Media Molecule
Media Molecule Ltd. is a British video game developer based in Guildford, Surrey. Founded in 2006 by Mark Healey, Alex Evans, David Smith, and Kareem Ettouney, it was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2010, becoming a part of SIE Worldwide Studios. The company is best-known for developing the LittleBigPlanet series, 2013's Tearaway, and 2020's Dreams for PlayStation consoles.
Before the company's formation, the co-founders, led by Healey, developed Rag Doll Kung Fu, whilst working at Lionhead Studios. They left Lionhead in 2005 and presented an early precursor of LittleBigPlanet to Sony. Sony was interested, so in January 2006 they secured their funding from Sony for six months and Media Molecule was incorporated. The studio signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in June which allowed Media Molecule to create LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3, with Sony owning the intellectual property. Soon after, LittleBigPlanet started production; it was released in October 2008 to critical acclaim. Sony acquired Media Molecule for an undisclosed sum two years later.
In 2011, the developer released a sequel, LittleBigPlanet 2. LittleBigPlanet spawned a series of games developed by other studios often in collaboration with Media Molecule. The studio has developed 2013's Tearaway in addition to its extended remake, Tearaway Unfolded. In 2016, they opened a small studio in Brighton, East Sussex. Dreams was released in February 2020. The studio has won numerous awards including Studio of the Year from the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards. Media Molecule's philosophy is to have as few employees as achievable.
History
Background (2005–2006)
Media Molecule was founded by four former Lionhead Studios' employees—Alex Evans, Kareem Ettouney, Mark Healey, and David Smith—being incorporated on 4 January 2006. Chris Lee and Mags Hardwick are also among the founding team. Evans and Smith are the technical directors; Healey is the creative director whilst Ettouney is the art director.Before the founding of Media Molecule, Evans and Healey worked at Bullfrog Productions, working for its co-founder, Peter Molyneux. Molyneux later went on to co-found Lionhead Studios, with Evans and Healey being some of their first employees. Soon after, the co-founders, led primarily by Healey, developed Rag Doll Kung Fu in their spare time whilst working at Lionhead Studios. Healey demonstrated the game at Game Developers Conference 2005 and Valve employees were in the audience. Valve was interested in the game, they were looking for a "low risk, low cost" third-party game to test on Steam; it became the first non-Valve game to be released on the platform in October 2005.
Also in 2005 whilst at Lionhead, the co-founders were working a game called The Room using clay tubes and portals. In retrospect, the founders noted it had similarities 2007's Portal. They presented a demonstration of it at GDC 2005; the same GDC they presented Rag Doll Kung Fu. The founders met with Valve who were interested in hiring them to develop The Room or another game idea, but nothing came of it. Evans noted if they had Portal may not have been developed. The founders left Lionhead Studios in December 2005 and managed to get a meeting with Sony Computer Entertainment regarding a game idea.
''LittleBigPlanet'', formation, and Sony deal (2006–2008)
They pitched an early precursor of what LittleBigPlanet was to become dubbed Craftworld to Phil Harrison, the head of development for Sony Worldwide Studios at the time. Craftworld was a physics-based 2D side-scrolling game similar to LittleBigPlanet. Its main character was 'Mr. Yellowhead', which would later become Sackboy. Evans stated that pitch was "meant to be a 30-minute pitch for our idea for a game called Craftworld that soon turned into a three-hour brainstorming session" and described the pitch as "pretty vague". Despite this Sony were interested, partly due to Harrison's enthusiasm for the game, according to Smith. In January 2006, they secured their funding from Sony for six months, they started to set up their office, Media Molecule was incorporated, and they started pre-production of the game. Evans described the company's formation as a combination of the boost from Rag Doll Kung Fu, some new ideas bubbling in his head, and the new wave of consoles around the corner. In March, they moved into a studio in Guildford, Surrey; around this time Siobhan Reddy, the studio director, joined Media Molecule. Reddy is occasionally regarded as the fifth co-founder.On 1 June 2006, Media Molecule announced they signed an exclusive deal with SCE. This agreement allowed Media Molecule to create an original game exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The deal included SCE owning the intellectual property and the exclusivity of LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation consoles. Evans stated "SCEE have proven to be the perfect partner for us. They immediately understood both our ambition for the game as well as our development style." Pre-production was extended up until August where they had a subsequent meeting with Sony executives, including Harrison, to decide whether to greenlight the game's production. Harrison described the pitch for production as the best meeting he ever had and went on to start full development. In 2019, Harrison reaffirmed this sentiment citing Evan's different approach this being instead of using PowerPoint, he wrote his own interactive 'PowerPoint' so that the game was playable through the presentation. Harrison stated that this demonstrated their innovative thinking and the way they wanted to challenge conventions impressed him.
LittleBigPlanet was announced by Phil Harrison in his keynote at Game Developers Conference on 7 March 2007 in San Francisco; only upon arrival did Healey and others realise they were a part of his keynote with Healey noting that "Sony were very, very much behind the game, much more than we had previously thought". It included a demonstration by Healey, Evans, Harrison, and Peter Smith showing core gameplay elements throughout a game level and explained that players could create their own levels with tools provided to them within the game. LittleBigPlanet was one of the games that Sony considered to fit their "Game 3.0" concept of user-generated content. Harrison originally suggested having LittleBigPlanet to be free-to-play with downloadable content along with a mechanism to monetise user-generated content to reward the best creators for their innovation. After viewing GDC 2007, Kenneth Young joined the studio in 2007 as their audio and music lead after being infatuated by LittleBigPlanet, Healey, and Evans. Some time before its release, development for a sequel started. In July, Media Molecule had 28 employees. LittleBigPlanet was released between 27 October 2008 and 5 November across different regions. LittleBigPlanet was critically acclaimed by critics, winning over 90 awards including the Award for Artistic Achievement at the 5th British Academy Video Games Awards.
