A Day Full of LOOT
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
I. Journey
I knew it was going to be an interesting trip from the moment I arrived at the terminal.
As a rule, I tend to avoid major cities whenever possible. It’s not that every city is the planet’s equivalent of herpes; it has more to do with the fact that travel just isn’t as fun as it used to be. Back when I was a kid, commercial aviation was only a few decades old; it was something exotic to be enjoyed, with well-behaved passengers and full-service airlines.
Today, by contrast, commercial flying is an interminable Bataan Death March to get inside a decrepit aluminum tube filled with no services, no civility and The Screaming Child. In a race to the bottom line, airlines – ever since deregulation – went after the lowest common denominator. It’s turned one of mankind’s most glorious achievements into one of its most dreaded.
(This, by the way, is the same issue I have with the internet. In the rush to interconnect everyone, we forgot that most people really don’t have much of interest to say. We just added a lot of noise to our lives.)
I don’t fly economy class any more. I just don’t. There are certain things I’ll scrimp on; having worked in resort development for nearly a decade, I don’t much care about where I stay, so long as it meets basic minimum standards. Likewise, I don’t need to hire a Bugatti to drive around in; you can give me Jeremy Clarkson’s Lancia Beta coupe superleggera from Botswana and I’d be fine.
But planes? That’s where I draw the line. Only once in the last several years have I made the mistake of flying economy class, and I was stuck so far back in the plane that I was actually praying to crash into the Himalayas and complete the rest of the trek on foot with Ronald Colman. That one time, in the last few years, was this flight I was about to take to Los Angeles.
Honestly, how do airline designers, save for Sir Terence Conran, expect human beings to sit in economy-class seats today? There was a time when economy class was still a reasonable proposition, but today it’s a crime against human decency, and it’s not fair to any of us. Yes, I know humanity, particularly Americans, are turning into morbidly obese mini-Hutts. That’s not the point. I’m a relatively thin person, but the last economy-class seat I tried to wedge myself into was clearly designed with children, contortionists and amputees in mind. And god forbid you have to get up to use the lavatory, because then you have to cross the broad supercontinent of mini-Hutt sitting next to you (who somehow violated Newtonian physics by wedging the mass of a Twinkie-fed Super Star Destroyer into her equally constricting seat), wake up The Screaming Child, and endure loads of stink-eye from everyone in the cabin who are silently barking suggestions on what to go do with your bodily functions.
So I don’t fly economy class. Ever.
Just once, right? It can’t be that bad. Surely I’m just romanticizing the past, and technology has advanced to the point where I can sit in coach and not want to snap like Bruce Lee when Bruce Lee gets tagged in the face and goes all volcanically bug-eyed before he takes his shirt off and lets rip with the whomp-fu.
Besides, I was flying on an Airbus. I like Airbus. I used to buy nothing but Airbus TAP7 when I played Aerobiz, and I used to beat the pants off that game. So clearly I have made a rational and informed choice with entrusting my personal travel to their economy class.
To say that the flight was uncomfortable would be somewhat like describing Natalie Portman simply as an alluring brunette; sometimes you just need to use stronger language.
How bad was it? Simple. At slightly more than two-thousand miles into my trans-Pacific journey, I had a pulmonary embolism and was killed. Keep in mind that I lasted longer than the Tibetan yogi across from me. Take that, Dhalsim.
By the way, prior to boarding, I’d actually bumped into Robert Englund. So technically I (sort of) survived a flight with Freddy Krueger. But that’s what happens when you’re flying into Los Angeles, man. The rules are just different.
II. Descent
So. Like I said. I don’t like cities.
Too much noise. Too much concrete. Too much world.
For some reason, I don’t get that feeling when I’m overseas. Perhaps because older cities have more history infused in their architecture, they seem to be more memorable; most younger cities tend to blur together for me.
And LA, in particular, is far from my favorite town. The dark side of being in a city where an alarming number of people are chasing dreams they’re never going to realize is that it tends to bring out the worst in humanity. The plastic speciousness and casual disdain of LA can be astonishing. Duff McKagan, in a Guns N’ Roses documentary, once remarked, “I think the phrase ‘I love life’ doesn’t exist in LA.”
It’s not the city itself I have an issue with, despite the sprawling sea of nondescript concrete and the pall of smog that hangs over it. It’s not even the majority of the people who live there. It’s just a general sense of…I don’t know how to describe it, actually. Desperation?
This was made even worse by the final approach into LAX. I’ve spent enough time in these neighborhoods to witness “June Gloom” for myself – I can recall being in Newport on a business conference a few years ago, and the fog rivaled anything I’d ever grown up with in San Francisco – but this time, the marine layer was down on the freakin’ deck.
My initial reaction: my god, I’ve landed in Silent Hill.
No, really. I’m not even kidding. The mist clung to the damp concrete in a very sickly way. As I picked up my rental car and keyed in directions to the hotel I was to stay at, I really did feel like I’d been dropped off in some lower concentric circle of Dante’s Divine Comedy, or perhaps in a slightly more lively version of Stephen King’s Langoliers. It. Was. Disturbing.
I found a Sbarro to grab some dinner at. Everyone laughs at me when I talk about my cravings for Round Table, or Olive Garden, or Sbarro, or any other number of chain establishments – but the reality is that when you live on an outer island in Polynesia, you crave every opportunity to wolf down the comfort food you grew up with.
And the cheese slices tasted stale. They’d been out too long. The flavor was as bled out of them as the color had been bled out of the world around me. Drab. All of it drab.
I was shaking my head as I settled in for the evening, back at the hotel. You ever go to a place and instinctively feel if it’s accepted you or rejected you? I’ve been to LA enough times to know that it’s rejected me. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I could live and work there if I had to. But I could never call it home.
What brought me here, however, wasn’t the call of home. It was the call of Home. Specifically, LOOT.
It was an invitation I’d received from Sara Stephens, LOOT’s Community Manager. Come preview some commodities being developed which would soon be released in Home. Tour the Sony Pictures Studios lot. And get to meet representatives from PSTalent and GamerIndepth, who would also be in attendance.
It was an opportunity I could hardly pass up.
And so here I was, having reworked my schedule at the office, having left behind my beaches and swaying palm trees and waterfalls, sitting far too close to the echo of the 405 and wondering what the morrow would bring.
I couldn’t have even guessed at what I was about to see.
III. Overture
It starts innocuously enough.
The sun was out. It was about as stereotypically pleasant as Los Angeles could get. And the arrival at the Sony Pictures Plaza was likewise uneventful, although it was quite interesting to look at props used from some notable blockbuster films. Seeing a Ghostbusters proton pack up close, for instance, was quite a treat.
Up on the agenda first: a tour of Sony Pictures Studios.
I’m no stranger to film sets – I’ve worked as a professional actor in film and television – but there’s still quite a thrill at the idea of walking through some of the most famous soundstages in the world. When I was a kid, I had the opportunity to see and actually walk on the original bridge set from the first Star Trek film. Whereas others around me complained that it actually ruined the illusion for them – because, up close, you realize it’s just bits of painted plywood, and the camera made everything appear larger than it really was – I was awestruck. To me, it added to the sense of realism. I had a deeper connection with it all.
It was thus with quite a bit of excitement that I applied the visitor tag to my chest and waited.
NorseGamer and Beta76
During this intermission, I got to meet Beta76, from GamerIndepth. It’s always exciting meeting someone in real life whom you recognize from Home; suddenly our common topic of conversation – Home – seemed to be like we were talking in code about some secret society that no one around us knew about. Think of the secret freemason handshake from the Monty Python architect sketch. You get the idea.
Think about it. In real life, how do you explain your fascination with Home to someone who’s never experienced it before? How do you even explain what virtual reality is? Even to fellow gamers, it seems like Home is something you either immediately get or you just don’t. So to have a real-world conversation with someone else who’s not just a Home enthusiast, but in fact works for a fellow Home community project…it was quite a treat. Particularly since Beta himself is a delightful human being to hang around with.
Next up, Beta and I met DIRECTOR_ON_DUTY and members of his team from PSTalent: Animus_Requiem, Cocobaby_84, NLND and CORISUcat. PSTalent, of course, is the machinima production house for Home. One need only watch a brief snippet of“The Castle” to see that the level of filmmaking they’re committed to is far in excess of what most the rest of us are capable of, let alone actually trying.
(One note, by the way, about DOD: I’m sworn to secrecy on his actual appearance, since Sony took a group photo of us all, but I do want to point out that the guy is tall. I’m a little over six feet, and I’m not accustomed – particularly in showbiz –to looking up at people.)
So we began our tour. I won’t recount everything that we saw– it’d probably bore you – but I do want to point out some highlights.
Beta76 in front of *some* of Jeopardy's Emmy awards
The Jeopardy! set. Jeopardy’s one of the most viewed game shows on the planet, so there is something inherently cool about sitting in the audience chairs and looking at the set. Like most sets I’ve been on in the past, it’s smaller than you might think. The camera angles and lighting really do make a difference. What would Apocalypse Now have looked like without Vittorio Storaro’s incredible color scheme? It’s amazing what these wizards can do.
(By the way, we saw a time-lapse video of Alex Trebek over the decades that was a little frightening. At first, he seems to age quite naturally – I mean, come on, the pornstache! – and then entropy seems to reverse itself after a certain point, so that he ends up looking younger than he did in earlier years. This being Hollywood, it’s really not all that surprising, but it did produce something of an Uncanny Valley effect in the audience. I picture nuclear war, and only three things surviving: Keith Richards, bugs, and a sea of non-biodegradeable plastic bits from what used to be the Los Angeles population.)
Norse with the ECTO-1 and Black Beauty
The ECTO-1 Ghostbusters car. I pity the children born after me who grew up and graduated from school without ever having viewed the first Ghostbusters film. There’s a certain joy to a lot of 80’s films that makes them genuinely pleasurable to rewatch – a joy which seems to have been bled out of the marketplace in favor of being “edgy” and “dark.”
Screw that. Gimme Slimer.
So. Seeing two awesome cars parked next to each other – the Black Beauty from The Green Hornet, and the ECTO-1 from Ghostbusters –that right there is worth the price of admission. And, for those of you who have in fact watched DOD’s “The Castle”machinima, then you’ll realize how cool it was to stand next to him while looking at the ECTO-1 up close.
The foley room. No, we’re not talking about the surprisingly witty wrestler. Foley, for those of you unfamiliar with showbiz, is the term used for sound effects. Every single sound you hear in a movie – the jangling of keys, a car door slamming, a person’s footsteps – is all recorded in post-production. And you don’t even want to know how they come up with those passionate kissing noises for romantic scenes.
Adam Sandler’s production office. Okay, this one’s a bit of a personal indulgence. We never actually went into his office – we went through plenty of soundstages where amazing films had been produced over the decades – but it was still cool to walk past and see an “Aloha” tile in the window. Sandler owns an estate on the island I live on, and the backdrop scenery for his Happy Madison production company is likewise taken from my island. Besides, I’m a huge Zohan fan. So it was cool to walk by. Don’t look at me like that.
The buildings themselves. I know this sounds a little weird, but this was the highlight of the tour for me.
Beta, in "downtown" Sony Pictures Studios
Walking through the Sony Pictures Studios lot, you pass by a lot of charming facades: a café, a post office, a police station, a barber shop, et cetera – and it all appears very colorful and alluring. In fact, none of it’s real: behind the displays, they are merely office buildings, exactly like what you’d see in Anywheresville, USA.
Here’s the difference, though: in real life, we make no attempt to beautify or differentiate one structure from another. And this perhaps is why I tend to prefer European cities: because of their sheer age, you have centuries of humanity layered atop and next to each other. One cannot help but marvel, for instance, at the sight of modern office buildings intermixed with the cobblestone streets of Edinburgh – or smile at the brightly colored shops along the wharf in Bergen. It gives a very real taste of the history and story of the place.
When I walk through downtown LA, I feel anonymous. When I walk through “downtown” Sony Pictures Studios, on the other hand, I feel like I’m part of a story.
This, I think, is one of the reasons why there’s such a growing trend towards escapism in our culture. The more interconnected we become as a species, the more we feel like events are out of our control, and what we do is ultimately irrelevant. And thus we seek to escape. We seek color.
(As an aside: too many films and video games use washed-out color palettes these days. Why does the 1938 version of Robin Hood still stand today as the quintessential adaptation? Why do the first two Star Trek series seem so much more rewatchable than the later spinoffs? Color. Vibrant, deep COLORS. Color is to entertainment what a dollop of hot sauce is to a plate of Mexican food: suddenly everything becomes that much more intense and memorable.)
It looks *so* much like a real-life version of Central Plaza, doesn't it?
Standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by colorful buildings and skilled artisans walking by in both directions, I finally felt comfortable. I finally felt at home.
Odd, perhaps, that I should feel most at ease in a fake world than a real one. But perhaps not so odd. Humans are at their best when they play. Take away play, and we are a dull, lethargic species that barely has the motivation to eke out a meager subsistence. I have always felt most comfortable, personally, when engaged in the act of creating something that’s hyperrealistic. Whether it be acting, directing, writing or something else, I firmly believe that the truly lucky adults are the ones who get to earn a living doing what we all did naturally as children: playing in worlds of our own creation. It’s something I naturally gravitate to.
The tour concluded, our intrepid band of Home adventurers was greeted by Sara Stephens, and it was time for the piece de resistance: a trip inside the LOOT offices and a sneak preview of some goodies they’d cooked up for Home.
IV. Crescendo
So now then. You’ve followed my rambling tale for nearly three-thousand words up to this point. And, in the words of the Monty Python god, “Get ON with it!”
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YmS_VDvMY
In short: PSTalent, GamerIndepth and HomeStation saw some stuff that’ll blow you away.
I’m not saying that lightly. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting all that much. I was expecting to see some nice trinkets, sure, and a retread of stuff already present in Home, albeit with a LOOT spin. I’d make the usual polite comments and banal compliments. After all, they were gracious enough to let us into their house. They do it for a living. I’m just the snarky journalist with a keyboard.
What I saw, however, actually impressed me.
“Well, what do you think?” Our presenter, Danilo, asked us.
It had more than impressed me. It practically gave me a lap dance. Whilst singing Puccini. And juggling.
“I wasn’t expecting that,”I replied. And the room burst out in laughter. But I was dead serious.
Norse reacts to the LOOT demonstration
I can’t go into the specifics of what I saw. Not yet. Sony will send over a very large man with a glandular problem to reenact the Battle of Britain with my ribcage if I so much as peep a word of it.
I think I’m safe in saying this much, though:
There are LOOT commodities I just witnessed which are going to make those top-ten lists (by units sold) that Sony compiles every month. And those commodities are going to say on that list for a long, long time. I’m wagering three fiscal quarters. More importantly, they’re going to monetize for a significantly longer period of time, at higher levels, than most virtual commodities published so far inside Home. I’m absolutely confident of this.
As a disclaimer, by the way: LOOT isn’t paying me a dime to write any of this. They didn’t pay for my airfare, my hotel, or my rental car. Yes, I got a free t-shirt out of it (two, actually, if you count the one they included for Terra). All I can tell you is that if you understand anything about my background, then you know that it takes a hell of a lot more silver crossing my palm than that to “buy” good PR from me. This isn’t a planted story. This is me being genuinely impressed.
Since I can’t go into specifics (yet), I’ll phrase it to you this way:
Home is putting quite a lot of emphasis on gaming right now, and for very sound business reasons. You don’t have to agree with those reasons, but they make perfect sense to me. Yet at the same time, HomeStation approaches Home from a social standpoint, not a gaming standpoint. One thing this publication has clamored for, repeatedly, are enhancements to the social aspects of Home.
Quite candidly, games grow old. Games grow stale. You and I can both think of more than a few mini-games in Home which drew crazy traffic for a week or two, and then simply…died. Games are not the beating heart of Home; however, they are clearly quantifiable sources of revenue which help attract the target audience to the product, encourage them to stay longer, and hopefully spend some money. This in turn attracts more and larger developers to provide content for Home.
Let me put it to you this way. I work in resort development. Ultimately, I answer to my key metrics. All resorts look at RevPAR (revenue per available room), ADR (average daily rate), H3RB average length of stay, and so forth. Whether you’re staying at a St. Regis or a Motel 6, it’s the same business model across the board; you simply scale the numbers appropriately. I don’t really care how much someone likes the choice of materials used for the pool deck and the restaurant; all I care about is whether or not they were able to provide the target experience my guest is looking for so that they’re willing to spend the most amount of money with the least amount of financial outlay on my company’s part.
Most any industry works the same way. Home is no different.
So here I am, with HSM, trying to argue that improving the social experience of Home – something which cannot be easily quantified in terms of return on invested capital – will in fact provide not just a superior experience, but in fact generate more money in the long run. And, were I listening to my own argument, I would immediately counter that I want to see social enhancements that can be clearly monetized and measured.
And that’s why what I saw, inside that LOOT office, excited me. Because they’re providing commodities which enhance the social aspects of Home. And they’re easily quantifiable in terms of return on investment. They’ve pulled it off.
Or, as I said at the meeting, “Once all this is released, what the heck is everyone going to have to complain about?”
(Which reminds me, by the way: if you’ve ever wondered whether or not developers pay attention to the Sony forum, as well as community projects like HomeStation and beyond…trust me. They do. This means that you have a responsibility to be exceedingly clear about what you want, and realize that it’ll probably take anywhere from half a year to two years to come to fruition. Constructively criticize, guys.)
I wish I could share specifics with you. All I can tell you is that you’re going to see the same stuff I saw, and you’re going to see it very soon.
After the meeting, we were treated to lunch at the Sony Pictures Studios cafeteria. Which, I would point out, officially hit my envy button. To work in an environment where you’re being paid to come up with creative stuff that benefits countless numbers of people, and constantly get to interact with artists of like mind…I’m officially jealous. Jealous Norse is jealous.
A quick note on the LOOT team: they’re an amazingly tight-knit group. They’re genuine Home enthusiasts themselves. I know that sounds like a hollow platitude, but look behind it for a moment: how many of you, reading this, work in a job or industry you genuinely love?
(Oh, and Sara Stephens has incredibly cute taste in footwear. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.)
Having lunch with them all – developer and community member alike – under a warm California sun was quite a treat. And the perfect way to finish a great day.
V. Denouement
Afterwards, when the LOOT team returned to their offices, we Home users hung out together for a bit. After all, it was the first time that PSTalent, GamerIndepth and HomeStation had ever all met in real life. And it was virtual reality – Home – that made all of this possible.
What impressed me, personally, was the combination of talent and work ethic on display from everyone. Those of you who know me know that I’m an inveterate workaholic, and I push the HSM team to push themselves because I push myself hardest of all. Your results reflect your effort. From the LOOT team to the PSTalent guys to Beta, the dedication and commitment from everyone was fantastic to be a part of, and the successes these groups will continue to achieve are well-deserved.
If Home is to be viewed as a viable social network and not just a gaming platform, then it becomes incumbent upon the community to help foster and sustain this. I, for one, am excited for what the future holds.
Oh, and I got in some Olive Garden before heading back to the airport. First things first, after all.
You might be wondering, by the way: did I fly economy class on the way back to Hawaii?
Hell. No.
And thus I put the finishing touches on this story, more than forty-two-hundred words after it began, staring out the window of the plane towards a glorious sunset over the Pacific. My feet are reclined, my stomach full of salad and breadsticks, and my thoughts orbit the exciting developments that are about to be unleashed in Home.
Thank you, LOOT, for a truly entertaining weekend. We should all do it again some time.
NorseGamer
Written from 41,000 feet, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
September 26th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 16 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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Wow…somehow you’ve managed to cause some Home-drool with absolutely no specifics whatsoever. Loot has always brought great stuffs to the table…to be that blown away by what’s comming down the pike is a sure sign that we may have one heck of a holiday season in our virtual world.
And I would have given much to see the Foley Room -- as a sound and acoustics enthusiast that’s like a Norseman getting a glimpse of Valhalla. Maybe a big pot of my famous sauce and meatballs will allow for some John-sized-space in your luggage on your next time out
Wow is Right… I do have to say I skimmed a bit, like I often do when Steven King goes on and on about some object I don’t want to read about anymore, yet I did read almost everything after the plane ride. I am glad you guys Met up in real life, and meeting Loot was a special treat… Glad to hear you enjoyed it… You didn’t say much about the groups you met though… I’m gona have to take a look at GI’s and PST site to see if they wrote anything to and compare the experiences…
Also I have to say that the best part of the article I read was the part about it being Game focused… Nice to see that… we have been seeing it a lot more lately so seeing it written that it will continue is a great thing…
Not everyone gets Experiences like this one… Its good to see the Devs giving out Life time memories like this one… Only Down side I see to that, is too bad all the Users and Community members can get the same treatment… Yet at least they picked some Active and Community geared ones to give the opportunity too… Also thank you for Doing like GI and letting me Post this with out signing into the site. Yet you made me give an email Address?
Patches
The biggest challenge with this article: how to write about LOOT previewing their upcoming goodies for Home, when you’re not allowed to divulge what those goodies are?
The second challenge: how to make this story unique, since multiple Home journalism outlets were covering it with the same restrictions?
Ultimately, I figured the real strength of the story lay in its ability to provide for personal anecdote. The golden rule of writing for HSM: we care less about the subject being discussed and more about how that subject made the author *feel.*
Generally speaking, my favorite journalists tend to take that approach. Jeremy Clarkson and Jason Whitlock are both masters at it. Indeed, it could be argued that all of New Journalism is founded on this notion.
Thus, in the truest sense of the aphorism, I made the article more about the journey than the destination.
Indeed, it is the journey (and the telling of it) which makes the destination all the more savory.
I love the way Norse writes..it is something I try to emulate..
I love Norse too… ummmm, I mean the way he writes. What a fun article and it makes me look forward to the new stuff from Loot. I’d better start saving my pennies.
Is Terra going to get her shirt or are you going to keep it?
that’s funny…
It sounds as though you had a good trip Norse. Glad to hear it as you work much too hard and you need down time like the rest of us. I will be very interested to see what Loot comes up with. All of us in Home are waiting with bated breath for the new Hub and related spaces and this just adds to the anticipation of where Home is taking us in the near future. Kudos on the article, and kudos to Loot for stepping up and helping to advance the social aspects in Home, something we all want.
A T-shirt, huh? I’m guessing they caught wind of our pajama-party meeting of a couple of weeks ago…
I can’t help but think that Norse had to feel like he found the Golden Ticket in a Wonka bar.Getting to go see where the magic is made! Envy is not a strong enough
word for what I am feeling. Johneboy may dream of a John size space so he could be smuggled in Norse’s bags, but because of my reconstruction and my lack of Johnny 5 like fear, I can be disassembled and placed in more than one bag… my fear lies in trusting the airlines to get the bags with me in them there and then the Humpty Dumpty ability of Norse to put me back together again. I bet all the Loot’s horses and all the Loot’s men (and women) could.
I do envy what Norse saw behind the curtain yet I don’t envy having to see the future and keep it to myself for fear of causing a paradox or a riff in the time space continuum.
The first person perspective writing of Norse seem to be almost a metaphor on how I would have experienced his adventure. The hustle and bustle of the flight and L.A. rat maze to get to the Loot cheese is how I see the real world versus Home kind of. The stresses of everyday living vs. the world where magic is made. And afterwords there is Olive Garden, or in my case sushi or pie, and a first class ticket home.
I am excite for whats to come for all of us in Home and happy to know a good friend has seen the future and without speaking details, reassures us that it is wonderful.
So I will sit back and wait for my Home, our Home to open the curtain and we all Salsa dance down the Yellow Brick Road with our Everlasting Gobbstoppers… how can I work Humpty Dumpty back in…and um… our over sized omelets. Oh and POKER… neener neener neener!(FTW)
I should take my pills and calm down!
What an amazing opportunity for you Norse! It’s great to see the developers taking a real interest in including the community leaders. Hearing of this gathering makes a pie in the sky concept I had a while ago seem like a distinct possibility for the future: A Home-Con. I would love it if there could be a gathering of Home devs each year to show what they are working on for Home. Invite only or open to the public, I think it would be a great community building event.
…You know, I totally dig the idea of a Home-Con. No one ever thought a Star Trek convention would work, and the very first one they ever tried pulled in *way* more people than they thought they’d ever receive. The idea of a Home-Con (I’d personally call it “Open Home” or some such), probably held in San Francisco or Los Angeles, would be amazing.
(Everyone may rest assured, by the way, that Terra will indeed be receiving her LOOT t-shirt. I fear that whip as much as everyone else here does. We like keeping Terra happy.)
::whipCRACK!:: >o_O<
Great article Norse. I heard about this gathering and I’m sooooo jealous yall got to see all that. What a great tour of Sony Pictures and sounds like you had a great meeting with LOOT too! Great pics too. I also think it was great you got to meet beta76 and DOD, cocobaby, cat, and animus from PST toos! How awesome to have all that talent in one place to experience all that at the same time ^__^
This is a fantastic and very profound article and it’s a pity it’s buried on “just” the Homestation page.
As someone who is weighing a very important decision or on whether or not to locate in Orlando (half step) or LA/Santa Monica for a startup game studio this was very helpful. You also succinctly described the sense of history in Europe or older cities a lot better than I could other than a ‘general feeling’ of things.
Anyway enjoyed the article and the magazine. I can’t spend anywhere near the time in Home that most of you can but I use the magazine to peek into what ‘life’ would be like if I did. It gives me a sense of nostalgia each time I log in of older more limited virtual worlds (not a compliment to Home however!) and a younger time