I suspect he will be back under another name, if only trolls were that easy to remove.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think he already is tbh, ain’t that right @IPAddresses 😉

I am surprise they have 135 people.

Honestly, if in a studio that has Dreams and Tearaway as recent output I would have been working on my resume/portfolio.

Hopefully they land somewhere else.

To be honest, as painful as it is to say, this doesn't surprise me. MM's games seem to take ages to make, lack mass market appeal and aren't the massive sellers that Sony's other franchises are.

Seems like a lot of game companies are having layoffs.

@TheCleaner I don’t give a flying f*** about Microsoft. This is about the people who were laid off from Media Molecule. Stop with your whataboutism.

This studio had the potential of becoming Britain's answer to Nintendo, instead they chose to pursue becoming Britain's answer to Unity and completely misread what their customers wanted along the way.

@nessisonett
easy cowboy. just sayin, multi dollar corps like sony aint your friends and they dont even like you haha they just want your money. Accept it and move on.
I like Sony because they bang out high quality games at an absurd pace but they still a shady mega corp like anyone else.

@TheCleaner Aah that guy…. He was on my ignore list as he was mega troll and hates everything Sony.

@truerbluer This! Tear away on the PlayStation vita was something Nintendo would produce

They should not stayed with dreams, it's a failed games, just make new games that use all of dualsense features, maybe littlebig planet reboot? With single and multiplayer like on ps3 back then.

@truerbluer Yup, making game engine for a console with no monetization is foolish, they should focus on making normal creative games like littlebig planet or tearaway rather than this.

Dreams waa a mistake imo. They've been stuck on it for years and I don't think it was worthwhile. I'm a little biased because I really didn't like it, would have liked to seen more tearaway type games personally, they could have done multiple games in the time it took for dreams.

Would be nice to import .jpegs would be nice to export files if only to PC would be a start ..i'm fast running out of room and I don't wanna save in their cloud ..when it 1st started you had to move your controller to do stuff....we were told to buy move sticks (A move probably by Sony) to make things easier ...the mob didn't buy it....so they changed the whole control system to your analogue sticks which made the whole thing a lot more easier and not a task.

You can't save your Time trails or High scores unless your online (Another Sony request no doubt)

And the final nail in the coffin for me (somebody who actually supported Dreams way back in the beginning) is they messed up local saves.

Media Molecule is a classic example of A company being controlled by another company with ulterior motives ...they have only JUST put back audio importer without having to be online.

What a shame. Such a talented studio that was underutilized and mismanaged. They should have put Dreams on more platforms and made LittleBigPlanet 4 by now.

I like MM, but I never saw their games as mega selling hits, so I think rather than banging every little game they made into Dreams.

They could have released them as little indie digital games on the store for £9.99

When I cry about Japan Studio's death the other studio that always comes to mind is Mm and how they probably haven't made Sony a dime in years. Is an incredible achievement in itself that they are still standing

Some of those jobs go in cycles. You don't need the same type of PR team when your company is mostly heads-down in development and not releasing new content for a year or more as you do when you're fully supporting a community-driven game.

Hopefully this is just a matter of adjusting resources while they work on the next big thing, whatever that may be.

Sucks, but not surprising. They’re lucky they haven’t been shut down entirely. 1 game since 2013 and it was Dreams.

Hopefully they come back strong, they were a very creative and talented studio. I have my doubts though

very much expected considering the current state of the studio and troubles they have endured over the past 10 years. i respect what they have done with dreams, but the market clearly did not. it is time to stop experimenting with indulgent ideas and get back to making proper games that will appeal to a wider audience. looking forward to whatever they do next, but i hope it is something out of their comfort zone this time around and does not feature any form of community creation. just a single player experience will satisfy most. keep in mind that ex employees of larger studios often form their own studios after their departure. foam sword studio is one such case (made up of ex mm staff). i wouldn't be surprised if some of the staff who were let go find themselves in a new indie studio of their own or join forces with an established one.

Why are all these layoffs happening? Are global games sales declining??

I was never interested in dreams. Same thing with Mario maker. I just don't get the appeal of browsing thousands of bad games made by people as creative as I am (understand not at all) in hope of finding something entertaining for more than 5 minutes.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Actually, you can kinda get back to that. PSVR2 is in that exact space: shorter, cheaper and way more creative, experimental games.

Since I got the headset, I totally lost interest in flat-screen games. They all feel like "been there, done that" type of deal.

VR is a completely new paradigm, and there are dozens of incredible games available on the platform already. Especially if you are new to VR, which is my case.

@Fight_Teza_Fight It doesn't even have to be a scaling thing. Dreams is such a weird and unique game, I'm sure it required a bunch of jobs that you'd normally not find in a regular game dev studio. They also had a very big social media presence, and had probably working people on that too.

Of couse, we don't know how this is affection people within MM, but I wouldn't be surprised if these jobs were specifically tied to Dreams.

@Powerplay94 Most of the companies do, and everytime we hear about layoffs it's generally the contracted positions. You can go on any job board and pull up these positions year round. I don't understand why we get so many reports on contracts being completed, any contractor knows when their terms are up and have something else lined up if they're smart.

I wonder what the breakdown is of people being laid off in-office vs at-home. I bet people at home are more likely to be let go.

Too many people are looking at this in a vacuum. Earlier this year Pixelopus was shut down and a few years ago Japan Studio was shut down too. Looking at these moves together, it's clear Sony isn't interested in these smaller scale, more unique games anymore and only want giant, big-budget AAA games.

2023 has been a tough year for tech jobs. I just dodged some layoffs at my own company, thank frig.

@TripleEyeGaming which they can roll out how many of per year? Then again, perhaps they are banking entirely on third party publishers and indies to diversify and pad out their hardware's library (indeed, even EA-helmed titles like Lost in Random, Unravel and It Takes Two tend to give off a fair share of "golden age SIE" vibes). Except these aren't Wii U and XBO times anymore - the majority of these games are also found on consoles like Switch that also maintain their own palette of exclusives. Can Sony shine on while largely limiting their output to photorealistic RPGs/actventures and chasing [the will-o-the-wisp of] "service games"? I unironically enjoy the likes of InFamous, TLoU, Spider-Man and Days Gone myself, but out of this whole bunch, IMHO, so far only Horizon series has managed to offer the kind of an imaginative journey through an exotic world once found all over the PlayStation legacy from LocoRoco, Shadow of the Colossus and LittleBigPlanet to Tearaway, Gravity Rush and Concrete Genie.

"Wahh wahhh, Mm should just make 'proper' games! Make Platformer #45,687!"
No wonder there's no creativity left in games from big companies. People don't want new ideas anymore.

But Sony are also disgusting for their insanely expensive Spider-Man 2 marketing, and making more profit from PlayStation than they ever have before, but still laying off people. Honestly, I'm glad I haven't bought a PS5. I just can't support this company anymore. They've raised every price they could, made so much profit, but still nickel and dime their customers, and treat their developers like crap.

@Boxmonkey The shareholders aren't happy with the millions upon millions that they already make. Greedy scum at the top ruining it for everyone else. As usual.

They should try making a game.

Oh man. This is so sad to me. My heart goes out to all those affected at Media Molecule, and I hope and pray that they can find employment elsewhere in a timely manner. I love Media Molecule and all of the wonderful projects I’ve experienced from them. I hope and pray that their next game can be more profitable for them and that future unfortunate situations like this can be better avoided. My heart goes out to everyone affected by these layoffs.

It's to be expected. They were a niche game developer with very low output.
It was a matter of time until a big shot came up and questioned why they aren't making money.
Good or not we shall see.

That's a shame, have a lot of good memories playing LBP games coop with friends. My PS3 came with the first LBP packed in, so that game had the honor of popping up my very first trophy!

Dreams, on the other hand, I never had much interest in. Wish they had focused on the Play more than the Create and Share.

@nessisonett Microsoft cans 10000 people and spends 68 billion. Sony spends how much is the sphere and cans 30 people with a studio that didn't make a lot of games. It sucks for the people who work there but it's nothing compared to big US companies the biggest ones in the world.

@Americansamurai1 totally agree with you here small studios making smaller games less money to make besides its mm forte and small indie game getting success left and right and ps doesnt have to make all games blockbuster and small games can easily be included on ps+

It's sad to lose people. I reckon they could at least port the music maker in Dreams to Steam and PS5/PS4 and sell it for a small price. Could be hit. Especially if you can export your music.

@Octane oh hey 👋! Mm was hiring from the community- think there was an article about it here. So some of the people were specifically hired, because of their expertise in dreams.
I’m sure budget cuts was part of it, but I reckon a good chunk of people were let go due to the elimination of their job role.

@Art_Vandelay Absolutely. Love VR. I wouldn’t want a larger experience in that anyways. Resi7 for 10 hours or so was a perfect experience. Skyrim I switched back to flatscreen after a while😅.