Update on Community & Curation Support for Dreams

Hey CoMmunity! Today we’d like to give you an update on our approach to Curation and Community support for Dreams in 2024.

Before that, we wanted to take the chance to again thank you all for the support you showed and continue to show to those affected by the studio news last year. This was an incredibly tough time for the studio as a whole and it meant the world to see support from folks on our social channels. While we’re still working through the process, the studio as a whole continues work on our exciting new project which we’ll talk more about when we’re ready.

Back in September, before the news of our consultation processes, the Community Team outlined plans for ongoing community and curation support in Dreams. While the impact to our team means we will be unable to deliver on all the promises outlined in that blog post, such as The Impsider editorial, we will be continuing our streams and supporting the Dreams Community via social channels.

Unfortunately, in Spring 2024, we will be saying goodbye to the last Molecules who were affected by the consultation process - our Curation Team. We want to be as transparent as possible with you on this and what it means for Curation in Dreams. For the rest of this blog we’ll go into detail on what we have in mind for Curation going forward and the amazing work the team are doing to make sure community creations, new and old, can continue to be enjoyed by other dreamers. If you have any questions at all after reading through this blog, please do let us know on social media and we’ll answer where and what we can.

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While live support for DreamSurfing and DreamShaping will end in mid-April, this will coincide with the launch of new playlists alongside spotlighting the Dreams Recommender playlist providing tip-top recommendations based on what you’ve recently played in Dreams. Overall, the plan here is ensuring that Dreams transitions into a self-sustaining platform, with these changes helping to filter new creations through to regular Dreams players whilst creators reach their deserved audience for their games, animations, music and everything inbetween.

Our new front-page playlists will make use of Tags (eg: Horror or Music) in combination with the Recommender to display an ever-changing selection of creations. These playlists will exist in addition to curated selections that you'll already be familiar with - including Bring a Friend and Weird Wildcards.

The Recommender is what you see and use in Dreams today as the Recommended for You playlist. After launching the playlist last year, the Curation and Analytics teams have spent time improving the tool and adding to the selection of recommendations, meaning you can always expect the same quality from the playlist as you’re used to from our curated collections. As part of this update to DreamSurfing, the Recommender will be implemented into a variety of new front-page playlists, presenting genre-specific Dreams based on what you’ve recently played. In addition to Recommended for You’s continued presence at the top of DreamSurfing, these playlists will keep you busy in the Dreamiverse for the foreseeable future.

Over in DreamShaping, we’re working to bring together a whole host of essential kits, from both Media Molecule and the Dreams Community, to help creators find exactly what they need for their creations. Has there been a kit that’s inspired you over the years? A collection of assets that you use time and time again? Let us know by sending it to us over at MmCuration and we’ll check it out!

With all that said, there’s plenty that’s staying the same! Dreams by Genre will remain, spanning everything from Action-Adventure to Education, as will our Featured Playlists Archive featuring all of our themed collections to date. You’ll still be able to revisit any Community Events that have been run over the years and check out all of our Mm Picks. Our Accessibility page and Community Curators playlist will also still be accessible through DreamSurfing. We’ll also be moving your Play Later queue back onto the front page, tracking all the creations you’ve added via indreams.me or whilst surfing the Dreamiverse.

Highlights will be a one-stop destination for essential areas of the Dreamiverse. We’ll be refreshing the current selection with discoverability tips and quick links to popular pages  – including Genre pages, Impy-winning creations and more.

Of course, we will still continue to support the creations you bring to life and your Dreams work that you share on social media and feature them in our streams on Twitch. As we mentioned in September, our streams will continue and we’ve got some really exciting plans in place to deeply involve the community as well as trying out new things!

We see a lot of talk and a lot of worry about the future of Dreams in our streams and on social media, and while it’s impossible for anyone to predict what the future might hold, we want to reassure you today that there are currently no plans to take Dreams offline, restricting access to the thousands upon thousands of amazing creations brought to life by all of our fabulous creators. It’s been a tough 12 months for both us here at Media Molecule and for those that see Dreams as a safespace and a place to express their creativity, and it’s our hope that people will be able to use Dreams in that way for a while to come. Thank you for always being a kind, caring and supportive community and we hope to see you spending time in the Dreamiverse and beyond!