LittleBigPlanet was one of Sony’s biggest 1st/2nd party releases this fall. It is an original IP that has sold over a million copies in under a month, has the highest score on metacritic for a 1st party title, and has over 45,000 user generated levels.  LBP has also been green lit for a PSP port.  LBP has been a success for Sony. It has also been a PR nightmare.

The PR nightmare began with the delay, this was a double whammy. Not only did Sony have to remove an offensive song, it also dampened the excitement for release. It’s like when you are about to have sex for the first time, but your parents walk in and ruin the moment.

As soon as the game went live there were (and still?) cases of level and object stealing from beta levels. Apparently whatever mechanism Sony used to bring the levels over from beta enabled people to jack other peoples levels and objects.

The second issue was server instability, this persisted for two weeks after launch and creeps up every now and again. For the most part this issue has been solved.

Not to even skip a week and there is yet another problem. Heavy handed moderation. This may have been blown out of proportion by the internet as there were claims that some of the most popular levels, such as azure palace, being removed. We checked to verify minutes after the posting and the level was still up. Further more none of our review levels of other games were touched. This is what happens when you have a company that inherently has patent/copyright paranoia involved with the running of a program that is very much web 2.0 in look and feel.

At the end of last week a new problem crept out from under a rock. It appears that Sony is borrowing heavily from LBP contest entries. Sony’s reply is that it was a coincidence, yet the costume designers were judges in the contest. As everyone who has just happened to bump into the girl they like at the laundromat on the other side of town from your apartment knows, coincidences can be manufactured. The rules for the contest specifically state that Sony owns the rights to ALL entries. So technically they can do what they want with them.

Media Molecule has stated that they hope to be able to include a feature that allows people to sell levels and objects. This would be by far the boldest move any game company has ever made, and pretty much guarantee’s LBP sales for the entire life of the console. The question is will Sony’s paranoia allow such a move? Maybe they should have named the game LittleBigDrama.