''LittleBigPlanet'' sequel, new games, and Sony acquisition (2009–present)
By January 2009, Media Molecule had 34 employees. A month later, LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation Portable was announced at the Destination PlayStation meeting with it being primarily developed by SCE Cambridge Studio, alongside Media Molecule. It was released in November and it was well-received by critics. It was announced on 2 March 2010 that SCE had purchased Media Molecule for an undisclosed sum. Shuhei Yoshida, president of SIE Worldwide Studios, praised the studio's innovation and noted they had "world-class credentials". Evans added that "Since Media Molecule's inception, we've had a uniquely close relationship with SCE. Over the years they have consistently shown their dedication to Creative Gaming and Media Molecule, not only through their support of the company, but their willingness to take risks and embrace our often unusual approach and ideas". It brought the total number of developers at SCE Worldwide Studios to fifteen. In May 2010, a sequel entitled LittleBigPlanet 2 was officially announced; It was released in January 2011 to critical acclaim. In June, it was confirmed that LittleBigPlanet PS Vita was not being developed by Media Molecule, instead by Double Eleven, Tarsier Studios, and XDev.Development for Tearaway started in May 2011. In July at Gamelab 2011 in Barcelona, Reddy announced that Media Molecule were stepping away from LittleBigPlanet in order to focus on new game ideas. Media Molecule further added on Twitter that they would always be involved in LittleBigPlanet to some degree. Later on in July at a Develop conference, the co-founders stated that they were still involved with LittleBigPlanet 2 providing the upcoming PlayStation Move level pack as an example. Healey remarked that "It's a bit like, if you think of LittleBigPlanet as having a child, Sackboy was our child, you get to the stage where they want to leave home, It's kind of like that". Evans elaborated by saying that Media Molecule is no longer a "single-threaded company" and noted developing similar games all the time would become stale. In January 2012, Media Molecule had spent on research and development to develop new innovative games aiming to reduce the reliance on the LittleBigPlanet brand name.
In August 2012, they announced Tearaway led by Smith and Rex Crowle, with 15 developers working on it. The rest of the studio were working on another project—this being Dreams— which was in the research and development phase. Around this time, Media Molecule had more than 40 employees. Tearaway was released in November 2013 for the PlayStation Vita. In March 2015, Young left Media Molecule to become a game audio freelancer, though continued work on Unfolded. Two years later, Media Molecule alongside Tarsier Studios released Tearaway Unfolded, an expanded remake of Tearaway for the PlayStation 4. Crowle and LittleBigPlanet programmer, Moo Yu, founded Foam Sword in November 2015 and released their debut title Knights and Bikes in August 2019.
Whilst Media Molecule may have moved away from LittleBigPlanet they have collaborated and contributed with other studios for other games in the series. This includes: 2009's LittleBigPlanet, 2010's Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves, 2012's LittleBigPlanet Karting, and 2014's LittleBigPlanet 3.
In October 2016, Media Molecule opened Media Molecule Brighton a 'satellite' studio in Brighton, East Sussex. They opened the workspace to accommodate a group of developers who had been commuting to and from their headquarters allowing them to reduce travel times. The venue where the office is located is called the "Lighthouse" and hosts offices for other organisations like Culture24.
Dreams, a sandbox video game with a game creation system, was announced at Sony Interactive Entertainment's press conference at E3 2015. In April 2019, the game was made available via early access, a first for a Sony game. In December 2019, Sony announced that the game would be released in February 2020; It was released in February 2020.
Philosophy
Media Molecule aims to have as few employees as achievable. In 2006, Evans stated that Media Molecule wants to stay as small as possible whilst being able to produce a AAA game, aiming to keep the number employees below thirty. Healey stated "I am really intent on keeping us a small focused team I've had enough of working on big, bloated teams, you get too much deadwood in those situations. Everyone at Media Molecule matters." Healey further noted that there are always tensions between people in development, even with two or more people, however, once there are a large number of people it can cause too many tensions and compared it to being in a soap opera. Media Molecule now has around 50 employees.This philosophy has been modelled by other game developers, most notably by Hideo Kojima of Kojima Productions. After visiting Media Molecule in 2016, when Kojima was re-establishing the company he modelled the new studio around Media Molecule, wanting "a small, intimate type of studio". Kojima praised the high number of female employees and relaxed atmosphere comparing it to a family. He set a limit of one hundred employees at Kojima Productions, similar to Media Molecule.
Games
''LittleBigPlanet'' (2008–2014)
Media Molecule is the creator of the LittleBigPlanet series and developed the first two games, LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2 for the PlayStation 3 in addition to co-developing the PlayStation Portable version of the same name alongside SCE Cambridge Studio. It is a series of puzzle platformer games that follow Sackboy a small, brown, anthropomorphic, humanoid creature made of fabric with a zip fastener and button eyes across a variety of levels. The series features user-generated content, allowing players to create levels which can be shared and played to others online. The three games have collectively sold 8.5million units. Sackboy has featured in every LittleBigPlanet game and is a mascot for the PlayStation brand. In 2011, Media Molecule stepped away from the LittleBigPlanet series.Despite stepping away from the series they have collaborated and contributed with other studios for other games in the series including Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and LittleBigPlanet 3.