Media Molecule, the Sony first-party developer, has recently released Dreams, an ambitious game creation tool that’s been in beta for months. It is a large step up from the LittleBigPlanet series, which is a cardboard aesthetic platformer where players can craft their own levels. The license for the series has been passed down to Sumo Digital, the developer of the third game and a Vita spin-off. In turn, the company gave a group of fans a blessing to make a fangame called LittleBigPlanet Restitched. Unfortunately, Sony said otherwise.

LittleBigPlanet Restitched was going to be a version of LittleBigPlanet for the PC. Restitched was being developed by Trixel Creative, a group of LittleBigPlanet community members that are most famous for “Return to Carnivalia,” a set of high-quality levels for the third game that’s been repeatedly endorsed by official sources. They sought to bring the joy of the game to PC through Restitched, aiming to have a similar intricate level editor that the LittleBigPlanet games features, with a whole new story mode being crafted alongside that.

However, while Sumo Games gave the project their blessing, the higher ups at Sony did not. On the 17th, the team received a cease-and-desist order. However, this isn’t stopping the team. Even if it’s not going to be a LittleBigPlanet game, they still want to create a high quality game that follows the spirit of the series. It’s sort of like how MOTHER 4 rebranded into Oddity to avoid legal issues.

https://youtu.be/rBOtItQf_64

It’s all very ironic, considering the main idea of the LittleBigPlanet games. The games encourage creativity and building; as long as it’s inside what the big company behind it deems acceptable. In some ways, this dispute is reminiscent of an issue that’s been brought up with Dreams. As Cameron Kunzelman of Vice Games points out, the game is a walled garden in that people can create, but they can never truly own what they create.

“Return to Carnivalia” was trapped within such a walled garden, and the moment Trixel Creative tried to bring stuff out of that garden, they were stepped on. While it’s reassuring to see that the group will still try making an equivalent experience regardless of IP, it’s still a cruel instance of copyright stomping down on creator rights.

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