What is the LittleBigPlanet Union?
The LittleBigPlanet Union is a community of players, young and old, who come together to enjoy the popular PlayStation video game series LittleBigPlanet together. The LBP Union’s mission is to better the community by empowering players to constructively take charge of their passions and ideas and share them with others. This can be accomplished through digital citizenship, media literacy, collaboration, open discussion, and enjoying the game that brings us together.
History of the LBP Union
The LBP Union was first founded on August 27th, 2009 as an alliance of LittleBigPlanet Clans. Although the Union began as an alliance against the then controversial Heart for Heart (H4H) practice, it soon became a platform for peace between collaborative organizations in the game’s community.
Although founded on good intentions, the Union’s young leaders could not maintain their relationship with one another, resulting in a schism in 2011. The Union later was ‘refounded’ in 2014 but suffered from several flaws. For one, its focus on a political and bureaucratic structure was difficult to maintain over time. This iteration of the Union collapsed in 2016, with an attempted reformation failing again in 2017.
Although a formal, political LBP Union does not exist today, the ideals and efforts of the Union live on. The LittleBigPlanet Union Wiki, more formally known as the LBP Union Archives, is currently the most expansive and complete database of information about LittleBigPlanet organizations on the Internet.
Hope
The LittleBigPlanet online community was a tumultuous place in 2021. With rumors of a significantly decreased player-base, modders, and fear of script exploitation in the air, many came to the simple conclusion that LittleBigPlanet’s online community was ‘dead’ or ‘dying’.
However, this wasn’t true. LittleBigPlanet is what we make of it. It’s up to us to make the most of the game and share our passion with others. If we work together, fight back against disinformation with facts and media literacy and lead by example by not tolerating toxic behavior, we can reshape the community for the better.
In the end, the Union brought together the brightest minds in the community to create Project Lighthouse, a custom server for LittleBigPlanet. Lighthouse now powers our custom server, Beacon, allowing over 5,000 players to relive the joy of their favorite childhood game for years to come.