Tag Archives: Alex Evans

Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans has told GI that the “user” part of LittleBigPlanet’s user-generated content is just as important as the content itself.

“Creators are just as important as levels, so as a creator we have world rankings of who’s the coolest creator, or who’s the coolest community-minded commenter or sharer,” he said.

“So you can be a little bit competitive if you want to be, and you’ll have feeds of photos of you – levels that you’ve been in, photos people have taken of you. Then we take it even further, like Facebook. In any photos we know what kind of Sackboys were in it, who they were logged in as, so we put a box around their face which you can click and go and see that person.

“So if there’s a cool level with a guy wearing an awesome costume, you just D-pad up to him and hit X, and now you can see his levels, his favourites.”

There’s loads more “blue sky” thinking through there. The game’s out at the end of October.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Media Molecule boss Alex Evans has given first indication that LittleBigPlanet may not exactly be “going away,” making mention of sequels and paid-for expansion packs.

“I can also say that if there’s any way we can reward the community, we’ll go there,” he said. “If the people are clamouring for big chunks of content, it would make total sense for us to do it.

“We’re just exploring all options at this point. Sequels? Yeah, why not? DLC, why not? Paid-for content, why not?”

There’s loads more through there.

Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule has told GI that former Sony head – and now Atari shoulders – Phil Harrison’s influence on LittleBigPlanet’s early days was “completely key and pivotal”.

“Obviously that then transitioned into Sony, and especially the team at Liverpool, and Michael Denny – I don’t want to downplay their roles as well. But certainly with Phil, at the very beginning, the amazing thing was that he got it,” said Evans.

“We pitched much more of a platform game, the physics and so on, and he was very instrumental in telling us to think about what it would mean to have user-generated content – to think about what that means for the community.”

This is where we say “more through the link” and actually mean it.

By Mike Bowden

Kicking off Paris GDC this morning, Media Molecule boss Mark Healey has said that massive teams aren’t necessary to make big games, GI reports.

“One of the interesting things about the titles shown here is that the team sizes vary quite a lot,” he said, showing a list of game concepts in his keynote. “I think there’s a misconception in the games industry at the moment that you need 200 people to make a game now because technology is so amazing.

“But actually, some of the recent very successful games had teams of about four or five people – for example, Brain Training.”

Alex Evans, also of the LittleBigPlanet developer, added: “I believe that was a very small, focused team. And when you go through the breadth of our industry, it’s really staggering that you have casual games, role-playing games, you have MMOs, you have educational games, puzzle games, social games – the breadth is completely insane, and that’s just a huge inspiration for us.”

More through the link.

Speaking to GI, Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans has said the spotlight focus on LittleBigPlanet as a Q4 PS3 headliner has come as something of a shock.

“We had no expectation that it would become so strongly associated as a lead title on a platform,” he said.

“The reveal at GDC generated the level of excitement that helped us get to where we are now. It was always our ambition to make a big game, but we didn’t know if we’d succeed. The transition has been in the perception of the game, rather than in what we set out to do.”

There’s a full interview through there.

According to this PS3F report, Mark Healey and Alex Evans – co-founders of LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule – will keynote Paris GDC this year.

“Their talk will touch upon the ways in which game developers can incorporate creativity into their designs, and the future of user-generated content as illustrated by their upcoming title, LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3,” said the developer in a statement.

Paris GDC is the second French edition of the Game Developers Conference, and is scheduled for June 23-24 at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris .