PlayStation Home Mansion Redux
by Orion_NGC1976, HSM team writer
Even when the Home Mansion was first released, I was not interested in purchasing it for a number of reasons. But recently, I was asked an interesting question concerning purchasing the mansion. It wasn’t just a question of why not, but a question of what would it take to get me to buy the mansion.
This got me thinking about the reasons why I hadn’t purchased any of the mansion parts. To reevaluate these reasons, to envision what would need to change in order for me to change my mind and seriously consider purchasing the mansion, I needed to take a second look at the PlayStation Home Mansion.
Thinking back to the time just before its release, I can remember all the pre-release excitement; people were constantly asking if I had seen it yet, and advising me to contact so-and-so to see. I believe that the mansion was the first public space to be previewed to the general public with personal tours, so there was a lot of excitement in Home even before it was available.
The foyer to an extent reminded me of the Beverly Hillbillies mansion, with the marble floors and the grand staircase. There was a tiger circling at the entrance, growling. At that moment, I thought, “I had to have that tiger.” Unfortunately, the tiger was not a companion like the Neptune apartment’s companion, which followed its owner. Sadly, the tiger only moved in a preprogramed pattern and the novelty of it wore off quickly.
The same was with the golden rewards. At first, I filled my little studio apartment with all the golden furniture. After about a week of staring at practically nothing but the same bright yellow, I had to change it (yellow isn’t even close to a color scheme that I prefer). Even leaving a gleaming small picture frame up seemed to stand out too much.
A Purr-fect Foyer
The space was a good size with foyer, kitchen, living room with TV (which now doesn’t work for some reason), dining room and hallway.
The space also came with preinstalled and permanently placed furniture. This is nice for someone who doesn’t want to spend money to furnish their mansion, but does little to allow one to personalize their mansion and make it different from everyone else’s.
I ran up the stairs but they led nowhere. I found this very odd; such grand stairs and there was no upstairs. You could look out at the pool outside, but you couldn’t go there. I couldn’t help but feel that the space was incomplete.
I learned that it was indeed incomplete and that there were more pieces to be released in the coming months. The pricing structure would be $14.99 for the first piece, $9.99 for the second piece, and $4.99 each for the remaining two pieces.
If one purchased all of the mansion pieces, it would be a total of $34.96 and the first one, no matter which one you purchased, would be $14.99. None of the spaces on Home even approached the price for the first piece of the mansion. At nearly $35 for the complete mansion, it should do something really phenomenal. Instead it lacked even simple extras, like appliances, that could be opened.
I visited the other pieces as they were released. I was less impressed with the second floor. It did have a game room with built-in games, but one can purchase these games and place them in any of your spaces, not just the Mansion in a predefined spot.
What caught my eye was Ellie May Clampett’s “Cement Pond” – the Infinity Pool. Out of all the mansion spaces, it is the Infinity Pool that had the most to offer and appealed the most to my tastes. Along with the pool and patio was an outdoor dining area by a fireplace, a fountain, and a covered bar area. I wanted to get it, but I found it a “hard sell” to spend about $15 for a backyard without any house, no matter how nice it looked.
In fact, the largest obstacle preventing me from purchasing any one of the parts of the Mansion was that none of them felt complete enough to justify paying the first $15.
Even if I did buy all the pieces of the mansion, afterwards I would feel like I just had a bunch of pieces and not any integrated whole unit. After all, it is one mansion, and it should feel like that. All the more so because it is a mansion.
Patio and Pool Area
If one guest wants to see a different part of the mansion, you cannot leave your other guests to show another part of your mansion. You cannot move freely through your mansion as if it was one coherent structure. If you go inside from the pool, everyone will be kicked out of the pool unceremoniously and sent back to their studio apartments.
The Hollywood Hills House space offers a decent sized pool area with a Jacuzzi along with a two-story house, all for only $4.99. Hollywood Hills isn’t as large as the mansion, but it is a complete package. Your guests can move freely from the house to the pool. If some guests decide to sit inside and watch Crackle, they can, while others are enjoying themselves poolside.
