The Home 1.6 Targeting System, and Why Furniture Should Float
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
Man, I’ve rarely seen such shifting ballast in a community before. On the eve of Home’s 1.6 core client update, with the details announced for all to see, the general reaction was overwhelmingly positive. And, to be fair, there was quite a lot to be excited about: the changes to the memory allocations which give users greater freedom with furniture decoration. The improved help system for onboarding new users. The revisions to the “Community” tab on the Navigator.
Sandwiched in amongst all the bullet points was an announcement regarding changes to the targeting system. At the time I wrote that this could have some very interesting implications for the glitching community. Which was an understated way of saying that I expected the Sony forum to explode like Dresden.
They didn’t disappoint.
Forget all the improvements that 1.6 introduced to Home; no, let’s focus instead on the one system enhancement which ended up being the latest tightening of a progressively more restrictive straightjacket around glitching activities. My god, judging from some of the responses, you’d think SCEA was clubbing baby seals and gleefully pumping sulfur dioxide into the troposphere.
Keep in mind that I’m not against glitching per se. It’s a gray-area activity that is a very passionate meta-game for some in Home. It has caused some people to invest more time and money into Home than they otherwise might have. If you’ve read HSM, then you know that this publication holds a mildly pro-glitching position. But let’s put things in perspective here: glitching involves utilizing Home in a way that it wasn’t designed to work. I’ve been in Home for two years now, and in that time I’ve seen periodic core updates which have made it progressively harder to glitch the system. This to me suggest that either glitching itself is causing some cumulative effect upon Home’s functionality which needs to be fixed, or there are other issues in Home which are being addressed and the removal of glitching functionality is simply collateral damage.
Either way, let’s get this out in the open: no one has the “right” to glitch. And people need to accept personal responsibility for that, rather than screaming invective and threats against Sony every time they make back-of-house changes to improve the operation of the system that they allow us to enjoy for free.
Ah, but glitching generates revenue, goes the counter-argument. You have to buy personal estates and furniture. And if glitching functionality is removed, then that devalues the investment, right?
Wrong.
No, I’m sorry, that argument is flat-out wrong.
I own a Corvette. In order to really experience all the functionality built into that car, I have to go to a dragstrip or a racetrack. Otherwise, the only option left is to open up the taps on public roads. And you know what? There’s a certain thrill to doing so. The knowledge that you’re doing something you’re really not supposed to be doing, and getting away with it.
Here’s the catch, though: what happens when the cops grab me doing more than one-fifth the speed of sound, and they take away my license and incarcerate me on a misdemeanor conviction? Am I going to scream at the automotive dealership or the judge that this isn’t fair, because I spent all that money to buy a high-powered sports car and now I’m not even allowed to use it? Do you think it makes one bit of difference?
The reality is that, in that scenario, I used something I paid for in a way the system isn’t really designed to handle, much as I might think it is. Speed limits exist not for the majority of the people who actually do know how to handle faster velocities; they exist because all it takes is one yahoo with more hair gel than driving ability to cause a multiple-car pileup on the freeway, kill a dozen people, and gum up traffic for the better part of a day. As is usually the case in organized society, we over-regulate the behavior of the majority in order to try to to curb the ability for the crazies to cause a disproportionate level of death and destruction on their blaze of glory.
Does glitching cause system complications behind the scenes that we’re unaware of? Who the hell knows? Usually, in these glitching debates, the glitching advocates will trot out their knowledge of computer programming to defend their pastime by authoritatively claiming that it doesn’t harm the system.
There are two problems with that tactic, and it’s why I cringe every time I see it used:
1. None of us know, for certain, that glitching is harmless. Unless you’re part of the Sony core team, you don’t really have any idea (and neither do I) how the elements of the system affect each other, and how one minor change can have a massive ripple effect through the whole system. Home’s infrastructure is a hell of a lot more complicated than a regular computer game.
