The Up-Sell
by ted2112, HSM guest contributor
In the book The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, writer Douglas Adams coined the phrase “bistro mathematics.” What he meant by it was when going out to dinner, the bill is always larger than what you think it will be, and that also the same is true for life in general.
I also think it hits the mark with the commerce of gaming.
I love going out to dinner, but being a starving writer means I’m broke most of the time. I don’t get to go out as much as I would like, so I hate it when the waitstaff apply the up-sell on you. Everything on the menu has a secret backdoor accessory, and yes they all cost more money, so those chicken fajitas aren’t really twelve bucks, it’s sixteen with the chips, sour cream and guacamole.
Why am I talking about food?
Home is a free service, but it’s not. The pay to play stuff on Home doesn’t exist to support the free side, but more like the other way around; the free side is there to get you to the pay to play. Do you want salsa with that?
I love the Harbour Studio apartment. It might be one of my all time favorites. I have spent countless hours there. Decorating, redecorating, exploiting the glitches, but after a while you start to wonder what lies beyond those buildings in the distance. Let’s face it – five bucks isn’t a lot of money for a personal space; skip the coffee on the way to work a few days and bingo – you got one.
What I am really not a huge fan of is all the nickel and diming of all the furniture and accessories that go with the space. I learned early on and bought the summer house couches (black), the waterfall terrace couches (tan), and with the free studio apartment stuff (white) that will cover just about every personal space decorating scheme you can imagine. I know, I’m cheap but like I said, I’m broke.
There is always more to get in Home. The guacamole will always be there. Is it worth it? Maybe to some people, yes. I guess if you get enjoyment out of it, then it is for sure. A virtual item still lasts longer than that order of buffalo wings. Do you want blue cheese and celery with that?
To me it seems like the candy store you went to as a kid with endless rows of glass jars filled with multi color delights waiting inside. You only had a buck or two, so you had to choose like it was a matter of life or death. You left the store with a paper bag of treats but also that feeling of injustice that the little candy dots on the paper were twenty-five cents instead of a nickel like the gummy fish.
I would love to own every personal space with all the guacamole and sour cream that goes along with it but I can’t. And you know what? That’s just life. It doesn’t diminish my present enjoyment of Home, and I’m okay with that.
Heck, forget about Home for a moment and think about the most popular disk based games currently available for the PS3. Can you think of any that don’t have some sort of purchasable exrta DLC? Why should Home be the exception to the rule simply because it’s free to enter?
Home is a business, just like the bistro. And their job is to make money; if they didn’t, Home wouldn’t exist. If Sony knew a garbage pile personal space would sell like hotcakes, you best believe that you would start seeing ads for the garbage pile room with flying seagulls and recycle bin couches and trash bag bean bag chairs. If you look at Home’s cousin, Free Realms over at Sony Online Entertainment, the same business model is in effect. It’s all cheap fajitas but extra for the chips and salsa. Free Realms is an Applebee’s next to Home’s Nobu.
What I think is important is finding the balance. Get over the feeling of trying to be sold something and enjoy what you can, and instead of protesting what you don’t like, promote what you do like. Many of us can’t afford the mansion, but from what I hear many have bought it and think it was worth it. None of my Home friends have more than a handful of rooms, but we all have spaces we love. I think I am one of the few who love the Eden Primarch’s Vigilarium room.
Speaking of spaces, I love that Sony is now offering a taste test with private space open houses now so you can preview a space before you buy it. Remember the City Penthouse? For me, was that five bucks down the drain!
So instead of us getting upset at the plethora and sometimes expensive choices to spend our money, we should look at what works for us. The cheap gummy fish are good and after a while even the expensive candy dots on paper are old news.
Now go on, sit down, order the fajitas, and even the chips and salsa if you like. Enjoy the experience of the game without trying to compete against the never ending tide of commerce that is impossible to keep up with. Buy and promote only what you like. Oh and -
Can I get you some guacamole with that?
