To Infinity and Beyond?
by CheekyGuy, HSM team writer
It’s not often that you hear of a game developer that listens to and communicates regularly with its gaming audience; yet, with PlayStation Home, this can often be the case. One such notable developer is Hellfire Games, creators of the hugely successful Novus Prime.
It wasn’t long ago that our Editor-in-Chief, NorseGamer, pondered one such personal wishlist of things he wanted to see in Home. One of those items was an anti-gravity environment. For me, personally, as I’ve had a fascination for space and sci-fi movies from a young age, just the suggestion of this immediately caught my imagination. I couldn’t help but think straightaway of space stations and having one as a possible private space, where my friends and I could float our avatars about to our hearts’ content.
Fast forward then, to a month later: Hellfire Games releases its expansion pack of its popular arcade/RPG shooter (which for me is much more of an homage to old-school Atari shooter Asteroids - for those older gamers that can remember that far back [yes, yes we can, and thanks for reminding us -ed.]) now re-named Novus Prime – Escalation, with more missions and upgrades than the original game. Along with the release of the Novus Prime expansion pack, you are able to purchase an Officer’s Quarters private space, which gives you and your guests the ability to float around in an anti-gravity atmosphere that can be activated by a nearby node.
Consider this item on the wishlist achieved.
This personal space also features a hangar in which your ship from the game itself is docked. This enables you to look more closely at any upgrades you have purchased with the nebulon you earn (the currency that you collect via your score in-game). You can also hold private gaming sessions from your private space with your friends without the need to queue.
As of this writing, LOOT has just released a public Space Station area, which has an Entertainment-on-Demand public movie theater where you can have the choice to view any of the trailers, documentaries or minisodes available without disrupting or disturbing anybody else’s viewing (meaning everyone else is watching something different on their screen at home). Once again, LOOT has flawless attention to detail with any space they create. The views of planet Earth from inside the space station, slowly rotating, are incredible enough. I personally would have liked to see a little more, and to have the possibility to explore this space station – maybe even ride a simulator. Perhaps they could expand on this space in the same way they have with the Hollywood Hills Mansion. Or they could even make a different extra space (think SingStar’s VIP lounge) that could be refreshed every month to keep people coming to that space.
But from what I can tell from my first impressions, it is a great social space in which to hang out with friends, and has in my opinion the best EOD theater yet. The quality of the picture seems much sharper than others in Home.
I could see a very real possibility of one day on Home walking into a virtual Movie Theater and purchasing a movie available from the PlayStation Network Store, or watching one that is streaming via the servers. I would imagine these movies have to be those that are already rental releases. For me, Sony and everybody else concerned, this can open up a whole number of possibilities:
You can view up close, any Upgrades you have made to your ship in the privacy of your own hangar.
- It has the potential to increase DVD/Blu Ray sales from word of mouth from people watching these films at the virtual theater;
- There is no way (as of yet) of copying/piracy as it is this is streamed content only – outside of poor quality, filming-your-television type of copying;
- On a personal level, I like to think that it can be a fun way of enjoying a movie and still enjoy the company of your Home friends;
With this and much more coming our way, I find it comforting in the knowledge that there are developers that work almost side by side with its core gaming audience and the community, listening to what they have to say. Then perhaps – if the requests are feasible and not too outlandish – granting them their personal wishlists.
On the Sony message forum, it is not uncommon to see developers directly responding to questions and inquiries from the Home community. Oftentimes, it appears that this feedback has a direct impact on the virtual commodities which are released in Home. One rather pertinent example of this would be the Mansion personal estate for America Home; feedback from the community compelled the Mansion’s developers to add and change certain features of the core Mansion space. And this was accomplished in relatively short order.
(It should be noted, of course, that this is a key reason to participate in the Sony message forum.)
Truly, between Hellfire Games, Outso, nDreams and developers of their kind, there is no better time to be in Home than now. We, the Home users and community members, vote with our wallets — and to me, it’s worth it to invest in a developer who is listening to their customers and providing them with content that they genuinely want and will buy. I can only imagine what other great and exciting things that they will provide for us in the future.
April 11th, 2011 by CheekyGuy | 4 comments
CheekyGuy is a loveable, mischievous Brit who first entered virtual reality via Second Life, and now frequents Home as a Grey Gamer to keep in touch with friends. In real life, Cheeky is a video editor who has just completed a Master's degree in screenwriting from Liverpool John Moores University.
Excellent article. Those developers definitely deserve the shout out as well. They’ve been making great things happen in HOME.
I noticed a point you were making about LOOT’s EOD system and where it could go from here:
“I could see a very real possibility of one day on Home walking into a virtual Movie Theater and purchasing a movie available from the PlayStation Network Store, or watching one that is streaming via the servers.”
Well, the EOD contains quite a bit of material from Crackle, which is owned by SONY. And it was recently announced that Crackle would be available on SONY TV’s, Blu-Ray players, and PlayStation 3:
http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/playstation-3/news/crackle-streaming-video-service-comes-to-ps3/a-20110329171911587051/g-20060314115917309058
And with the multitude of HOME spaces (personal or otherwise) that are springing up with the EOD systems, I’m thinking we’ll be seeing this in the near future. Like maybe with the 1.5 HOME engine upgrade they announced at this year’s GDC?
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/03/01/playstation-home-to-add-suite-of-new-developer-tools-and-tech-with-version-1-5/
They’re saying it focuses on giving more tools to the developers and even gives a nod to Sodium 2. Hopefully the dev’s will keep listening like they have been and really start kicking HOME in to high gear.
And I still want streaming music of my choice in HOME. Maybe they can start linking with Qriocity?
Okay, I’m done.
There are a good number of developers with ID’s now on the forums. I know the official forum as well as YourPlaystationHome has a good number of them. Input and discussions with users is an awesome development.
Home can only benefit with there interactions.
It is indeed an interesting time to be in home.Only good things happen when business’ listen to their customers and give them what they want.Makes customers more loyal and willing to spend cash and gives companies a direction to invest time and effort in profitable area’s.It’s a win-win situation that i hope more companies participate in.
Add this to the wishlist…
I need some sort of winter landscape that’ll justify the purchase of my 3/4 length sheepskin jacket. I feel like a dummy running around the desert with it on.
Good read :thumbsup: