Why Do Some Games In Home Fail?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
We hear it repeatedly now: Home is becoming a platform for games as well as a social network for gamers. And this is great — it gives the community more to enjoy. But if more emphasis is to be placed on gaming experiences, then the state of Home’s games does indeed bear closer scrutiny. Why is it that some games in Home succeed, and others — with nearly identical business models — seem to fall by the wayside?
Example. Dragon’s Green is an aesthetically beautiful space. I love the atmosphere, the twittering birds, the huge trees, the waterfall, and the butterflies floating everywhere. I liked it the minute I saw it. I thought it was the closest thing to a fantasy land that Home had come up with at the time. It is an incredible work of art, but it has one fatal flaw:
No one goes there anymore.
How many of you have ever played Dragon’s Green golf in Home? How many of you bought the five-dollar game upgrade to play beyond the first three holes and own the game forever, like I did? Now, how many of you still play the game? I haven’t played in over a year.
What is it about some games in Home, that even though we buy them, we lose interest in them surprisingly quickly? I’m sure quite a few of you have experienced buyer’s remorse at times when you bought a game and didn’t like it afterwards for whatever reason, or you got into it a bit and just never finished it.
Personally, the reason I stopped playing Dragon’s Green is that it got too repetitious. Once you had gone as far as you could with it, there was nothing left to do any more. Compounding the matter, it got too hard for me to finish it; some of the shots are downright impossible, and I lost interest quickly after trying to get them accomplished over twenty or thirty tries. There is nothing worse than a frustrated gamer, particularly in the world of social gaming where there are so many potential time sinks to enjoy.
In researching this article, most of the feedback I got on this particular space was along similar lines. This is another sign that points to what the major problem is with these types of games, or even some of the public spaces in Home: they fail because they stay the same.
Think about it. A disc-based title is a self-contained experience designed to last anywhere from a few hours to potentially hundreds of hours. This can be extended somewhat with downloadable content (which also helps the developer generate additional revenue when faced with the bleak picture the secondary market paints). But there’s still an average lifespan to a typical game. Home, on the other hand, has to have games which more or less self-perpetuate; they have to be just as interesting years from now as they are today.
By contrast, Sisyphus had it easy.
The easiest way, it seems, to keep Home’s population coming back to the same game experience is to periodically update and expand it. Granted, this is doubtlessly an expensive proposition; but change equals happy customers and more revenue down the road. Sometimes the old aphorism is very true: you have to spend money to make money.
Sodium2 is a great example of the value of developer upgrading: it is always busy. Always. And the same is true of Novus Prime. Even though Sodium One is basically the same as it always has been, it has gathered a loyal crowd who enjoy the simple mini games there and their associated rewards. They change the store items you can buy with your credits occasionally, and unless you bought the Salt Shooter game, you need to become a continually Vetoxaded scorpion stomper to get the rewards you want. This is what brings many people back, time and again.
An alternative, of course, is to put together really simple games that are proven to be good time sinks in real life. Mass Media’s Midway offerings as well as Digital Leisure’s Casino prove that fairly simple, repetitive gaming experiences — whether for good or bad — work extremely well in Home.
Empty and forgotten
Another failed game, and one that has already been removed, was Conspiracy. It was a freemium game, just like Dragon’s Green is, but you could only go so far without investing in the game. I must admit I tried it the one time I could for free, and beat the level it had; then I never went back until I decided to include it in this article, and was surprised when I returned there that I was the only person present in the space.
You would think that people who knew the place was leaving would have been flocking there to say goodbye and play through one last time, but that was not the case. This leads me to believe that they didn’t think it was worth another playthrough; all of the rewards were won, so they just let it go without a whisper. I asked a few friends about their experience with the game and why they stopped playing; they told me much the same as before — they kept waiting for the upgrade. They kept waiting for something to change. And it never happened.
So where do we go from here? What can a developer do to create and maintain a loyal following of users for their games in Home?
I think the answer is simple in princple, and perhaps harder to implement: keep it interesting. Even if you choose not to change the game itself for whatever reason, be it financial or otherwise, at least change the rewards available for the playing of it. This will not only bring the old players back to get them, but it will tell all of the players, new and old, that you care enough about the games to want them to thrive and grow. This small change alone will keep people coming back — and if it happens at regular intervals, they likely will continue to do so, and they will tell their friends (who will come too), which means a good chance of continued revenue from new sales for upgraded games and their various accoutrements.
- A model for success
This brings us to an interesting question, which HomeStation has asked before and it bears review: are rewards necessary for a successful gaming endeavor in Home?