Although I am turned off by the velvet rope elitist taunting, it is not a reason for me to snub my nose at the Mansion and not buy it. This is an artificial elitism created around a false perception of wealth. It is not that I can’t afford to buy the Mansion; it is that I choose not to buy it for various reasons.
Pseudo-elitism can be created around anything that only a few have. Those who play Batman: Arkham Asylum have the Batcave space. Those who have caught all the fish in the “Go-Fish” game have the Underwater apartment. Elitism could be created around these spaces or any other limited items or spaces.
I am all for VIP lounges and exclusive areas in Home, but unfortunately it brings out the most childish behavior in people on both sides of the rope, which is a topic worthy of its own article.
The exclusives for Mansion owners are not compelling enough to overcome the shortcomings of the Mansion.
While exploring the question of me buying the Mansion, I asked a few of my friends why they had purchased the mansion. The most common answer was to gift their friends. One friend only buys spaces that gives her visitors rewards, no matter how minor the gift may be. She loves giving away stuff.
The rewards feature is not an option that would sway me one way or the other to purchase the mansion. In fact, if it would reduce the price, I would get rid of the gifting feature entirely. Why should I be giving away stuff that I wouldn’t want? Besides, if this feature is the only reason why some people are buying it, then the question must be asked, why wouldn’t they buy it without the gifting feature?
Gilded Appliances
So, back to the question: what would it take for me to buy the Mansion?
I think the biggest change required for me to buy Mansion would be to change the structure of the Mansion; make it a complete piece. This would be imperative for me; as it is now, it’s a deal breaker. Even though all the spaces have a common decor, they still are separate distinct spaces. This sectioning of the mansion reduces its grandeur as a mansion and gives it a smaller feel — say, that of a hotel.
Since they are distinct spaces, would you ever invite people over to the garage space (other than to give away the rewards)? I have been invited once to the Mansion garage and it was only because they wanted a big, open, well-lit space for the Halloween cauldron game.
If you invite people to the second floor to play pool and darts in the game room, now you feel trapped in that part of a building.
Some the spaces will never get used because they are just a part, and a part that is not frequently used, like the front courtyard and garage, or the second floor.
If it is a technical issue for why the spaces can’t be combined, then the Mansion could be made smaller and then combined. Having one combined space is of greater need than merely size. The value of the many rooms in the mansion is greatly reduced by the unmovable predefined furniture and the inability to move with friends between parts.
Lockwood’s Dream Yacht and LOOT’s Space Apartment are two examples of large spaces that are still one space, but yet span multiple floors and areas. Of course, these two spaces came about a year later and technical changes may have been made to make it possible for larger personal spaces. Therefore, there is probably no reason now why Sony couldn’t collapse the Mansion pieces into one space.
(Imagine this: Your guests spawn outside at the front door and the doorbell sounds. You come to the front door and it opens, allowing your guests to enter. You greet them and tell them that most of your guests are out at the pool, some are upstairs playing pool and darts, while others are just hanging out in the foyer talking and dancing. You also inform them that there is food in the dining room. They decide to go poolside and you check on check on the food in the oven in the kitchen. It still needs some time so you mingle with your guests with your pet tiger at your side, as he rubs his head against your side.)
The second thing that would need to change is its aesthetics. The decor just doesn’t appeal to me. Like I said earlier, yellow is one of my least favorite colors. The fact that they are supposed to be made of gold does not make it any better. Kitchen appliances made of gold? I guess that they would only be gold plated on the outside, but still, the gaudiness is an eyesore for me. Get rid of three quarters of the gold bling and add genuine elegance.
The third thing to change would be to have a furniture package bundled with it instead of predefined furnishings. Everyone wants to be able to arrange furniture the way they would like to have it; give it their personal touch. Some rooms are really cluttered with predefined furniture, where adding any personal accents would only add to the cramped feeling of the space.
