LOOT Introduces A Weather Balloon Which Reflects Light From Venus Via Some Swamp Gas
Information provided by Sara Stephens, LOOT Production Coordinator; commentary by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
If there’s one thing we should all remember about Home: when a developer goes relatively quiet, it’s because they are cooking up something awesome.
Case in point: Juggernaut. They release the Cutteridge Estate, and then more or less disappear off the radar for months. What do they come back with? A third-person shooter crammed inside an active item. That’s Home’s equivalent of putting a thermobaric bomb inside a shoebox. Righteous meaty babyfist.
Same thing goes for Hellfire Games. If you put together a shortlist of Home’s top games, Novus Prime would be on that list. Period. They pop up, unload a whole bunch of awesomeness, and then quietly return to work, figuring out even more ways to (successfully) pull money out of my wallet.
Think of any major third-party Home developer; with the exception of Lockwood, which somehow produces something every single week (nearly all of it remarkably awesome), most developers take turns revealing the Hot New Thing each week. And, in an increasingly competitive marketplace, the spoils of war go to the developers who can truly create something which isn’t just hot, but supernova.
Right now, LOOT has that Hot New Thing: Men In Black.
From Sara Stephens, LOOT Production Coordinator: “On May 2nd, 2012, the Men in Black are coming to PlayStation Home! Sony Pictures Consumer Products, in partnership with Activision, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony DADC LOOT, have joined forces to bring the MIB Headquarters to HOME! Help agents Jay and Kay protect the Earth from the scum of the universe by monitoring alien activity! Play our quiz to find out if you’re considered an alien or agent in the eyes of the agency! Take photos with your favourite agents, then roam the headquarters for sweet rewards and sneak peeks from the new movie Men in Black 3 and the upcoming video game Men in Black: Alien Crisis!”
In short, Home — first in Europe, and then North America — is set to receive the Men In Black HQ as a public space. You can see pics of it here.
This is made of so much win that a whole server just went D5021 to compensate.
The reason why this is awesome actually has less to do with the space itself and more to do with what it represents. Don’t get me wrong — the photos sent out by LOOT are enough to make you salivate like you’ve just won a date with Jane Goldman. Home is a rather interesting Beach Blanket Babylon tableau of odd characters, and there’s something wholly appropriate about hanging out in the MIB Headquarters with ninjas, pirates, UFOs, hipsters, mobsters, gangsters, Elvis and Jesus.
This, however, is merely the noisy cricket. Let’s get to the series-three de-atomizer.
The real story here is that LOOT, once again, is breaking the fourth wall — in this case, the wall between Home and the rest of the world at large.
I’ll explain. For all of Home’s wonders, they require you to be invested in the world of Home in order for them to feel valuable and significant. What Home desperately lacks is a sense of being connected to the outside gaming and entertainment world.
Imagine you’re brand-new to Home. What’s really going to hook you into staying, and make you feel like you’re in a digital reality that’s part of something larger? The Activity Board? Probably not. Chatting with other users? Doubtful, at least at first. The Mall? No. Absolutely not. Games might do it, but there aren’t any games in Home which can rival a disc-based title — and aside from Cutthroats, Novus Prime and (to a lesser extent) Sodium2, there aren’t any games in Home which play to the communal strength of Home.
No, what really hooks you are elements of the virtual reality which in some way tie back to the outside world. And LOOT’s the best at this.
Remember, you’re brand new to Home. You don’t know anyone. You have no keyboard. You’re trying to figure out if this bizarre world is worth your time. You’re looking for anything that’s familiar. Video screens showing real-world entertainment programs are the best bet, and thus the LOOT Space Station and the Community Theater are the two most prominent choices. Right behind that — and possibly even more prominent, if tied into a major marketing initiative — are public spaces and events which tie into major game and movie releases.
Someone brand new to Home can go to the Men In Black HQ public space and experience the interface of Home from a familiar setting — a setting which creates a public perception that this “Home” place must be pretty important if somebody spent enough money to so painstakingly duplicate a licensed movie environment in it.
I don’t have any hard data (obviously), but I’ll wager public promotional spaces like this — and I include the previous Total Game Integrations (Killzone 3, Uncharted 3, etc.) — do wonders for Home’s new user retention rates.
LOOT’s consistently brilliant at breaking the fourth wall with Home; whether it’s the Active Camera, the EOD service, the Soundstage estate, the introduction of diurnal controls to personal estates, the introduction of Twitter and Flickr APIs to personal estates, or the development of public spaces with tie-ins to major motion picture releases, they’re just really, really good at making Home more interactive, and deepening the experience as opposed to merely broadening it.
This is, by the way, one of the reasons why I’m horribly envious of them. What they do is not work. Oh, sure, they call it work, and I’m sure they put in ridiculous hours, but let’s recall that I’ve been to their offices in Los Angeles (on my own dime, keep in mind) and witnessed this stuff firsthand; putting together cool commodities for PlayStation Home is “work” in the same way that a Lamborghini Murcielago is “slightly understated.”
And now, with Men In Black, LOOT’s done it again. Can’t wait for this to hit Home.
Keep in mind that you have not actually read about a new Men In Black public space for Home. What you saw was a carefully-constructed practical joke by a rival console manufacturer. Tonight, you’re going to watch some Crackle. In 48 hours, when you hear about Europe getting something cool, you’ll laugh and go back to decorating your Space Apartment. The tooth fairy does not exist, Elvis is dead, and you will finally give the cat a cheeseburger.
Oh, and go to the Mall and pick out something nice for yourself, because…damn.
(Flash.)
This is so awesome, for so many reasons I just hope NA gets the same rewards as EU, from what has been “leaked” it looks like the suits are going to be perfect outfits not just for MIB fans, but Quentin Tarantino fans should know what I am talking about.
Bravo! Excellent article and I’m in total agreement, LOOT totally rocks! They are, hands down, the best at making Home new and exciting every day.
I disagree with the idea that people do not come exclusively to chat. I bought mine for blueray -found home and use it as a means to keep in touch with family that lives far away and friends i have met online. I see the potential for home to become a virtual forum of sorts -- in the classical sense of the word. It is companies like LOOT thatmake me see this as an ever growing and very real possibility. I do not think that HOME is merely for gamers. Though since being introduced to home my 70 year old father has become obsessed with skyrim. LOOT most definitely stretches the bounds of virtual reality a talent that can even be appreciated by the non-gamer.