A Big BAFTA 'Thank You' From Siobhan

The BAFTA Awards last night were incredible!

We are so proud as a studio to have received the Technical Achievement BAFTA. As we’ve often said, making Dreams has been – and still is! – a real labour of love. The team at Media Molecule worked so hard, and consistently focused on bringing a new way of creating to the world, and so it is lovely to see that appreciated!

It was challenging, but it has been so rewarding to see all the magical things people have made in Dreams, and especially how people collaborate and communicate with each other. Making Dreams itself was a collaborative process, too - we had a lot of help along the way, especially from the Sony OTG, Legal, Moderation, QA, Analytics, User testing, Localisation teams and the Beta and Early Access Communities! Phew! Thank you everyone! We love you and couldn’t have done this without you.

I am so humbled and proud to have received the BAFTA Fellowship. I am still pinching myself. There are so many people to thank – like I said, my career has been a total team effort. I must call out again - my family (Reddy, Martin & Meade families), Alex Evans, my Mm squad (Mark, Dave, Kareem, Abbie, & Gem), the fabulous and inspirational Mm team, the Dreams community, Sony and especially Hermen Hulst and Scott Rohde, as well as the lovely Barry. Please indulge me with some extra thank you messages.

I wanted to thank everyone who helped make the video. It was so lovely! And what a special moment to have Hermen present the award personally. I’d like to thank my friends (in and outside of the industry) who have encouraged me, sent me care packages when I have needed them, worked with me and some multiple times (Luci, Rich, Emily) or dealt with me dropping out of things and are still around. I love you!

Thank you to everyone I have ever worked with! So much has been focused on Mm, but I think it is very important to mention and thank Luci Black for hiring me into the industry to begin with, and then everyone I worked with at Criterion. It has been so lovely to hear from people during the last week.

We have been working with Sony since the founding of Mm in 2006. We proudly joined Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2012, and we have been very fortunate to have been given time to innovate within the creative gaming space. I have also been able to follow my passions on building a positive culture, and sharpen focus on diversity and inclusion. A shout-out to our inspiring sibling studios, to Mike, Nicki, Brian and Tim for being on the journey with us, Shu and Michael for getting us up to release - and to Asad, Lambert, Eric, Scott and Hermen and the rest of the Sony Interactive Entertainment Leadership team, who are helping us go even further.

I would also like to acknowledge and thank Jim Ryan and Kenichiro Yoshida. I am grateful for your support, and excited about the adventure we are on together. The Sony values - Dreams & Curiosity · Diversity · Integrity & Sincerity · Sustainability - are beautiful, and words to live up to.

And BAFTA! I love the work BAFTA has done to bring in new voices, especially with the Young Game Designer Awards, and Breakthrough Brits. Thank you again for this unbelievable honour.

Final thing - someone said to me, “You receiving this award, Siobhan, gives me hope for the rest of us”, and I love that! I hope it shows that small steps can lead to big things, as well as that a messy-haired girl from the western suburbs of Sydney can dream big, work hard and go far!

And for my Aussies out there... this BAFTA is going in the Pool Room!

So, from us at Media Molecule to all of you out there – not least the CoMmunity, who have been a huge part of my life, and have always helped make our games the very best that they can be – thank you for the continued support!

Lots of love,

Siobhan

xxx