Front Courtyard
Lastly, it would be the price of nearly $35. Even if it was all combined in one space and was very aesthetically pleasing, I would have a very hard time spending that much on a virtual personal space. For that price, there would need to be a lot of features added to the space; opening and closing kitchen appliances, tiger companion that follows you around, a car in the garage that you could drive around, TVs that worked, a diving board for the pool, Jacuzzi in the pool area, a Jacuzzi in the master bedroom bath, a guest room, etc.
In Home, premium spaces are topping out around $10. At the most, I would pay $15 for a premium space, but that space would need to offer quite a bit for me to spend that much.
I can see why from a marketing strategy why Sony would split the Mansion up into bits; not everyone may want all the pieces, and if they did, it would be like paying in installments. The bottom-line is still $35 for the Mansion (of course, this price may vary, if you received the garage as part of the Welcome Back package).
To recap what it would take for me to buy the mansion:
- The mansion must be one space.
- The mansion must be more aesthetically pleasing and less gaudy.
- No baked-in furniture. Allow the owner to decorate the mansion the way they want.
- Reasonably priced.
I suspect the odds of the Mansion itself being altered are fairly slim, but hopefully this offers some insight which can be put to good use the next time another experiment like this inevitably arises.
May 4th, 2012 by Orion_NGC1976 | 15 comments
Father, husband, dolphy racer and sometimes Home world traveler.
GREAT ARTICLE! I so agree with everything you’ve said. I have held out on buying it for the same reasons. I enjoy decorating my spaces, and I hate that you have to leave to got to each floor. It is such a hassle. etc… Thank You Orion. Well stated!
Okay, let’s say you are the developer. You want the tiger to follow you around, that could easily be done. Now does the tiger have collision? Because if he does, he will block your movement. You turn around and you cannot move because their is a tiger in the way. He might pin you in a corner so you cannot move. And if you remove the collision, the testing department will throw it back at you and tell you to put it back.
You want to reduce the gaudiness. How will that effect sales? Will they be higher or lower? There seems to be a big market for anything hip-hop or gangster. And the Mansion definitely has its “Scarface” moments.
You don’t like the baked in furniture, others loved it. How do you resolve that? And you can see some of the furniture through a window from the pool. If people placed their own furniture, it would have blown continuity.
All four spaces maxed out the memory limits of the time. So even with a dynamic loading/unloading system, it could not have been done. And BTW, it would take at least 4 times as long to load if you could do it. Possibly way more if the space kept getting bumped out of the local cache because it was so big.
Reasonably priced obviously is negotiable. I feel the first space cost is high. But when you average out the cost of all 4 spaces, it is reasonable. They still are some of the best spaces in Home.
People were haters of x7 and yet that made the Top Ten for selling short term tickets. Cutthroats was a huge win and didn’t place anything in the Top Ten. It is hard to say for sure what will sell and what won’t. I thought that the crowd that would go into x7 would also own the Mansion.
Pop music is called that because it is popular. Yet many people say it should be less sugary sweet. Are they right? Are they making it for themselves or to sell to others? David Bowie, hardly a sell out, once was asked if money ever came into his equation when creating music. He said he couldn’t speak for other artists, but he made music for a living. If he wasn’t making money, he wouldn’t be making music, he would be doing something else.
All that said, I think there is room for another Mansion. It is odd that going to another part of the same space kicks people out. Maybe it would have worked better for some as a Club.
I hope if they are working on a new Mansion, they read this article and think about what you said. Your points are all valid. I imagine they will learn and improve the next one where they can. Improvements are coming fast now. I am still looking at all the things in 1.65.
John thank you for you comments.
I do not have the knowledge of a programmer of great Home stuff like you, so I can only go by what I have seen on Home.
I believe that the tiger could work in the same manner as the floating robot pet in the Neptune apartment. There is an area where the pet resides. When enter that area it begins to follow you. If you go back to that area it will stop following you. If you happen to get yourself cornered by the robot, I believe it recognizes when you come near to it and it moves out of the way. I don’t see why the tiger couldn’t behave in the same manner.
