Dreams dev testing the waters of letting players monetize their work

Media Molecule today opened up a special beta program for its game-making PS4 game Dreams which will allow select players to put their Dreams creations to commercial use beyond PlayStation's ecosystem.

This is an important step for the British studio to take because Dreams promises players access to a broad, powerful game creation toolset, yet as of now offers no clear way to share their creations outside of Dreams.

It's also an opportunity to watch and learn how a major studio handles the consequences of running a game predicated on user-generated content. Dreams challenges players to create everything from music to art to full games, and in today's blog post detailing the new program studio director Siobhan Reddy admits that the studio is still figuring out how to let players use their Dreams creations outside of PlayStation platforms.

"We’ve had lots of questions from creators about using Dreams for viable business opportunities off PlayStation such as concept artwork. We welcome and encourage creators to do this, but it’s new territory for us," reads the post. "We’ve been busy behind the scenes mapping out how we can make it easier for creators to do this in the future. We are kicking this off with a beta evaluation, where creators can submit an application to use Dreams for a specific project."

To qualify for this program, creators must be over 18 and have been using Dreams to create work during the lengthy "Early Access" beta period which preceded its launch last month. Media Molecule says creators will retain the rights to any IP they create, but the studio expects participants to provide regular feedback and (where possible) appropriately credit Dreams in the final product(s). For more details and to apply, check out the beta program application.