2. If glitching is so harmless, then why has Sony repeatedly implemented core client updates which curtail it? Either glitching is a much more serious issue than we realize (and obviously Sony’s not at liberty to disclose), or there are other more serious holes in the system which need to be fixed, and the loss of glitching “functionality” is a side-effect of this.
To the avid glitchers reading this: Sony’s not on a vendetta to curb your enjoyment of Home. And I can say this with great confidence for one very specific reason: there’s no business logic in a company incurring the time and cost necessary to modify something which generates revenue unless there’s a damn good reason to do so. And the fact that Sony hasn’t publicly come out and told everyone that glitching itself is bad strongly implies to me that glitching isn’t even the enemy; Sony’s busy fixing other problems, and those patches happen to be reducing the ability to glitch the system.
Considering how there’s no shortage of people complaining about Home’s various error codes and other technical issues, I’m all for Sony fixing them. The price tag associated with fixing these issues might just be a reduction or elimination of a popular meta-game that some people really enjoy.
Let’s fast-forward into the future for a moment. Let’s say that glitching is truly eliminated from Home. Will this cause some people to leave? Yeah, maybe. When the EA poker rooms were yanked from Home (for what evidently was a whole bunch of technical issues caused by people abusing the system, interestingly enough), some people abandoned the service, never to return. Does this constitute a loss of revenue? Yeah, maybe.
The reason why I say maybe is because people have a tendency to overinflate their economic worth when threatening to remove their patronage. It’s human nature. In my line of work, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to listen to self-important resort guests threaten to take their dollars elsewhere because something didn’t meet with their approval, only to pull their files and discover that they were usually the biggest cheapskates and problem children we had. Sure, they might have spent a few bucks back in the day, but the litany of issues in the file far outweighed what they’d spent. (Anyone remember back in 2007 when Sprint Nextel eliminated its services to 1,000 — out of 53,000,000 — of its biggest problem children? Oh, how that brought a joyful tear to my eye.)
And, if I’m going to be blunt, every time a disgruntled glitcher threatens to take his money and leave (which I’ve been listening to for two frakking years, so get on with it already), I really wish Sony would get nasty for just a moment and publish a report showing exactly how little money that user has actually spent, and how long ago it was. Because unless your name is Joanna Dark or HearItWow, the odds are that you’re not consistently throwing piles of money at the application. Hell, I run a publication devoted to Home, and after twenty-four months of patronage, I’d suspect my personal expenditures average out to maybe fifteen to twenty bucks a month (I’m not counting the business trips to the mainland, the expenses incurred for the various HSM contests or the various peripheral-related expenses such as the Hauppauge PVR box because Home has realized no direct revenue from those investments).
Let’s assume, by the way, just for argument’s sake, that you’re an avid glitcher and you’re one of those blessed souls who does indeed consistently spend money in Home. It still doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been throwing good money at an activity which is questionable at best, and it’s not Sony’s responsibility to somehow compensate you for this or support your habit, any more than it is the state’s responsibility to change the speed limit just because I spent a lot of money to own a car that goes to Ludicrous Speed. Take responsibility for your actions, and live with the choices you’ve made.
The reason why I’m taking a hard line is this: I personally have nothing against glitching (in private estates), and I think it’s a wonderful meta-game that many Home users enjoy. But I do have an issue with stupidity. After this many years of increasing restrictions to glitching, have some people really not yet figured out that its days are numbered? Some of the more shrill antics taking place on the Sony forum remind me of a truculent child who knows he’s about to be put to bed for the evening, knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it, and chooses anyway to scream and throw tantrums specifically because he can’t get his way.
Worse than that, though: the actions of a few glitchers are giving the rest of that community a bad rap. They can scream at Sony all they like, but didn’t they learn as children that they can get further with honey rather than vinegar? The actions of a few can easily ruin it for the rest, and it’s a shame to see glitchers — most of whom are genuinely good people — getting dragged through the mud. It’s no different than how the actions of a few caused the removal of the male Frosty head from Home. Hell, it’s no different than how the hubris of a few caused Reagan to wipe out PATCO, and in so doing delivered a setback to all of organized labor, across the whole damn country, that it’s never really recovered from.
