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THE WORLD’S MOST BANKABLE GAME STUDIOS
In association with
18 STATISTICS Founded: 2006 Independent Head count: 30
MEDIA MOLECULE KEY RELEASE LittleBigPlanet’s community has made over four million comments on game levels, representing an unprecedented channel between a console game’s audience and the content creators.
FAST FACT COUNTRY: Guildford
CONTACTS
725,000 The number of LittleBigPlanent levels created by its community of two million players as of April 2009
www.mediamolecule.com
W
ho said a start-up studio can’t debut with a blockbuster anymore? The crew behind Media Molecule are hardly industry virgins (key founders Mark Healey and Alex Evans hail from Lionhead) but they still had to win their Sony deal, and deliver on the LittleBigPlanet buzz. Few would suggest the 30-strong developer didn’t triumph. Its PS3 game is a posterchild for usergenerated content and a darling of the press,
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enjoying a spectacular 95 Metacritic rating, plus a BAFTA win for Artistic Achievement. Sales haven’t been spectacular, however. Sony revealed in April that there were nearly two million unique LittleBigPlanet players in its online community, pointing to sales modestly north of that figure. Format exclusivity is a mixed blessing; the PSP version being created in conjunction with Sony Cambridge will help.