It is rewards that drive people in Home to go to various places; this sort of herd mentality, for better or worse, just plain works with social games. Only three percent of Zynga’s audience spends any money, but that’s still three percent of three-hundred-million people. Home isn’t all that different, so why don’t developers who know this use this tool more frequently to maintain interest? Are the net margins, after development, marketing and associated costs, so narrow that it’s hard to justify?
Ask yourself this: how many people do you know who go to the Lockwood Showcase every day to get the new rewards they offer until they have them all? How many go to the theaters for the same reason, even if they don’t care about the content of what they have to watch to get them?
I hope that when they consider creating new gaming experiences for Home they build in a series of different rewards that are time-locked like the ones the Dream Yacht had, but instead of unlocking over a period of days they would be locked for a few months, to be released as those who play the games beat the different levels involved. If people knew this was the case beforehand through promotional marketing, the game would gain and maintain a regular clientele.
A wild alternative — which may not even be feasible within Home’s architecture — is to craft a fairly simple game in Home which has a level editor for the community to utilize in order to craft and upload their own levels for others to play. If any of you remember that wonderful classic game Lode Runner, this is exactly what Doug Smith did. By crafting a game in Home in which the users are responsible (and encouraged) for updates, the development cost is likely dramatically reduced (it would likely just be a matter of testing user-designed levels to make sure they work), and the community would have a new venue for user-generated content.
If this sounds far-fetched, keep in mind it already exists in Home: the Buzz! HQ quizzes.
(NorseNote: if you really want to monetize it, one potential method is to charge users a one-time upload/service fee — perhaps twenty-five cents — for every level they wish to upload. If this sounds crazy, it does actually work. When Otto Preminger was filming Exodus, he needed to have thousands of extras for a particular scene. Knowing that this wasn’t in the budget, he advertised, “BE IN A MOVIE: FIFTY CENTS.” And, by God, it worked. He actually made money while in production, and since the people had paid to be there, they were remarkably well behaved.)
With the present limitations on Home’s social functionality (at least when contrasted to something more specialized like Second Life), it falls to Home’s gaming experiences to make up the difference. And no one wants to see a developer drop a ton of money into a game which ultimately ends up abandoned less than a month after its deployment. Hopefully, after more than three years of open beta, there is now sufficient data and consumer behavioral analysis to divine patterns of what works and what doesn’t in PlayStation Home.
February 15th, 2012 by Burbie52 | 19 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
“Please do not take this comment out of context & try not to read into it as a comment associated directly from Sony”; As a veteran Home User, Conspiracy player & current HCV. I found this article very insightful & enlightening, partly the reason that no one was visiting the Conspiracy space was due to the fact it was flat out broken, due to the All-Access pass no longer functioning as it should, people were posting in the forum’s wanting to know when the space would be fixed (I for one had started such a thread, with many other’s following after). It’s nothing really against Sony per se’, due to the fact Conspiracy in & of itself was a 3rd party title. So when the space stopped working, Surmising the situation possibly, The Home management team was put in an awkward position, “Try to get it fixed, or remove said space & offer a refund to everyone”. Obviously, Jet-Set games couldn’t do anything about it for one reason or another, so the decision to remove said space was made.Dis-Claimer; “Please note, I am only Musing out loud & I “Do Not speak for Sony”, these are only my thoughts & my thoughts alone”.
Hey, I came here to check out the Valentine party at Scorpio.
I too bought the Dragon’s Green ticket when I first arrived. But then I too stopped playing for basically the same reason you did, it wasn’t busy, and it was hard to play.
It really is scary entering a space with no one in it. It’s like walking into a restaurant with no one in it. It feels dead, and you are just as likely to turn around and leave in those situations.
Reading your article, I was reminded of my time working in retail. I worked in an independent bookstore and we were constantly changing things around to keep them fresh. My boss at the time told me that in retail displays and whatnot last for maybe two weeks before they get stale. I think it is the same kind of thing here on Home except the time line for things getting stale is probably way shorter.
I think perhaps companies who come on Home need to treat it exactly like a retail space, and people who come to their spaces as guests and customers.
By keeping their spaces fresh and up to date it encourages people to return. And making them feel welcome, it encourages you to return.
Also the use of free items as loss-leaders is critical for companies success here on Home. A loss-leader is of course something retailers sell at a lose because it encourages customers to spend money on other things they can make money off of.
There is a restaurant I frequent in my home town and one of the reasons I go back is that the owner will often buy his customers drinks at the end of there meal. I know from my perspective such gestures make me feel special, like the owner was glad to have me. It makes the whole experience positive and you bet it makes me want to return.
Lockwood practices the same practice and you can bet it works. I know that I keep going back to Lockwoods showroom everyday to see what’s new, and get the new rewards. Plus, the gifts they give out are very well thought out. For example, the Valentine’s gift were great. The Romantic Table and Chair were awesome and work well in a number of different spaces I own. By using loss-leaders like this Lockwood encourages people to actually spend real money which I have, I actually think I’ve spent the most at Lockwood.
Lockwood’s showcase room is the closest thing on Home to and actual department store. It is great to go there and checkout their displays because it give you ideas for things for your own space.
Aurora is another space I frequent often, again it is because it encourages people to return on a daily basis. They set-up retail point in these places where you can buy stuff. They let you play games, but if you want to excel at them you can buy various add-on to improve your performance. All these things add-up to dollars in the bank.
Quite frankly, every major gaming company should be doing more of this kind of thing. I’m surprised SquareEnix is more of presences here on Home. It would be awesome to own a personal space inspired by there Final Fantasy Games.
It is heartening to see Marvel here on Home. It has the potential to do some awesome stuff and I look forward to seeing what they some up with.
There are an awful lot of t-shirts on Home, which are okay, because at least it something. But sometimes I feel they lack creativity.
I believe the Primarch’s Vigilarium personal space was inspired by the Final Fantasy series.
I was aware of the Primarch’s Vigilarium, I’m simply pointing out that given SquareEnix’s stature, you’d think they’d have a larger presence on Home.
Dragon’s Green the demo was fun however I did not buy it because I did not know how to play it well. One of those games with too many buttons!!!
Who knows why some games are likable and others some. Personal preference in many cases. I prefer baseball even though I’m not good at the games unless they have a manager mode.
NBA 2K12 has the old 94 controls for those who prefer to play that way. And hey! Simple controls allow someone very good to play against someone who isn’t, like me or a little kid.
And if all else fails, set up the game, create players and set the controls to the center position and watch the team you created. It is an option.
And people are going to often go where their friends or others go. The Dolphy game was something I enjoyed until I tired of it, perhaps in part to glitching? Maybe I’ll go back and see how things are.
Right now I am having fun in the winter Central Plaza trying the rid the alien Hunters because they’re destroying any chance of us getting Central Plaza.
Now!!! You shut the heck up and play the game(s) the way you wish. I’ll do what I enjoy.
OK? OK
I meant NHL 2K12 has the 94 controls. But I like both the hockey (go Wings!) and the basketball enough to fool around with.
OK? OK
Great article, Burbie.
I think the biggest failure of all Home games has to be Ooblag’s Alien Casino. Has anyone even continued playing after unlocking the alien costume?
Dragon’s Green and Conspiracy never appealed to me; either due to their freemium nature, or my lack of interest in the rewards offered (really, an enchanted tree costume?). I now regret not having given Conspiracy more of my time, however.
In my opinion, Novus Prime and the two Sodium games are the best gaming experiences currently available on Home, and well worth the occasional expense for upgrades.
I love pie! SlapHappy, anyone? Anyone? Hello, hello, hello? *SIGH*
Great read! We’re honored that so many players find Novus Prime engaging enough to bring them back day after day, and we’re always hard at work on creating content for the next update.
We really focus on rewarding players for putting the time and effort into ranking up in Novus Prime, i.e. earning the full Commander’s Uniform once you reach level 30. Our players asked for more ranks and rewards so we delivered them in our newest update, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. As Home developers, we believe the key to success in Home is listening to your fans. Hasn’t steered us wrong yet.
That was an intersting take on a really good question Burbie, I truly enjoyed reading that.
I’m apparently the exception to all the Dragon’s Green dislike. I do go back and play DG and very much enjoy it.
There’s a couple of things you wrote that I don’t really agree with though. Not sure how one would feel it’s repititous since there are seemingly infinite ways to play any given hole. Plus each hole has 3 ways of completing it to start with.
Nothing left to do? By your own admission you haven’t completed the various objectives yet. Sounds like there’s more to do.
Novus Prime seems the very definition of repitious to me. And yet a large number of people find shooting at enemy ships moving in set patterns over and over and over much more thrilling than I do.
I would agree that perhaps the reason more don’t play DG is it can seem a tad tricky initially. After one gets the controls down there’s a lot one can do to manipulate the ball though.
In DG players can use group chat and play at their leisure. If the ball stops and you need to hit it again you’re given a natural pause in the game and an opportunity to talk. With two, three or four avatars playing together I find DG to be highly social.
Maybe DG just takes too long to play 9 holes and everyone seems to want a game to last a couple minutes.
One factual error though, the DG Golden Ticket is $2.99 and not five dollars. That seems like quite the bargain as far as Home pricing lately too. For the hours of enjoyment I’m getting it’s likely the best thing I’ve ever paid for on Home.
Thanks again for the great article.
PS I’d say sorry to Novus-Cooldown regarding my opinion of Novus Prime but with the money he’s making with that space I don’t think my thoughts much matter.
I think pretty much any game is, by its very nature, repetitive; from the simplest Midway carnival game to the most convoluted RPG imaginable, it’s simply a question of how engrossing that repetition is, and how long you can vary it or scale it up to keep someone hooked.
For some reason(s), certain Home games just seem to have more appeal than others, even when using essentially the same freemium business model. The hard part for any developer, I think, is divining what people will be willing to spend money on.
This, I think, is why video games — just like the motion picture industry — are falling prey to sequelitis and a general lack of innovation at the very top: no one wants to risk their next IP turning into the latest Pluto Nash.
In this regard, Home is a wonderful asymmetric response: the barriers to entry are much, much lower. And social games, as Richard Garriott pointed out in Issue #10, are slowly evolving into experiences which will possibly in time really start to rival more “hardcore” content (certainly, in terms of average user session length, they already do). Coupled with the larger audience penetration, it’s interesting to see where this could go.
When the game originally came out the ticket was $4.99 if it is $2.99 now it has been changed. By repetitious I mean that you play the same holes over and over and still don’t get to complete all of the objectives because some of them are really hard and it gets frustrating to me to have to do that. I am sure there are people who play this game and have beaten it all, I have a friend who likes it as well, but the controls are too hard I think for many and they simply give up trying after several attempts to finish like I did.
To each their own.
i miss my conspiracy..i went there quite often. sniff sniff.
There is a VERY simple reason… because they aren’t Xi… to this day Xi continues to be the one bar by which I judge all other Home games and sadly, as good as so many of the Home games are, none compare.
At all.
I mostly don’t play Home games because it usually takes forever to load and they are usually buggy. I can get pretty much the same experience as MOST Home games with a LOT less hassle than it takes to boot up Home, navigate to a space, wait for it to load… etc… etc..
Great article Burbie. Another great look at a pressing issue in Home today.
Great article Burbie! I agree that in order to keep users to keep playing, the games must either evolve over time or the rewards much change. I thought that was what was supposed to happen to the UFC space, i.e. new rewards would be added or new games too. But the space has remained stagnant for a while now and even worse, I hear the games don’t work anymore. I got the UFC personal space and now all the games in it and the features don’t work (get some kind of server error). Prime example of a mini game that keeps users coming back? The Aurora space. There are several different rewards at various levels and as you reach higher levels, you have to get more and more XP to level up. I got to level 100 a while ago and got a the free Aurora Champion apartment, a very nice reward. Rewards items definitlely offer incentives for users to play mini-games or visit spaces. But yes, you gotta keep things interesting for the users to keep playing.
I visited the Dragon’s Green space once when it first appeared and have never returned. I don’t think I’ve even tried the demo. For whatever reason, it just didn’t appeal to me.
Some cold accuse me of not giving certain games a fair chance but I usually decide within the first 5 minutes of playing a game if I want to keep going.
I tried the Slap Happy Sam demo when it was in Central Plaza and couldn’t wait to get knocked out. Absolutely hated it. I even have the full game pass from a VIP card and have never used it.
Novus Prime bored me to death from the word go. For some reason, I slogged my way through the first few rounds to win the jacket that I’ve never worn. Haven’t returned since then.
Conspiracy held my attention for a while at first but I only used the VIP game pass there once, I believe.
Repetition can’t be the only deterrent. I’ve played Salt Shooter enough to earn Gold VICKIE on 2 accounts. I’ve spent hours on Project Velocity as well, having reaching level 40 in NA and EU months ago. I can’t even imagine how much time I spent racing dolphies, collecting orbs and gathering pickories from Loco Island. The Granzella Downtown space was monotonous with serving and buying drinks but I spent some time there before it was taken down for maintenance. I’m not much of a gamer outside of Home. I figure that most of my Home gaming is based on the rewards that I’d like to earn and the developers that update their spaces with new ones.
I accuse you Liza!
A few games like Dragon’s Green became favorites because I wanted to achieve a top score but overall my Home gaming is mostly based on the rewards too.
Thanks for the correction to my incorrection (?) Burbie lol. I purchased it so long ago I didn’t remember them reducing the price.
Re-thinking DG, maybe the real reason more don’t play it is the lack of good initial rewards coupled with the lack of new, ongoing rewards. Something that could easily be true of many failed Home spaces, the lack of desirable rewards and updating of missions. Do at least one of the two and you got a chance, do both and you should succeed.
Guilty as charged, Trill.
I have played most ever game in Home. Some are better than others but the one game I miss the most is Loco Roco. I with there was a reset option so I could start over again. Or, better yet a sequel personal space. Great article Burbie!