Figure it out already: this is a virtual community, but it’s not a democracy. You have no property ownership rights in Home; you spent money to acquire the right to use a service from the content provider, and they can rewrite the rules whenever they see fit. If this rather obvious fact doesn’t sit well with you, then do something productive with your time and go spend your money elsewhere.
Thoreau sees your civil disobedience. Thoreau is not impressed.
Or, heaven forbid, try the breathtaking approach of offering constructive criticism to help guide future developments more to your liking. We’re glorified beta testers with this thing, after all (and, in that regard, the glitchers and mergers and hackers and various other miscreants have indeed provided a valuable service to Sony, by showing them all the ways in which their virtual reality infrastructure needs to be improved — “He serves the state best who opposes the state most,” said Thoreau). I’m going to throw in some constructive criticism of my own.
Sony: would it really kill you to have slightly more in the way of a PR outreach presence? Yes, I know that confidentiality is critical; but if you have a new deployment which is going to predictably cause a ruckus, it’s not a horrible idea to have some verbiage, pre-approved by legal, ready to go. Yes, I also know that some of the more vocal people on that forum are children with utterly no concept of how business works, and they demonstrate astonishing levels of poor behavior. So what? Unless you’re going to banhammer them (which, hey, I’m all for, because a few of them more than deserve it), they do constitute one source of market insight, even if you have to wade through pages and pages of abuse and nonsense to find it. There are two realities with social gaming that you have to face:
1. You made the bloody thing free. I understand all the business logic behind that decision, but the one downside is that you’ve got people who are used to the free lunch and now rail against what they’re seeing as the commercialization of Home. They don’t understand that Home has always been a for-profit enterprise, nor should they frankly be required to have a strong background in business fundamentals to enjoy virtual reality. A better PR presence might go a long way towards keeping people from becoming disenfranchised because they think they’re not being heard. Even if they don’t deserve to be heard and their thoughts are utter rubbish, you don’t want to look like the uncaring, impartial empire. You want to look like a benevolent dictatorship, as any good business does.
2. Social gaming is the Law of Unintended Consequences personified, and you damned well better be able to adapt to it. In Ultima Online, people spent their whole time in the game being blacksmiths or fishermen, and not in any way partaking of any of the various adventure quests. As a result, highly coveted virtual real estate parcels (where one could set up a shop) started selling for crazy amounts of actual money on eBay and elsewhere. World of Warcraft has well-documented cases of player-outsourced level grinding for commercial gain. Virtual entrepreneurship has reached new heights with Entropia, and Second Life’s banking system has gone through enormous upheaval. People want to be creative, and since Home has almost no outlets for user-generated content or a user-controlled economy, glitching is the outlet instead. You didn’t design Home with this in mind, but a smart business adapts. Hey, Pfizer made a fortune off of developing a vasodilator that accidentally happened to cause borderline priapism…
Do not place your virtual companion on the ceiling. On second thought...do.
The logical solution, as far as I can see, is this: if technologically feasible, Home’s engine should be modified to allow furniture placements which do not conform to real-world Newtonian physics. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from films like The Matrix, Dark City or Inception, it’s that half the fun of playing in alternate worlds comes from turning the rules inside-out. If you need to justify the cost involved in such an overhaul, then limit such item-placement ability to specially-developed furniture which could be sold in the mall. This way, glitching becomes “legal” if you will, and by introducing an economic barrier to entry, it becomes like any other freemium game.
Some glitchers will, of course, rail against this idea, as it requires financial outlay. And I get that: nobody likes to pay for something they used to be able to get for free. Others will feel that their sense of exclusivity is gone, since the means to “glitch” would now be open to everyone. The reality, though, is that it would introduce a new, corporate-sanctioned meta-game to Home, which would open it up to a much broader cross-section of the population and doubtlessly generate more than enough revenue to offset the truly hardened ex-glitchers who decide to leave.
Besides, it’s worth noting that maglev technology already gives us the ability to float objects in real life (and if you’ve been following the Dutch company Crealev, then you’ve already seen domestic household examples of this), so why not have something like this in Home?
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pAvPF93wxg
If there are opportunities to increase user engagement and increase creative expression, Sony should logically pursue them — and in fact may already be doing so behind the scenes, but we have no way of knowing this until the development cycle is complete and the new services are rolled out. And, likewise, it’s time that the glitching community stopped tilting at windmills and instead tried to offer guidance to Sony to help shape the future of Home.
December 10th, 2011 by NorseGamer | 11 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
This core update was beyond all hopes. We finally have more than 50+2 items we can use. Well in a way 56+2 78+1 still I’ll take it. But the glitching was a bonus. I spent many happy and productive hours. Spending money and giving my a spaces a personal touch.
I’m not the kind that loads up the roofs with disco themed items. In every space I have. No a little more sophisticated then that. Touches I wish we would have an option for. Add a cherry tree here and there as well as the teepee etc etc. A rug to a very interesting places for my friends and I to enjoy. Nice looking add on’s. I’m not going to say everything that I’ve have done. But there all nice to me and my friends.
I’m not going to leave Home I have way too much invested here. I’ve been here since the closed beta. I will not scream then cut and run.
But if there is an issue then they should let us know. Instead of treating us like kids. Like is there an issue with the servers and code when people do this. Then fine just explain yourselves.
They would be surprised how the community might react. Or even if they said you can have one or the other. Meaning glitching vs item increase. I would take the item increase for sure.
I didn’t buy all the items I have over the years just for glitching. Maybe they could give us a glitching personal space who knows.
Remember what Novus Prime did when they saw people liked floating outside the area provided. They were smart they sold us boots and made it legal to float outside. That is smart thinking on there part. When someone gives you lemons you make lemonade…
I left out a point here. They have been spending a lot of time. Patching holes and what not in our personal spaces. So this targeting change came with no surprise. Which does cause other problems for people not related to glitching.
Meanwhile for over 6 months they ignored WT. They have ignored the shrinking problems with items. The missed sized items as in the Paris classical and modern furniture. As well as the Santorini and tropical getaway furniture items amongst other things.
More importantly they seem to be ignoring the space freezers. These people who are damaging our systems. They clearly don’t consider that a priority. Sometimes I wonder if they even care…
Your analogy likening glitching to driving past the speed limit is a bit flawed. In your analogy one company designed and provided the car and another institution all together sets the speed limits. What if the government mandated that speed limiters be placed on your vehicle so that it would not be able to EVER go over 80mph? Would that be fair? In the case with Home the designers and the law makers are one in the same. Sony even included Easter eggs in Harbor Studio that is specifically designed toward glitchers. Some other spaces are designed in such a way that the developers seemed to anticipate glitchers by making certain areas walkable and others inaccessible.
The idea of glitching is the thrill of doing something outside of the rules. Adding rules to allow “floating” furniture wouldn’t sate the urge glitchers feel.
I think the whole reason glitches get patched is because Sony doesn’t want Home to seem “flawed”… so they remove the glitches so that everyone plays by the rules. Also, its possible that Sony is afraid that glitching may allow people to gain free access to items and spaces so that its EA Poker and midway all over again. If they allow these little glitches to exist they may synergise to produce new, and financially costly, results.
Also, consider this. Home is a Beta program. By definition, a beta program is accessible to the masses so that bugs can be fixed. If glitching isn’t the exploitation of Home bugs… I don’t know what is.
Lastly, those who are arguing about glitching need to just embrace the true tenants of glitching and spend their time trying to find what can still be done, what glitches are still out there instead of spending their time whining about Sony just “improving” their program.
I can hardly imagine the amount of posts you had to read before writing this article… I appreciate your attempt to rationalize this “glitching” issue. The example of how you should use your Corvette is very interesting. If your mind is not altered by any substance, you know that you can come across other cars or people on your road. So, driving fast will prevent you from reacting on time to avoid an accident that could lead to terrible consequences, including death. You passed a driving test and you got a license proving that you did learn the rules of the road. And if you decide to break these rules, you do know what could happen to you and to others.
For me, one of the main questions is: what consequences might result from glitching in a personal space? I don’t know! Of course, I am dealing with consequences for me, my system, as well as for the other users. I started to use Home in February and I am addicted to it! And in one of my personal spaces I put the Aurora bar (with milkshakes on it and stools) on the roof. Why? Because I thought it was pretty cool to have a kind of extra space on the roof. Maybe also because it reminded me of a time of my life when I was living in Southern Europe and when I used to go on the roof of my building to chill out with friends and enjoy the landscape… Okay, let’s return to our issue! If tomorrow, Sony states that glitching in personal spaces can damage in any way my system and/or other users’ system, I would be ready to say goodbye to all my glitches. Of course, I don’t represent anybody but myself.
I know you are going to tell me that glitching is not a normal use of Home, and I agree with that. But on the other hand, I might be mistaken but, so far, I never heard about Sony official position about this issue. I apologize if there is a clear statement regarding glitching in personal spaces, and if someone could send me a link I would be glad to read it. This is actually another main question: what are the rules regarding glitching? Is it forbidden? If so, can I get banned for limited time or forever? Is it allowed if I don’t affect other users? I am not saying that Sony must answer these questions. I just think that stating clearly the rules -- or reminding the existing ones -- could help a lot to avoid extreme reactions and frustration.
In French they use the phrase “flou artistique” to describe a kind of intentional vagueness regarding an issue, in politics for example. For me, this phrase fits perfectly to describe this situation, even though I can imagine that Sony has good reasons to do so.
Let’s imagine some possible answers. If Sony states that glitching in a personal space does damage your system (freeze, crash, rewards lost, etc.) and affects the other users as well, I am sure that lots of glitchers will stop, including me. I haven’t spent much money in Home, but I won lots of rewards that I won’t be able to earn again if I had to restart my hunt on a new account! One step further now. If Sony states that glitching is forbidden and that people who do so can be banned (for limited time or forever), everything leads me to believe that most people will stop. Sony is definitely making everything to put an end to glitching. I accepted that fact and I will keep on using Home. However, I would accept it even more easily if I knew the reasons, not all the technical details but at least an official statement. Once again, I know that Sony isn’t a public company so they can do whatever they want. But I think it’s really too bad that after the amazing update we had this week, most of the attention seems to be focused on glitching.
Peace!
I like your take on the analogy Norse used. Norse seems to bring out the rambler in all of us, eh? lol
As for the rules about glitching…
The first rule of glitching on Home is you don’t talk about glitching on Home. hehe
If while glitching and you are outside the “normal” realm of a space and then you find another glitch out there, is that a son of a glitch?
LOL Olivia!
glitching in personal space have NO consequences for the system!
why? you never seen than furnitures placements are on YOUR ps3 memory and not on the servers?
servers just send to your system the virgin space and the furnitures, YOUR ps3 had in memory (its wy you can use an usb stick)the X,Y&Z coordonate of your furnitures…that’s all the difference, the servers stay allways safe!
at contrario PUBLICS spaces can be damaged and damage OUR system (merge freez,which isn’t patched yet…)
and EA sport or uncharted (warhawk?) are used to “HACK” the system!
do you really think than “normals” glitch are dangerous ? so why SONY himself create an humoristic panel in harbor? and the mine from warhawk in the church? and the sodium1 reward “bird on wire”?and the telepad?
dont be so naive, these gosht glitch,dropping glitch or floating glitch are harmless ,but in the sony’s culture (and since the sonygate),sony just want to totally control the use of his software,its the politic of caution!
imo a total waste of ressource and more importantly a total ignorance of its users…
they MUST read the official forum and particulary the ISSUES section:freez, errors, rewards missing or disappears, item paid but never in the wallet, false reports, harrassements, broken games and spaces, lags…obviously its more costly and complicated….
I wrote an article way back in February called “The Great Glitching Debate” about glitching and it is still a hot topic and will continue to be one until someone defines what is allowed and what isn’t.
Your logic on this subject is very good Norse, you are right in saying that when it comes to complaining about the loss of abilities where glitching is concerned, they really don’t have a virtual leg to stand on.
I know there is a huge community of people out there who do this, many of them are my good friends actually, so I would hate to see them leave because of an inability to do what they love in Home.
I truly believe that Sony could do something, perhaps an additional addendum to the TOS that would explain in detail what is allowed and what isn’t, or barring that they could put out an official statement through the forums on this subject and tell people why these changes are occurring.
I think that they should also consider creating a public space that is built specifically for glitching. If they want Home to be more like a game, and these people use it to glitch and make their own version of it, why not make everyone happy and turn glitching into a game in itself.
I don’t know if this is possible or not technically, but I think either a public or private space designed specifically for glitching would be welcomed. And for those who like the “exclusivity” of being able to do something no one else does, well “you can’t have your cake and eat it to” as the saying goes. If it comes to a choice of being able to glitch or not at all being able to which one will you pick?
The new targeting system fixed a problem that made it difficult to create any sense of realism. By placing a chair on the second floor, you effectively made a teleport to the second floor. The problem is once you teleport to the second floor and get out of the chair, it redeposited you on the first floor. You could also use a chair to teleport through walls. So they fixed it. It was broken and now has been fixed.
The fact that people got used to this behavior is too bad. The behavior is not in the long term interest of creating a virtual world. It cannot be explained by anything other than it was a bug. The bug has now been fixed.
While no one wants Home to be less fun, especially those working on the engine, some things need to be fixed to move forward. Some things need to be stopped so other things are possible.
In this case, the flaw in the targeting system made it very hard to design complex spaces with seats in them. Conspiracy for instance, with all its corridors, could have easily been broken by the misplacement of a chair such that you could use it as a temporary escape while you heal or reload. Hidden rooms with seats were almost impossible to make. Mazes and puzzle spaces were very difficult to design since they could so easily be broken.
While the user base is complaining about what they lost, imagine going to a developer and trying to convince them to develop things for Home and they experienced the teleporting chairs. Their reaction would be that Home is broken and not ready for primetime. This bug just reaked of amateur hour. If this worked this flawed way, what more is broken that the prospective developer had not discovered? It would make it hard to commit to the platform.
While some people won’t be able to live with this and leave, that is the nature of change. People were up in arms about the invention of the car and airplanes. They said cars will be running over people and planes will be falling out of the sky. While they were right, it is at a level where we can all live with.
As a person creating spaces, I have been impressed by the skill of the glitchers to get to places I personally cannot. That is with me having the original source files and massive debug tools to help me find the best places to take advantage.
Is glitching dead? Not by a long shot. One tool has been removed from the arsenal. But I expect that soon this will be forgotten when something else comes along.
We have entered a new stage in the evoltion of glitching. Who will find the biggest and best exploits? That is to be seen. I am looking forward to it.
BTW, this is all my personal opinion. I have no exposure to the motivations or expections of why the Home Core Team made this change. I have talked with them about this in the past, but not recently. I do know that they are Home users and want Home to be fun not only for the world, but for them and their friends also. I am sure their friends are giving them flack as we speak. Balancing that with the concerns brought to them by potential developers, I imagine this was on their must fix list. Again, I don’t know, I am just guessing.
I for one am totally grateful to Duece for keeping us apprised and for keeping Home an enjoyable experience.. I look forward to meeting you again