text: Around May 2007, a demo of LittleBigPlanet was rumoured. Although it was planned to be released in late 2007, by the end of the year, public relations officer Ron Eagle confirmed that there would be no demo that year. In September 2008, a limited public beta was made available with a focus on stress testing the sharing functions of LittleBigPlanet. Availability lasted from 24 September11 October 2008. In order to access it, the player would have to have a beta key, which was a code that could be inputted in the PlayStation Store for access to the beta test. Various sites gave out beta keys around that time, including Eurogamer and IGN.
  After GDC 2007, LittleBigPlanet had become anticipated by various gamers before release. The concept was well-received among the press and was especially anticipated by those with access to the beta version. Jeremy Dunham of IGN reported that in GDC 2007, "even in the presence of Home, Sony's impressive new community software, LittleBigPlanet stole the show at Phil Harrison's Game 3.0 practice conference, and was the thing that everyone was talking about." The presentation for E3 2007 won the Game Critics Awards for "Best Original Game", and the presentation for E3 2008 won "Best Console Game" and "Best Social/Casual/Puzzle". Evans has expressed surprise by the hype of the game; he stated, "We had no expectation that it would become so strongly associated as a lead title on a platform."