That’s when I accidentally ran into the ATM machine in Central… and I discovered (1)
Sony was making purchaseable avatar items just like XBL does; and (2) the PSN inventory of virtual Christmas offerings was lengthy enough to freeze my connection. D’oh!

Bottom line here, of course, is obvious. Any platform savvy enough to attract an active user base is going to require at least a Freemium model in order to stay alive. SOMEONE has to pay for the development of virtual intangibles, and all the hosting costs and download bandwidth, at the very least. But as the success of games like Farmville has shown, any online platform that builds a big enough audience can find ways to make money from them.

The backlash we see, with regards to your question (“why is there growing resistance to the idea of more freemium elements in Home?”) may have more to do with way that the goods have been marketed to us. For example: store previews give minimal detail presentation without scale references, and often there’s insufficient and often misleading game-item usage descriptions. Then there’s that incessant, and obnoxious, “Be the first -- Buy now, Collect them all!” seller mentality complete with eye-shredding neon colors. The apparent desire of several vendors to match the price points for ‘similar’ items on XBL is also misguided, as complaints on blogs about opportunistic pricing has shown.

I think the turning point for Home — in terms of seeing more aggressive marketing issues — may have come after Forbes revealed (last June) that the sales of Xbox Live’s virtual goods totalled ~$1.2 BILLION in the past year. In fact, XBL microtransaction sales had surpassed their actual Gold subscription business. Sony is experimenting with playing catch-up in the virtual goods market.

Certainly it’s going to be difficult for SCE to find a happy medium, in terms of turning a profit while keeping all of us consumers interested, excited and satisfied with the Home platform. Not an easy task for Sony when we’re all so very demanding about Home, right? ;p

(Crap…is it too late to submit that to the poetry contest?)

As someone that has not shied away from spending money on home, I can understand the need for the efforts of developers to be financially rewarded for there hard work. And I would pay for the opportunity to play well thought out games that don’t have a limited shelf life. But there is also a need for games that are inclusive of those that are new and exploring this social experiment that we all love.

I am an avid gamer and even more so an avid socializer, and I find the combination of the two is addictive and intoxicating (I must have Tiger’s Blood). Pay to play game do appeal to me. It gives the developers the ablity to raise the bar and give us content that justifies the cost. And, even though I spend a lot of time helping “Noobz” overcome the learning curve and in doing so have made good friends that have access to more tools to help them become better home citizens, the thought of weeding out some of the “just bored, non money spending harassers” so everyone can enjoy both socializing and game play has a strong appeal to me.

So, to rap up this collection of run on sentences… and in short (to late huh)… as always, I agree with the wise NorseGamer. And it only took 407 words to say so (this was written while the PSN was down, so I had time to count them)

so, to capture this very large market(and to keep them on Home)Sony must increase significaly the quality of games on home…

the social aspect become secondary…
i think when sony seduce gamers on home they will choose to increase the social experience i hope, cause like you norse and many of HSM fan i love home for the socials experiences, i don’t care mini games, for me they just are pretext to meet other people!

I hope my English is clear enough to be understood that my thoughts!

have fun people^^