So Now Then. Home Improvement.
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
It’s the talk of the town: Home’s upcoming evolution from a social network to a social gaming platform. While there are some very legitimate questions about whether or not the social aspects of Home will be at all enhanced — because it is the belief of this publication that the social elements of Home are the silent glue that holds it together — I do want to encourage everyone to remember that Home is, first and foremost, a for-profit enterprise which must show sustainable (and perpetual) growth potential in order to justify its existence. This is an industry which moves at the speed of numbers. And I do firmly believe that, in the long run, the enhancements coming to Home will benefit the social aspects of the experience as well.
Not only does this move by Sony make perfect business sense, but I’ll admit to being rather excited to see this deployment.
You can't put a price tag on this. But it's the price tags that support it.
Now, keep in mind, like I said, I still firmly stand by my core belief that the beating heart of Home — the magic that keeps long-term users coming back — has far less to do with the gaming elements than it does with the social elements. Enhancing the social aspects of Home is not as easy to quantify in terms of return on invested capital, but will make a world of difference in long-term user retention.
That said, Home — in its present incarnation — has a serious conundrum: how to appeal to an installed audience base which, on average, has far more interest in gaming than social networking? Particularly since the PS3 doesn’t come bundled with a keyboard, which severely limits the amount of social interaction one can effectively enjoy in Home.
Right now, a typical PS3 gamer signs into Home for the first time, gets some very rudimentary instruction on the interface, and then materializes in Central Plaza with utterly no idea what to do next. Gamers are used to having objectives to fulfill (which, by the way, is one of the reasons why Lockwood’s Sodium Hub is so brilliant: because it offers an internal currency and objectives to complete, some of which — like Scorpio’s bartending — involve some social interaction), and feel completely lost without them.
Ever play a Grand Theft Auto save file after you’ve beaten all the missions? The massive open-world sandbox just somehow isn’t as fun — because it has no point.
Hence the multitude of complaints about Home in various journalistic gaming outlets, which all more or less go back to the same general theme: that there’s somehow “nothing to do” in Home.
Sony doesn’t have the luxury of trying to recondition tens of millions of gamers to suddenly want to socialize and have intelligent conversation; they have to be lured in with the same purchase motive that made them buy a PS3 in the first place: superlative gaming experiences. Only then, after they’ve been hooked into coming back repeatedly, will they be receptive to the possibility of trying to join in conversations they see happening around them. And that’s when the social aspects of Home will start to come to the forefront. Boom — a long-term user is born.
This redesigned Home goes a long, long way towards achieving some key goals:
- Greater repeat-user retention;
- Higher revenue per average user;
- Longer average session time;
- Positive publicity and word-of-mouth viral advertising;
- Enticement to more developers to create additional in-world content.
And, in the long run, all of this benefits us. More money flowing into Home means more Home will be created for us to enjoy. I may be in Home primarily for its social aspects and the sense of wonder and exploration — there are very few gaming experiences in Home which have held my attention for more than a short period of time — but I freely admit that Home needs to evolve and establish its identity as a game-centric virtual reality if it is to grow.
In particular, the creation of thematic “neighborhoods” within Home — very similar to a HomeStation article Jersquall had written a while ago — will not only make it more convenient for gamers to immediately seek out the sort of experiences they’re looking for, but in fact help drive social interaction.
Let’s look at Central Plaza as an example. It’s a giant hodgepodge of humanity. And, for my money, filled with far too many asterisks, internet-speak and worse. In the current iteration of Home, different types of users tend to already congregate in different public spaces. Someone who frequents the Godfather 2 space, for instance, probably isn’t the same person who goes to the Ratchet & Clank discotheque or Sully’s Bar on a regular basis. But you have to discover these areas with some trial and error.
In this new Home, however — which tantalizingly hints at the possibility of more MMO-esque events — there are neighborhoods segregated by genre already set up. This, I imagine, would make it easier for most gamers to not only find the gaming experiences that most appeal to them, but find like-minded gamers to socially interact with. And the sooner that a Home citizen makes a friend, the sooner a Home developer makes a sale on a virtual commodity that isn’t directly tied to a game.
Is this new Home concept perfect? Oh, I’m sure there will be bugs and flaws, like anything else that’s new. Will I miss parts of the old Home? Sure, I bet I will. Do I still fervently clamor for core client updates to improve Home’s social interface? Like Nina Simone at a southern Baptist revival, baby.
But am I excited by what this new Home concept could deliver, and do I think it’s a good move for developer and consumer alike? My personal answer would be a definite yes.
Regardless of wherever any one of us falls on the spectrum regarding this upcoming evolution of Home, I think we can all probably agree…it’s a darned exciting time to be a Home citizen.
