Lockwood Publishing Showcase and Interactive Shopping
by Orion_NGC1376, HSM team writer
Thursdays after work are a magical time for me. It is a time when I log onto Home, with great anticipation, to see what new cool places have been added with the Wednesday night update. The first stop on my magical “update discovery tour” is to visit Central Plaza.
Upon entering Central Plaza, I could not miss the big golden chair with the Stitchkins Caramel St. Bernard sitting on top of it, inviting people to come over and visit the Lockwood Publishing Showcase, with the promise of rewards. So I immediately ran over to it and teleported to the Lockwood Publishing Showcase space, which rewarded me with the Lockwood Emoticon.
On first look, the room appeared to not offer much. There was a large Stitchkins Bunny companion straight ahead and the walls on either side of me were lined with posters and Lockwood armchairs before them. On second look, I noticed that up the stairs led up to an area behind a partition and behind this partition was a double door. At the top of the stairs, I received the Lockwood shopping bag reward.
The doors were locked and frosted, so what lay beyond those doors was still a mystery. Above the doors was a countdown timer, which appeared that the doors would not open until the next update in seven days. This intrigued me. What was behind the closed doors?
As others joined me by the doors, I noticed that ghosted avatars masked the doors, so you could see through to the room beyond. Right in the middle was a green piano and to the far right was a gigantic moving Stitchkins St. Bernard dog. I couldn’t make out much else, but it whet my whistle enough to make me think that maybe there was more to this space than I had originally surmised. I then realized that this room was merely the lobby to the real showroom.
Daily Lobby Theme
The lobby to the showrooms is decorated with a – predictably – Lockwood theme, which was embodied in the posters on the wall and the large statue that was on the stairs leading up to the showrooms. This decoration scheme changed daily, rotating through a set of five themes.
A week went by, and when I went back to checkout the showroom, I was genuinely surprised and excited by what was ultimately behind the closed doors. Lockwood has incorporated some of the elements that I have heard people say – myself included – about the desire for the stores in the Mall to be more interactive.
Up the stairs, around the partition and through the now open doors, is the main showroom floor. Different areas are laid out at the corners, with the green piano in the middle and a furniture arrangement just beyond. Upon entering the main room, music from the piano fills the air. As one browses through the showrooms, the music being played changes to suit the showcase display.
The main showroom layout is shown in the following image:
Layout of the Lockwook Publishing Showcase
The Stitchkins area features the large Stitchkins St. Bernard with normal sized companions on pedestals. Each of the active companions performs their movements for potential owners. In the far corner, two male and female hairstyles are on display at the Medusa display.
On the opposite side of the showroom, there is a Double Time display of the paintball outfits. The display depicts a scene in motion of two teams playing paintball. Beyond this display is a fully functional Gift Machine.
There are two adjacent showrooms, with entryways at both sides of the main showroom. The room on the right houses the Iron Fusion showroom that has the MechJet suits on display. Both male and female suits in their different forms gives the shopper a good idea of what the suits can do.
TankTop 90 Seconds Preview
Now where things actually get interesting is in the Sodium showroom on the left. There are portals to Sodium One and Sodium 2, along with a full size Sodium 2 racer on display, but the real forward thinking aspect of this room is the TankTop shooter game featured prominently in the middle of the room.
The Tank Top game is similar to the Salt Shooter game, but on a smaller scale and played with a perspective from above. The TankTop game is a part of the Blaster’s Paradise personal space. My first encounter with it was at a friend’s Blaster’s Paradise. Once I played it I was hooked and I had to have it.
Now one can experience the Tank Top game in the Sodium showcase room, with a 90-second preview. Lockwood is bringing the game to its customers directly, instead of relying on owners of their products to be their sales representatives.
This highlights a topic that I would like to expand upon here. PlayStation Home is a virtual reality, as we all know, and it is a place to experience things by trying them out. However, the Mall stores are one of the few places in Home where there is very little avatar interaction.
Runway Coming Soon
What if you could really go shopping with your friends? What about stores where you could actually try on outfits, see how they look and fit with your other clothes, and ask your friends’ opinion about what they think before you actually bought it?
Home is definitely moving in this direction. I am very happy that Sony offered a preview look of the Winter Vacation Villa and the Tycoon Penthouse.
Lockwood is also addressing a complaint that many have that the store preview picture and description are inadequate to make an assessment of whether they want to purchase the item.
There are two doorways at the back of the main showroom with Coming Soon signs over them. The doors will lead to runways for male and female avatar clothing items. This will also be a great step forward in previewing clothing items within the Home environment.
These are great advances in providing a better service to their customers and hopefully this will continue to evolve.
I would like to see the showroom evolve into a full-fledged retail store, by taking the 90 second preview and extending it to other items, such as clothing and companions. It was great to see the MechJet suit on display, but it would be quite another thing to try it out firsthand. The first time I saw someone rocket up into the sky during a race at Hudson, I almost dropped immediately into the Lockwood store to get one. How cool would it be to be able to try out the MechJet suit before purchasing?
The Lockwood Publishing Showcase is not far from implementing this. I am in great anticipation to see where Lockwood Publishing and Home takes interactive shopping.
Rewards
Lockwood Emoticon: Rewarded for teleporting from Central Plaza.
Lockwood Shopping Bag: Rewarded to approaching the doors to the showroom.
Five Daily Rewards
Daily Rewards
Baseball theme: Double Time Signed Baseball Shirt wall hanging. Rewarded by cheering in front of the baseball player statue in the entryway.
Double Time paintball theme: Double Time Paint Splat wall hanging. Rewarded by walking on the plaint splat on the floor located behind the rocks in back of the Sodium room.
Iron Fusion theme: LKWD Wall Art. Rewarded for entering the Iron Fusion showcase room.
Stitchkins theme: Stitchkins Giant Caramel Toy. Rewarded for waving at the large Stitchkins St. Bernard.
Medusa theme: Medusa Wall Art wall hanging. Rewarded by going over to the Medusa hairstyle display.
With so many virtual items to choose from, even micro transactions such as apparel, companions and personal estates have to be carefully considered before purchasing. Trying out such items, or visiting such “open house” spaces – without relying on a person to know someone else who happens to own them – just increases the chance for developers – and subsequently, Home at-large – to create a long term user and loyal customer.
The “try it before you buy it” marketing strategy has been around forever in brick-and-mortar sales of goods and services. It provides a consumer with the confidence that the product or service they are potentially buying from a merchant will be a sound purchase and not one which will fill them with buyer’s remorse later on. Game demos – such as what you can find in the PSN Store, or even the Sodium personal space that gives one the first five levels of Salt Shooter for free – are prime examples of how this strategy translates to virtual transactions.
This is a huge step forward towards what I see as the evolution of the Mall stores, and makes the anticipation for the revisions we’ll be seeing with the Hub all the more heightened.
October 17th, 2011 by Orion_NGC1976 | 7 comments
Father, husband, dolphy racer and sometimes Home world traveler.
Yes. Mall STORES… not just a storefront. This is what we need. Interactive shopping ftw!
The “try it before you buy it” option would be great but would it increase sales or decrease sales? How many times has someone bought something then decided they didnt like it when they saw it on their avi or used it? How many “impulse” buys would go uncompleted if we could truly try them out?
Man, that’s a tough question…on one hand, I’ve bought several commodities on impulse which I frankly regret purchasing. On the other hand, this same buyer’s remorse has led me to curtail my spending, as I don’t want to risk even further buyer’s remorse.
If there was a greater “try it before you buy it” option with commodities (it’s already starting with personal estates) I probably would have refrained from several purchases over the last couple of years. On the flipside, I would today not be so reticent to spend money.
My guess is that Sony is measuring the sales of personal estates which have been made available via HCV preview and open-house marketing strategy, to see if there’s been a measurable increase or decrease in sales compared to past performance. If we see greater try-it-before-you-buy-it interactivity with Home shopping, that’ll be a fairly good indicator that Sony decided it was financially a good idea.
For what it’s worth, I’d like to see it implemented in Home.
I think the trying it before purchase would be best for everyone. Right now there’s faulty data out there of what Home users want, because we buy stuff out of curiosity. If we could truly try items out, the devs would see what we truly want and we would eventually get more of what we want, because we would stop buying the items we don’t. If we get more of what we want, then we would buy more items and the devs would make more money.
It’s the cycle of synergy!
LOL Godeon…here’s to more synergy in Home!
I think the try it before you buy it idea is a good one. If I go into a clothing store in real life and try some things on before I buy them, I am much more likely to purchase it if I like it than right off the rack. Yes I may not like it or buy once I do try it on, but without that option the chances of me buying at all are miniscule.
Right now what I do in Home is look at the new stuff available to decide if there is anything I like. I then go to my wardrobe and put on a bottom or top I think will look good with my choices and go back to the store and try it on again to see if it is a good fit. I rarely have buyers remorse as a result, but it is a tedious process, and it would be great to have a different way to do this.
I must say that Lockwood is on track with their showroom idea, and I can’t wait to see what is coming up behind those other doors.
Good article Orion, I like the ideas you have come up with.
I think that Sony, Lockwood and other developers could dramatically increase sales by shooting all of their new clothing and items in context with other objects in Home.
I’d love to be able to view clothes on a full size avatar in a 360 degree view and furniture items and objects placed in a personal space to give a better idea of what they look like.
A catalog of this kind could be linked to the PS Forums and an option could be added to purchase the items so that they were available on our next visit to Home.
Interesting thought, Julie. A Home catalog available outside of Home. I likee that (although it might put a dent in Alphazone’s web traffic).
And a very nice over-view of the Sodium Showcase, Orion. Excelent added touch of how to get the rewards. Winning!