Sony freedom allowed Media Molecule to flourish

Sony freedom allowed Media Molecule to flourish
Neon Kelly Updated on by

Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more

Sony stuck by Media Molecule when most other publishers would have cut their losses and walked away, the studio’s creative director has said.

Both Mark Healey and fellow Media Molecule co-founder Kareem Ettouney state that Sony played a crucial role in the development of LittleBigPlanet.

“Making a project that has a very long service tail requires a lot of support, and Sony were really behind that,” Ettouney told VideoGamer.com at Develop last week.

“I think they were good at being very hands-off in the early stages,” added Healey. “We were a new company, and they helped us a lot with the setting up of that, which was a whole issue in itself.

“We’d have the XDEV [Sony’s external development team] producers coming down every now and then, and I’m sure other publishers would have cut their losses a lot earlier because some of our early presentations where quite chaotic and disastrous.”

Ettourney said that Sony has taken a similarly tolerant approach with its other partners: “Actually, Sony has had that attitude repeatedly with different studios. We met our friends at Guerilla and Naughty Dog, and they all have similar stories of being a very good creative partner. They understand the process of creation, and it is a very experimental process.

“If you don’t allow for mistakes and you don’t allow for trying things out, you’ll have to stick to very safe ideas.”

Media Molecule has recently said that it is “stepping away from LittleBigPlanet” and revealed its new game will be “risky and experimental“.