August 25th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 57 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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Standard qualifier: Very hard to comment on a new Home when you’ve yet to see it. That said, these are my thoughts based upon what’s been reported to us thus far.
What type of person is going to be attracted into this new Home? This new Home, to put it bluntly, seems to be catering to the lowest common denominator. Someone who has to be shown games the moment he materializes (because he’s incapable of seeking them out himself), someone who has to be given objectives (because otherwise he doesn’t know what to do with himself), doesn’t sound like someone who’s going to suddenly develop an interest in socialization and intelligent conversation. Doesn’t sound like someone who will eventually start making coherent forum posts or become an HSM reader.
This new game COGS, which will be a centerpiece of the new Home, has been described as a social game. What I want to know is, how exactly is this a social game? Seems like a straight up puzzle game to me. Now I love puzzle games myself, but I don’t want to log into Home to play them when I can just launch Catherine instead. I sure hope the only social aspect to this game isn’t the comparison of scores between friends.
Who’s even going to have time for socialization in this new virtual Disneyland? With constant new content, new games, new objectives, I feel sorry for the treasure hunters because they’re going to burn out trying to keep up or lose whatever semblance of a real life they still have. This all sounds very frenetic and atomistic. Home will be filled with more people than ever before, and all of them will be too busy doing their own thing to pay attention to one another, much less converse with one another.
And what’s going to happen to people who currently do use Home for socialization? Will they find ways of adapting by fleeing to clubs and personal spaces, and if so, won’t that mean the complete end of whatever community the NA Home once had, which was precious little to begin with?
It will be much more balanced than you think. Socializing will not take a back seat to the gaming experience.
Again, options and tech are the key here. If getting a new space with games has not concerned you in the past then you’re going to be just fine. Sony won’t let you down on this.
I need details! *roars*
I’d like to know what types of games will appear in this new Home. I’d like to know what aspects of these games will encourage social activity in Home.
I think that this is going to be a great addition to Home. Yes it seems to be more about gaming than the social aspect at first glance, but once the glamor of newness wears off I believe it will still be the social aspects that will prevail. This new idea of having areas that cater to different gamers is brilliant I think, and long overdue. It some ways I believe it will alleviate the trolling factor as the knuckle dragging element will have somewhere else to congregate and it will perhaps give them something more interesting to do.
What Sony has done here is take away one public space, plaza, and given us back five, to me that’s a win no matter how you look at it. And even though three of the new areas are game related I think the Pier and Hub are more social, so it is a good balance like Jersquall said. I for one am looking forward to it.
Oh and I forgot to mention that the part that most interests me in this is this new ability to create Home events and somehow do them in a public arena, that is the part that I want to know more about, and that is a very obvious social addition to this, to build community, so I think this is going to be an interesting few months.
I must have missed the part where it said we would be able to use public spaces to host private events. Could you provide a link? To begin with, which public spaces? My personal take on this, is that we aren’t able to create anything else in Home, so why would we be able to suddenly “create” our own events? I think this will end up being nothing more than a first-come first-served scheduling system to announce club activities and such to the community. If so, saying that we’ll now be able to create our own events is a very grandiose and misleading way of describing it.
There hasn’t been anything announced about HOW events will be created, just that we can create and promote them within Home. I expect it’s something similar to the way the Gamers Lounge handles their schedule. You submit your event, when it is. They post it publically… want to promote it, ok. Walk around and tell people or PM your friends. This may end up having a public calendar that includes dozens of events leading to a clustered schedule. Although the idea of reserving spaces for parties is intriguing there hasn’t been anything announced and I sort of doubt that will happen. It’s just hopeful speculation at this point. I do not, however, see a problem with just scheduling your event IN a public space. Sony won’t dictate where we party, will they?
You will be able to create events and in a much more creative way. very cool stuff it seems.
I’m very excited about this change. I believe that Sony understands that the current core consumer base of Home is primarily focused more on the social side of the equation – this is all good and well, but to younger gamers or inexperienced virtual-world travelers who have an incredible amount of options when it come to online socialization, it is a bit lacking. Sure, you have cool looking avatars, the ability to have a conversation in a 3D environment and play some games but the lack of a personal page (al la Facebook), ease of use when it comes to sending messages, and the extreme limitation of the friends list cap makes users scratch their head and wonder why they would use Home for its social aspects.
So, how does Sony draw in the unconvinced? Give people something to do.
This obviously means games, but can also include in-world quests, achievements, and Ferris Wheels. Being dumped into Home the first time one boots it up can be a confusing, daunting and lonely experience. It seems that the next iteration of the Hub will still dump you into Home…but will immediately give a new user something to do or explore. My first week in Home I didn’t even know that Saucer Pop was even a game, until I finally walked up to the pond to see what the heck the little ships fluttering about were. Now, it seems that things like the Cogs game with be right up in your face and clearly marked, which will encourage exploration. So new users will have a built in comfort zone checking out the content as they grow more acclimated with the mechanics. Eventually, they will have a question or comment about something they are tinkering with and the conversation with someone standing nearby will (hopefully) kick in the social aspects Home has on offer.
I have heard some concerns that the social users will be left in the dust as more and more games are rolled out in Home, but I believe the ultimate aim of the change is to use the games and such to draw users into the social aspect of Home a tad more gently than just spitting them out into CP to fend and forage for themselves. Sort of an “if you build it they will come” mentality; and if they come and have more time and inclination to acclimate to this strange new world, then they might stay. More consumers = more Home after all.
It’s a bold move by Sony, and if they roll it out right it might proove successful. I, for one, hope it is.
Here’s 1 problem with Homes as compared to disc-based games.With CP disappearing I imagine saucer pop will be disappearing as well.”Trigger H appy I n A Box”‘s leaderboard has been broke since the PSN outage.What’s the point of playing these games on Home and doing well enough at them if Sony is just going to delete your hard work in a few months?When you get your name on a leaderboard on a disc-based game it stays there,that’s not always true on Home.This is just 1 example of how Homes games don’t quite measure up when compared to disc-based games and why I feel that if it comes to a competition between disc-based games v.s. Homes games Homes games might not fare too well.Like Aeternitas33 I need more details before I can form an opinion.
Home game… 5 bucks.
Disk based game… 60 bucks.
Thats like saying a Ford Fiesta just doesnt measure up to a Ford Mustang GT. Of course it doesnt. Why would expect it to?
Then why would you sell them side-by-side?Generally car dealers keep the hot-rods seperated from the family cars so the family cars don’t get compared to the hot rods too much because while the family cars will do a fine job of getting you to point A to point B it won’t handle like a hot-rod,feel like a hot-rod,or perform like a hot-rod.And given a choice between the 2 I think most ppl would choose the hot-rod. Disc-based game=months of enjoyment. Most Home games=a couple of weeks or less of enjoyment,if these were closer together the price differential might matter but atm I don’t think it does.
Actually, in a dealership, all front-line models are on display equally -- IF, that is, they are that particular dealership’s best sellers. And a manufacturer’s “halo” car -- those that are high performance and an equally high price tag -- are hardly seen, if at all.
Would a perspective buyer like to own that particular car more? Well, of course! But I can tell you this with absolute certainty: a manufacturer -- like Nissan for example -- turns a much handsomer profit selling an Altima over selling a GT-R. And it’s also more likely to be within the majority of their customers’ price range, too. Not saying they would rather sell you an Altima than a GT-R (because, let’s face it, amongst dealerships, moving a halo car or two from their lot is a bit of a bragging point), but when it comes to the overhead of making the two cars, the company as a whole makes more profit off the lesser car. This largely has to do with production costs (mass-manufacturing vs. specialized, custom work) more than anything, but the same could be argued with Home games, downloadable PSN games and disk games. Manufacturing the disk, its case and sleeve, as well as its printed artwork all cuts into the profit margin. Data that can be downloaded automatically has no such overhead.
Nevermind the difference in levels of any buyer’s remorse over purchasing a game that didn’t live up to their hopes. If I spent five bucks on a game and it didn’t live up to my hopes, it’s not nearly as big of a blow as buying a game for $60 and having the same experience.
And so what if that five dollar game has only a couple week’s worth of enjoyment? I can argue equally that I’ve purchased disk-based games, beaten them in about a similar time frame, and when I went back to play it again, I didn’t find it anywhere near as fun as I thought it was on my initial playthrough. Nowadays, if I were to say, buy Salt Shooter, I’d likely be back here in a year’s time and still have yet to finish it, simply because my schedule does not allow for long, heavy, drawnout games.
It may be true that lower end models make more profit per unit but if you add in the upgraded options factor high end cars make much more.Just on Blk-ops alone you can spend as much in added on content as the thing cost to begin with.If we’re talking about a $5 game how much can reasonably be added on?Depends on the game but I’d bet most ppl wouldn’t spend $10 in added on content for a $5 game. I guess they sell cars differently where I’m at because here they are seperated in order for customers to be able to find what they want easier and always front and center in the dealership’s window is the fastest or most expensive car on the lot,it’s called “window dressing” because the idea is the hot-rod will lure customers in and once they realize it’s waaaay out of their price range then they pull out the lower end stuff.Of course there are exceptions to $60 disc-based games=months of enjoyment and $5 Home games=couple of weeks or less of enjoyment,I didn’t think it was necessary to make that disclaimer,how would I know the enjoyment factor of EVERY Home and disc-based game individually?So for those who like to think in absolutes,I was talking in general when I said $60=months of enjoyment and $5 Home games=couple of weeks or less of enjoyment.As for your $60 disc-based games that only gave you a couple weeks of enjoyment I’d say be more cautious with your cash,try renting a game or get your friends opinion about a game before buying it.Finally,there is nothing wrong with a game having only a couple weeks worth of enjoyment but if that game is in direct competition with a game that will provide months of enjoyment which is the better deal?Of course that’s up to each user to decide but for many the better deal is the higher priced option.This isn’t even getting into the topic of disc-based games”Brand”‘s being very visible and known whereas Homes games might not be as well known outside of Home.I’m not saying this can’t be a success,heck I don’t even know what all of “this” is yet,I’m just questioning the adviseability of trying to compete with disc-based games.