November 2nd, 2011 by ted2112 | 7 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Yeah I can see the potential for endless sales pitching of things I neither want nor in some cases even see but I don’t think this sales model has “jumped the shark” yet.Sales are what’s in this thing for Sony and users are on Home to get entertained,among other things.As long as Home keeps things fresh and interesting I can tolerate quite alot of sales pitching.IF Home were a boring place to me I’d tolerate much less,same with anything being sold to me.As casino’s know,ppl that are having a good time spend more cash which is 1 reason they book lots of top entertainment acts.Of course you can spend next to nothing in Home and still have alot of fun but buying things on Home make for a more robust experience with friends I find.
Nice article. I always laugh when someone says that Home is “free.” It’s free in the same way that a mousetrap has “free” cheese.
I understand what you mean about the City Penthouse. When I first bought it I hated it, but after putting some serious work into it, and spending more than a few dollars on furniture, it’s now one of my best looking spaces. But if someone doesn’t want to go to that much trouble, it sure would be nice if we could gift items to our friends.
LOL @ “free cheese”. No, I mean I really did! By the way, I too have the penthouse. I made the upstairs into a fifties diner and the downstairs is a “disco” and lounge. I love making something out of nothing in my spaces -- which is why I hate built-in furniture.
I know what you mean. There’s marketing everywhere in home advertising virtual items trying to lure people into buying them. It used to just mainly be in the mall and that made sense but now that there are kiosks and store access points in almost all spaces, even personal spaces, advertisements are everywhere. Hell they even make Home avatar based commercials showcasing a lot of the newer items as they come out. Its all good tho, being that home is technically free it has to be paid for somehow and I won’t lie I buy stuff on there now and again. Not as often as I used to though. Hell in the past I could easily drop like 50 bucks in home after an update. I don’t find home as fun as it used to be but that’s just because as most things, its become mundane to me. I spend most of my money now on games in the PSN store or renting movies. They do entice you into buying games and add-ons as of late, like with the October deal where you spend $60 bucks or more and you get $10 bucks in credit in November. At least they were prompt on that, I got my $10 yesterday morning when I logged on lol.
Great take on this subject Ted, very entertaining as well as true. And Aeter, I agree. I really wish that Sony would think about implementing a gifting system in their stores similar to the gift machine. At checkout you could have a choice to give it to someone or keep it for yourself, similar to the Dead Island game option when you were creating items. Or possibly there could be a token system similar to the gifting machine Lockwood has created where you can give tokens you have bought to your friends as a gift and let them use them in the store to buy what they like.
Either of these options would be a very welcome addition to the stores in Home I am sure.
Good job Ted.
Thank you for your balanced perspective Ted. I really enjoyed your article and your view regarding how to approach the advertising in HOME issue; that we have now read about in several articles. Like you I have the City Penthouse, but I have spent a fair amount of money and time to make it just right for me. In this respect HOME draws a parallel to real life, sometimes you have to be willing to invest the time and money to make a house look just the way you want it to look. I have not taken much notice of the advertising that Sony does in HOME. It’s there, but I simply don’t pay much attention. I think I’m pretty detuned to a lot of advertising, due to what we face in everyday (real) life. I simply ignore the advertising until I feel I have a need for something. Then I go shopping. The previews of the new personal spaces are a great idea. I wish that Sony would consider doing this with some to the older spaces as a well. I also like what Lockwood has done, by creating what is essentially a showroom for many of their HOME offerings. Perhaps this is the type of advertising that simply works for someone like me.
Great article. What you said is so true. Many times I have been burned by spaces I thought I would like, and then am disappointed. I am glad they have a preview. I am also glad that you could use furniture over and over and don’t have to buy multiples. I wish the stuff was much cheaper. 99 cents seems cheap until you have to spend it like 50 times to get what you want. I like the bundle packs, that makes some of the stuff worthwhile. I also like coming up with creative use of things.
As regard to dining out, I always opt for the guacamole!!! Love the stuff. I so get what u mean!!!
Great article!