Merry Christmas from HSM: 50,000 Visitors Reached!
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
The interesting thing about Home being a metaverse is that you really only get out of it what you put into it.
Home has no purpose as such; while from a business standpoint it has well defined goals, it is the very antithesis of what gamers are used to. Hence why Home has such a polarizing effect on people: you either “get” it or you don’t. And because its appeal is perhaps relatively narrow — though the PlayStation Network has something to the tune of seventy-seven million accounts, only a fraction of them use Home, and only a fraction of those spend money with any consistency (which is not unique to Home; social games which use a freemium model tend to have high audience numbers and low percentages of users who generate revenue).
Home holds up an interesting mirror to us. When stripped of objectives and things to do, how do we react? What motivates some of us to form communities and others to troll them? What motivates some of us to carefully reconstruct ourselves, and others to cross-dress, role play or otherwise completely forsake our identities?
This is why HomeStation was created: to study the human stories of Home. And it’s why, when we were told over a year ago that there was no way in hell that anyone could produce a new story about Home every single day — not just cut-and-paste announcements from elsewhere, but actual unique stories about Home that couldn’t be found elsewhere — we knew that we could pull it off, and that in fact there was quite a lot of pent-up demand for it.
If you only get out of Home what you put into it, then HomeStation’s goal is to give back to the community, because we wish to foster reasoned and intellectual dialogue about Home.
The catch, of course, is finding the right team who can pull this off.
Think back to when you’ve been involved in something. A sports team. A community project. A new business venture. Anything voluntary that was larger than yourself. It takes a lot of hours, a lot of work, and a lot of sacrifice. In particular, HomeStation is an exceptionally demanding project; it holds very high editorial standards and what would be viewed by the typical gamer on the Sony forum as a rigorous code of conduct. But the reality is that if you’re going to invest the time in something, you might as well do it right.
Do something worth being proud of, and the results take care of themselves.
That’s why I’m enormously proud of this team that I serve. HomeStation is a grand vision, sure, but it’s nothing without the people who invest the time to make it what it is. My job is to create a platform for their thoughts and artistry to be expressed to the Home community, but it is they who put the time in to create it.
HomeStation’s a bit of an upstart in the world of Home community media. At only fourteen months of age (at the time of this writing), we haven’t been around as long as the more established players out there. The people who signed on with HSM took a chance on an untested product, process and ideology. Particularly since, as you’ve seen, we don’t always take the populist stance on various issues — because we believe that if the community understands more about how Home works, and the logic of why things happen the way they do, then it will deepen the enjoyment of the experience. And if we can constructively, rationally criticize, we might just help — in some oblique way — shape the future of Home.
The results — and the audience numbers — speak for themselves.
Back in the first half of the year, we as a team pointed to the horizon and said we would welcome fifty-thousand unique visitors to the HomeStation before the year ended, and that we would realize a consistent average of five-thousand to six-thousand unique visitors per month. Now, unless your website happens to be AlphaZone4 (which, let’s face it, is the acknowledged juggernaut of Home community sites), this is sheer lunacy.
And yet here we stand.
It is our most fervent hope that we provide a quality service to the Home community that deepens your connection to this virtual world we inhabit together. Home is a place where remarkable stories unfold every day. Friendships are made and lost. Memories forged. Hearts broken and love discovered. Casual cruelties and remarkable altruisms. Broken people heal. Damaged people introspect. Humans across the spectrum interact as they wish they were, rather than how they are.
Oh, and by the way, there are some pretty cool games, too.
Merry Christmas from the HSM editors!
We have some surprises in store for you as we go into 2012. But more than just that: we want to salute the quality of the writers and artists involved with HSM, and thank you for your continued patronage. It is because of you that we celebrate, together, our most audacious goal for the year: 50,000 unique visitors.
Thank you, once more, for coming along with us on this ride.
Written from the HomeStation,
NorseGamer and Terra_Cide
On holiday in Hawaii, together thanks to Home
December 25th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 6 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.
LinkedIn
Twitter
What a wild ride HSM has been on since it’s inception. Many stories from many voices have graced the front page over the last year, and I must admit to reading -- and in some way, shape, or fashion, enjoying -- every single one. Thank you staff and writers for breathing a little more life into my hobby, and for making the virtual a tad more real.
A glass raised for another great year!
HSM rocks!
WOW! We did it! Thanks to everyone involved here for their tireless efforts to make this Home project a success. I am happy and proud to be a part of this ride we are on and I think it is only going to get better as we progress into the New Year. And Norse and Terra, you two are adorable together, I am glad this is all working out for you!
50,000 people is like TWO sell out baseball games at Fenway Park, that’s a lot of people!
Dah-dah,da-dump,dah,da! Charge!
Home: Five years and counting. HSM: fourteen months and counting. HSM Visitors: 50,000 and counting. Articles: Plentiful. And counting.
It affirms that one cannot simply walk into Home; one experiences it. Here’s to the 100,000 mark.
*Happy Dance*
50k visitors? Wowzerz! Woooohoooo! Go HSM! *pulls out pom poms and does a cheer*