I just 100% completely disagree that Home is, will be or intends to be in direct competition with disk-based games.
That’s the long and short of it.
I would agree that is not what they intend but it is a real possibility.
Hey! The reply does stop at some point! Bummer I was hoping to see little slivers of responses. LOL.
Anyway. For me. It would have to be a REALLY awesome Home game to pull me away from… Borderlands is a good example.
Bottom line, comparing the auto industry to the video game industry isn’t an equal comparison. Volkswagen, one of the largest in the world, makes everything from the Bugatti Veyron (at a million dollars -- and a profit loss -- a pop), to the Beetle. Don’t know of any game-maker who sells their top game at a loss.
And I’m with Gideon; Sony has no intention of putting Home in direct competition with their disk-games. That makes no business sense.
Intent doesn’t need to be present,competition can arise with or without intent.Ex. when Call of Duty:Blk-Ops 1st came out last year more “fams” went out of business from lack of interest than went out of business from the PSN outage.I doubt Treyarch intended to “borrow” all these Home users but it happened anyways.Of course many of those came back once the newness of BLK-OPS wore off but the damage to the community was done.
…And that’s a bad thing, how? (Sorry, not really a fan of “fams” from what I’ve learned of them)
When Final Fantasy XIII came out, I left Home, too. In my mind, I was only spending time in Home while waiting for that game to come out anyways. Did I leave forever? Nope. So where’s the competition? If it was true competition, I’d stay with one and never return to the other.
What you’re talking about, from my understanding, are extreme cases, and yes, they will happen. But I highly doubt they will be the majority norm.
It’s a bad thing from Sony’s point of view when that many ppl who usually use Home are no longer using it.They can’t buy stuff if they aren’t on Home.When I say “fams” I’m not just talking about the mafia-style “fams” but also some that were like the Homelings,peaceful creative types.I know some ppl think all “fams” are thuggish John Gotti wannabes but that is not the case.There are many creative “fams” that have a positive influence in Home but even if there weren’t and all “fams” were thuggish brutes it would still mean lost revenue from Sony’s point of view.Now if Home wants to be a gaming platform for the most part it will have to compete with the popular disc-based games for gamers attention which could make repeats of the BLK-OPS exodus more likely.Home had no real competition as a virtual society but will have many competitors from game developers.I know Gideon,and probably others,think no competition will occur at all and I hope he’s right but from what I’ve seen Home has already been affected by unintended disc-based competition.Lost revenue,from whatever source “fam” or non-“fam”,can’t be a good thing for Home.
To further make my point,when you left Home to go play Final Fantasy XIII you weren’t buying items on Home,therefore for the time you were gone from Home you were lost to competition from a disc-based game.As you did,many ppl that left to play a disc-based game came back to Home but it’s usually a couple months or so before they came back.I do find it ironic that just a day or 2 after issue 7 came out with what some ppl might consider a controversial feature story we are all talking about something that hasn’t even happened yet simply because some ppl said they wanted more info. before making a decision or voiced potential concerns.
And as I said, if it were TRUE competition, I would have never returned to Home. Just because they lost my money in that time period, doesn’t mean they lost my money forever.
Let’s put it this way -- I could have stayed in Home that whole time instead of playing Final Fantasy, and not bought a single thing (yeah, it happens). Conversely when I returned to Home, I could have easily gone through the back catalog of items for sale and bought them (which in fact I did, when I came back to the PSN after being away for seven months, due to being without a PS3 altogether). They may have lost that money in that fiscal month, but not necessarily that fiscal quarter or year.
True competition would have me obtaining an xBox instead of a PS3.
So it’s not “TRUE” competition if it’s from developers but it is “TRUE” competition if it’s from Microsoft,even if the end result is the same:lost sales?I don’t think corporate will care where the missing cash goes,if it doesn’t reach them it’s still a problem.Look,I haven’t even said that this WILL happen,all I’ve done is pointed out that this is a very real possibility.All I’ve heard in response is that there is no way for competition to exist between a company and it’s sub-contractors,which is what developers kind of are to Sony,and I haven’t heard 1 good reason as to why that would be.Further your math is off,if you were off the PSN for 7 months they most certainly missed your cash for 1 quarter,actually just over 2 quarters but as I doubt you left at the start of the fiscal quarter your departure could have affected the bottom line of up to 3 quarters.You may have spent cash when you got back but during the time you were gone many items could have been deemed failures and pulled from the stores.Time doesn’t stand still while everyone goes and plays FF XIII or BLK-OPS.But those are side points:the main point is why would gamers come to Home for games when there are so many top-quality games on disc?Once we see these Home games we may know why,if they’re great games this should do well at least until the newness factor wears off.
Why does anyone play a Zynga game when there are tons more better quality games to be played elsewhere? Answer that, and you may find the answer to your question about why gamers would come to Home for games.
As to why I don’t feel they’ll compete is that I have no intention of buying the majority of the disk games out there (I’m picky, and I don’t care for FPS), so it’s money they aren’t going to see anyways. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
There are people out there who own PS3s, who let them collect dust, waiting for the next title they do want to play to come out, never realizing that there is an alternative to not gaming at all in the interim -- and it’s Home. Now should they stumble upon Home (since, from what I’ve read, that seems to be the common story of how people come to Home), who’s to say they they’ll open their wallets to it -- but they’ll never spend any money there if they never know it exists. Those are the people I’m thinking they’re trying to court, not the person who spends every night of their life logged into the lobby at COD.
“Many items deemed failures and pulled from the stores” -- seriously? Again, that is more of an extreme, outside the mean norm (as is being away for seven months, I might add) instead of what happens regularly. Home isn’t Wal-Mart. As for missing my money, they could easily have been missing it for that whole time -- it is possible to go long stretches of time not purchasing items in Home. And for my math -- I wasn’t aware I was doing any, hence why I added “or year.”
The key words in my statement that you refer to were “could have been” which you conveniently left off.
It wasn’t a matter of convenience -- you cannot copy/paste text, as HSM’s code prevents that in order to protect from plagiarism. So I had to hand-type what you said from memory.
And I still stand by my statement that what you’re referring to is an extreme case and not the norm.
WOO! Looks like I missed some discussion. I think this whole arguement boils down to “what is competition” If the argument that competition is anything that diverts attention/money from something than you could argue that a show I recently watched on Hulu (The Booth at the End. See if it you havent!)is competition that has prevented me from buying Deus Ex. I haven’t bought that game because I havent finished other games and I havent finished other games because Ive been busy with other things. Heck even HSM is competition for disk based games using this logic.
Except those things Gideon aren’t games and therefore my budget for games,in both time and cash, isn’t as affected as by those things as much.I understand that you feel these types of games won’t be greatly affected by each other but I’m still not sure how anyone can come to that determination yet,unless of course you happen to have more info. than your letting on.If so care to share?lol.
That’s funny Terra because I’m quite able to scroll up or down while the comment reply box is open and see w/e isn’t right behind it making it very easy to see just about any part of this convo. I need to,no need to memorize.Further,it was convenient for your Wal-mart reference/jk? to leave off the “could have been”.But w/e,your still missing the point of that comment.The point isn’t whether or not Sony actually takes anything out of the store.The point is the cash you spent on your return to Home might be too late to make a difference to the overall perception,by those in charge,of w/e items you decided to buy’s overall demand.Meaning that IF it’s true that new item’s demand is judged by it’s sales in the 1st 2 or 3 months your purchase of it 7 months down the road did little to convince Sony that there was real demand for that item or to encourage them to make similiar items.Sure they still got the cash but it was little help to their market research.If you need me to clarify anything else I may have said just let me know,I’d rather spend 3 days or more explaining it than to have someone misinterpret it.
So youre saying that there have been times you’ve purchased Home items and games that have prevented you from purchasing Disk-Based games? Your gaming budget is this pot of money that you draw from no matter what youre buying, if its game related, it takes from your game budget. Most people I know have an idea of how much they want to spend on disk games and how much on home, independantly of one antoher. One does not effect or influence the other in anyway.
I really dont think I’ll ever say “Damn I wanted to buy The Last Guardian but I just bought that outfit in home. Oh well. sucks to be me.”
And this is with just $$. You say your game-time budget isnt effected by the internet? I don’t know about you but before the internet (yes. I remember before the internet) I spent quite a bit more time playing games… of course I didnt have a job or bills then either, but the point is the same. Without Netflix, Home, HSM, Hulu or any of the silly things I fill my time with I would play a LOT more games.
I don’t have more info on what’s going to happen with The Hub but I suspect the “quests” to be short little things that take no time to complete. Just something to get you coming on Home each day.
Quest: Play this new minigame in this space. 10 mintues. done.
Gideon I’ve never bought Home content that stopped me from buying a disc-based game because I buy very few games from Home,I think I actually only own 6 or 7 but they have no disc-based equals BUT when EA Poker was on Home for free I was quite content to play it and not buy any disc-based poker game.In that case of competition Home won and poker game developers lost.The main reason I haven’t bought any Home content that stopped me from buying a disc-based game is because for the most part Home games aren’t like disc-based games.If that remains the same or if they make similiar but higher quality games then they will get my cash BUT if they make a similiar game to a disc-based game I’d probably go with whichever 1 was the better deal,from my standpoint.This is unintended competition,which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but where did Home have any competition as it is now?It seems to me,with what little info. I’ve heard,that Sony is either trying to lure more “hardcore” gamers to Home or trying to get more cash from the base it already has.If it’s the former then my question is why would someone who loves their disc games all of a sudden decide to play games on Home as much or as often as they were playing disc-based games IF the quality of the games is sub-par?If it’s the latter then I’d say that there are many other things that Home users wanted other than games that they would have spent bigger bucks on.I guess we just budget differently because I just set aside a certain amount each month and use that amount for all my gaming purchases including Home purchases.Now if Home becomes all about gaming but turns out 2nd rate games I believe most “hardcore” gamers will see it as something to be avoided rather than attracted to it.But as I said waaaaay back when this discussion 1st started,the fact that Jack Buser said there were many things coming combined with the fact that I have no idea what these new games or Home spaces will look like I’m reserving judgement.I just don’t understand putting all of Homes eggs in 1 basket IF that is in fact what they are doing,because so far it seems that way.
For those that do or don’t know, Im as much a Second Life User, as I am a ‘Home’. What brought me to Home in the forst place was my overwhelming sense of curiousity. And I am not arrogant when i say this, because this is fact ; This is to me, is a Virtual world in it’s infancy. And I have been intrigued from the very beginning. And in it’s early incarnation, I have to say, I had that feeling of uncertainty (And this was way before HSM arrived, with a voice and able to talk to developers ) Jack Buser made good on his promise, that he wanted to move more into the gaming aspects of Home and yes, to an extent i am still weary of this process. And true that Sony are a for profit enterprise and I can see more third party development and in world marketing within home. When i first arrived on Home, I thought of it as a chillout area, away from my gaming just to chat and connect with other gamers and i DO hope this aspect of Home, the ORIGINAl home isn’t lost in it’s translation towards the current Home’s new incarnation. This will be on the minds of many older users who use Home for its social aspects. Home will always have a great many comparisions with it’s Virtual World cousin ‘SecondLife’ in that we can connect and be creative and share ideas, the only difference is that one world is completely user created and the other is fully developer made, but it is important that developers sit and take note to what the users on home say, because after all, this is the audience that will decide wether Home dies or flies in the realm of marketing. This is the core user group with money to spend if it wishes, this is the audience that will increase revenue if you put enough out there to generate real interest. Novelty games are just a passing fad and i wouldnt like Sony to go down this route, because users will see it for what it is; Cheap entertainment. Real gaming, real social gaming..I’m talking about examples such as Little Big Planet which i have being playing recently where there are small, elaborate puzzles for a group to solve, nothing too complex but combine with arcade gameplay, will keep users coming back for more. Burbie and I talked about a puzzle game, (in which a group players are put in a room, with the clock ticking, and they have to use objects in a room to reach a platform to gain a reward in their inventory.) With a leaderboard / Scoreboard for those that liked the ego stroked, as one example of a multiplayer game that can be made to work.
I do like the idea of themed areas, this could work, but I would still want Home’s original ‘Heart’, to keep on beating.
The “Beta” tag is something that has bothered me for a while. Like has Sony made up their minds about the game or not? This is a great step forward and a wonderful commitment to the game from Sony Cheers!
Remove the Beta and people will complain about bugs even MORE Than they do now. It’s a cosmetic tag that gives Sony some excuse for the fact that Home is an evolving program. The ONLY thing that would change with an out-of-beta Home is the little symbol on boot up wouldn’t say beta. It has no bearing on the experience or the handling of the virtual world.
Beta is just a tag now. they could and if you think about have pulled the tag from their old beta logo compared to the newer logo. but yeah. it’s not really important.
Do Zynga’s games measure up to disk-based (or even Home’s) games? Not a chance.
Do they rake in a boat-load of cash? Would a one billion dollar IPO constitute as a yes?
This, I think, is the market that Sony is interested in getting a slice of with Home. Provide a game that is superior, so as not to completely insult the sensibilities of gamers who might consider themselves “serious,” but not so intimidating to the casual gamer that they won’t even give it a glance, all wrapped up in a real-time social setting in a similar way that Zynga uses Facebook.
Kind of reminds me of those old BASF commercials: “We don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better.™”
Is it perfect? Well, working with the information we’ve been provided -- as well as what we know of Home already -- I’m going to go ahead and say “no.” That said, it is a step in the right sense, if Home wants to sustain itself financially.
I don’t believe Zynga ever decided to split it’s core base.If Home is trying to lure ppl that don’t already have a PS3 to buy 1 to play these games they should be top quality games in order to entice ppl.Asking ppl to pay an extra $300 to $400 to play games that are the same quality that these ppl are already playing doesn’t seem a wise business move.If they are trying to entice more of Home’s existing users to play more games the same quality issue applies.Ppl that are playing Zynga probably already had the computer and just found the game after the purchase and liked it.I seriously doubt many ppl went out and bought a computer to play Zynga’s games being that computers are somewhat pricey.I think these games will end up being in competition with disc-based games and instead of making actual growth will shift profits from disc-based game developers if it works out or just end up not producing much profit if it fails.Atm I don’t see this generating new PS3 sales and only as a way for Sony to shift more profits to Sony and Home developers and away from disc-based developers if it takes off.Of course once we actually see what’s coming I may change my opinion,if these new upgrades and spaces are epic and don’t get old fast then I would expect more PS3’s to get sold and then the profit pie would get bigger.Seeking a bigger piece of the already existing pie is what this seems atm,which is ok I guess but when you take a bigger slice without enlarging the pie someone else’s piece of pie gets smaller.Further,once you seek a bigger piece of the gaming pie they run the risk of ppl becoming bored with the games,if they aren’t evolving,and seek new games elsewhere.So once they start bringing in games and promoting Home as a gaming platform they will need to keep bringing in new games or updating the old 1’s in order to keep up with disc-based games.All this talk of pie has made me hungry,think I’ll go have a piece of pumpkin pie,lol.
Who’s to say that people in a household with a PS3 but don’t game themselves won’t pick up a controller -- if, that is, they promote Home? And I don’t think they intend to split the core base at all. If that does happen, it will be the community itself that does it, not the HCMs or Sony.
There’s too many variables and undisclosed details to assume or predict anything.
one flaw in the innitial statement. Zynga’s “core base” is Facebooks customers. Zynga doesnt have their own customers. People didn’t come to Zynga and THEN join facebook. Were there people who joined facebook to play Zynga games with friends? Sure. But it’s still true that Zynga piggybacked on an existing social community. Home built a social community out of nothing and is trying to grow that community.
Jack Buser said “One of the things we learned in those early days is that if you take a bunch of gamers and stick them in a room together and tell them to meet one another and talk, they don’t necessarily do that…”
That tells me THIS community, us. Those that WILL meet eachother and talk arent providing the Home profits they want. So unless we are willing to double or triple how much we spend on Home, they need to draw in new customers, or give up on Home. Which would be prefereable?
Not knowing the numbers does make things a bit less understandable from users perspectives.I’m sure that if we saw the numbers and projected numbers on this thing it would make more sense to us,but the odds of us ever seeing those are quite slim I imagine.However IF the old way failed to bring in the kind of profits Sony was seeking,and until I saw the numbers or heard Sony say this was so I would hesitate to agree but I wouldn’t disagree either,I think it was more to do with under-utilization than a failed business model.Which is something that could happen with a gaming platform concept just as easily.@Terra_Cide:sure ppl who don’t have a PS3 could decide that they wanted in and create a new account and spend extra cash to buy a game that someone else in the house already has but what most ppl I know would do is simply wait til’ the person was done playing it and use that account rather than pay.
Gideon, there’s a huge flaw with the assumption you’re making as well. The Japan Home has always followed a different model from the NA Home, and it seems to be doing just fine. As a national Home, it has a smaller userbase than the other three regional Homes, and yet it is very generous in giving away free items and hosting free events. So I’m not going to assume that the NA Home, which has a much larger userbase and whose users have a consumerist mentality, is a financial failure until I’m given reason to believe so. But so far everything I’ve seen indicates otherwise. I believe this is partly a response to the loss of the Irem spaces, and partly an attempt to grow the community further. My objection however, is that there are other ways to grow this community which won’t have the negative social consequences which I fear this approach will have.
I didn’t claim Home is a financial failure. I simply said Sony wants to get more money out of Home and I don’t blame them for wanting to do so. They want the ends… these are the means.
I’m confused by what the negative social consequences could be. Trolls? Pests? n00bs? Snobs? Elitists? Stalkers? Liars? Cheats? Bigots? All around haters? Cause Home has all these already.
We have attested here that “Home is what you make it” How is giving us more to do going to change that? Home will still be what you make it. No one will be forced to do anything they aren’t doing now. We will simply not have central and will have 5 new spaces. I really don’t see bench walking, saucer pop or chainswing as being cornerstones of the PlayStation Home community.
That almost made me spit my coffee out from laughing.
Now that said, if you had added the word “poker” to your statement, you’d have all and sundry down your throat. But it is something I would add, simply because in my corner of the community, the rise and loss of the poker rooms was a mere blip on the radar screen, and those who clamor for their return remind me more of a (very) vocal minority than a majority.
Different courses for different horses -- and now there’ll just be more of them. And those who feel displaced will find other thing to do and different places to haunt.
The modern learning paradox states that the things we fear most as adults -- learning, changing and accepting uncertainty -- are what create security today. And Home is about to go through such change.
Do you mean “The Modern Paradox” by George Carlin?
This is the quote that is so exciting to those of us who write for HSM:
User-generated content will also become a big part of the experience, as Sony will be introducing a new event system.
“It won’t just be Sony and our partners throwing events on the platform but we’re going to give the keys of the castle to the community and actually build an event system such that they can post and promote their own events inside PlayStation Home,” Buser told Ars.
HSM is ALL User-generated content. So now we will be able to “post and promote” each issue release. That is what this quote means to me! No more having to rely on word of mouth.
ALL “fams” are user-generated content as well so I’m guessing this means that “fams” will be using the same system for their purposes too.If so get ready to hear”Who wants to be in (fill in the blank) fam?” so much that you’ll wanna puke,lol.
I don’t consider that to be “content”, cthulu. If, on the other hand, a “fam” announces an Open House party in their own club room on a specific date and time as an effort to recruit, that could be considered an event and qualify as user-generated content. I wonder if any “fam” will be that creative?
I think some will be granny,some “fams” will do just about anything to recruit members so putting in a little effort to do that will probably happen.I’m sure it won’t have “Who wants to be in(fill in the blank) fam” exactly but I’m sure there will be lots of recruiting going on.If pics are allowed with the announcement I’m sure the old “Uncle Sam wants you”,for ppl in Great Britian maybe the old”Lord Horatio Kitchner wants you”,will be used extensively,lol.
I can’t wait to get on that Ferris Wheel!
This is too good an opportunity to miss: IF you have a Facebook account and IF you are interested in being on my Frontierville and Pioneer Trail teams, please ADD keara22hi as a Facebook friend. I am in urgent need of some more tools to finish my barn and silo.
LOL. epic. just epic. THIS is the kind of community interaction Home needs. People reaching out and pulling others in.
Sorry Keara. I dont use facebook…. Now… if Home used facebook I might just consider it. heheh
I just checked my crystal ball and it tells me…. wait for it… “Until you see it and see how it works and what it offers, don’t fear the worse.” I don’t understand why such a debate is relevant until there are more facts. I for one look forward to the changes. Call me dingy or dumb but I will not speculate on the future till its here. I’m am all for intelligent debate and I enjoy seeing thinking minds joust, but the lack of info out there make any ones argument based on speculation and that tends to be a shakey foundation. I don’t know how long it will be before we see the changes or get more info. So I choose to wait and see… there will be plenty of time to praise or pan after we see it. We are counting teeth or the lack there of on a gift house we have even seen. Sorry, just me being me… I return you back to the debate already in progress…
Olivia, if there were more information known, there might not be a debate at all. Have you considered that?
The way in which this redesign has been presented to the media, leaves much to be desired in my point of view. Specifically, no consideration seems to have been given to those of us who have grown accustomed to using Home as a social application as much as a gaming platform.
It would have been helpful to have received additional details about this redesign, details which would have made clearer how this redesign would have enhanced the social aspects of Home as well as the gaming aspects. However, SCEA is being extremely tight-lipped about this redesign, and so I doubt that any additional details will be forthcoming.
So in the absence of adequate information, all we can do is speculate while those who do have access to greater information can only say, “Trust us. It won’t be as bad as you think.”
I think the social aspects which are getting a boost are the community event thing. That’s about it. I’m curious how much of their tight lipness is them just not having more info. MOST of the info we (Home users) would consider important the general public would be confused by. They would be erroneous details that would just bog down the announcement.
NOW. that being said. I really think Sony should have announced this THROUGH Home first. Made a video like the GDC 2007 video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZY2vwlh5-g) and put it in the theater.
Further I wouldn’t even call this a debate.This is just a discussion about some info.A debate,IMO, is when 2 or more ideas are seriously discussed in order to convince ppl that haven’t made up their minds yet about the correctness of the debated ideas.Make no mistake about it,there’s no debate here the deciding has been done.We’re just hoping to find out what that decision is and how,if at all,it will affect us.
I hope they improved the camera this time round! didn’t Norse said something about ‘panning’ in one of his posts?