Personal tastes is a tricky one for sure, but if a segment of your market is ignored, they will eventually leave or worse stop buying things. So how do allow one to easily skin or personalize the look of the space. Even though it was limited in the number of selections, I really like the ability to change the wallpaper in your studio apartment. I like subdued, dark colors, so slate works great for me. For others this would probably be too drab. The Mansion could have similar approach with different themes: hip-hop, classical, etc., where statues, appliances, etc. could have a different look.
To have baked in furniture it not is another trickery one. I would like to see survey numbers on this (maybe I will create one in the Sony forum). The preference may be divided along gender lines. Almost all of my female friends are very proud at showing me how they have decorated such-and-such place. I understand that some on a budget may prefer baked in furniture, much like a furnished apartment, but this is a mansion. I am rich, why should I have a limited ability in decorating it. Doesn’t make sense to me.
I acknowledge that if these things were incorporated it would probably drastically increase load time and may not even be possible under current memory contraints, but larger spaces have been released recently.
You have peeked my interest in what 1.65 might bring to Home in the future.
Thank you for your comments from your vantage point as a developer.
My goal was just to give you a taste of how being a developer you don’t have the wide open options you do as a reviewer. The reason a robot works following you around and a tiger does not is that the robot can float away in any direction and looks natural. Spinning a tiger on its axis would look odd. And insuring there is enough room for a tiger to spin is hard. And what do you do if there is not enough room? Tigers are big. That is why I did a Robotic Canine instead of a real dog.
Your points are all correct and need to be considered. The hard part as a developer is you pick doing things one way and people second guess you for years to come. I don’t mind that. I just want to make sure that the reviewers understand that the whole world is not possible to us as it is to them. There are always time and money restrictions which are easy to forget about when brainstorming.
There are no bad ideas when brainstorming. And articles like this one help a lot when creating the next generation. Nice work!
That makes entire sense about the size of the tiger and making it look natural.
There are adult tiger companions available in Home now. I have been tempted to purchase one, but have not had the time to check it out.
The thing that drove me crazy was the skating -- their feet move, but they don’t. I am obsessed with making things look real. Others are not. They think I go to far. Maybe they are right. For me an animal spinning on its axis and walking in place look bad. I know not everyone agrees, but I gotta be me.
If they would create a castle instead of a mansion this time without the total immersion of furniture and separate pieces with a few castle type games built it, it would sell like hot cakes. They would have to stay away from the gaudy stuff and add a furniture bundle to match the setting, but I think it would be a big hit. A defend the castle type game would go over well I think, look at how popular the one at Abstergo labs still is. It would be even better if it could emulate Cutthroats and have two teams pitted against each other.
I forgot about the castle. Yes Home needs one with a “Storm The Castle” game.
I would like to have a castle. I would be great to have a defend/storm the castle game. There was one in the Japan region, but is now gone.
I want a castle, too. Can it be pink, please?
Great article. I too think the Mansion should be one big space. How annoying for guests to be sent back to their spaces if you go to another part of the mansion. It should all flow. Last year after Home came back online, they gave us the garage space of the mansion. I never decorated it or spent time there. One of my main reasons for never purchasing the rest of it, was the high cost. I think it needs it’s price lowered or to become one unit. Then maybe I’d consider buying more of it!!
It wasn’t the price that turned me off really, though I do think it was a bit too high for what you received. It was the ability to truly make the space your own through decorating. A few baked in pieces are fine by me, preferably along the outside areas, like tables or perhaps dressers, as long as they can have things placed on the flat surfaces, those are fine. But I agree that even adding ornament to this space as it is laid out can make it look too crowded. The feeling of continuity that Deuce spoke of because you can see the furniture through the windows is a small price to pay for the ability to decorate how you choose to.
This is why I never bought the space when it originally came out, coupled with the golden gaudiness of it, it turned me off completely.
I agree that the pool area is the only one I would ever have considered buying at all. it at least seemed to be more open and easier to add your own touches to.
If they would tone down the gaudiness, take some of the furniture out of the center of the areas and add some more less gaudy furniture I might consider buying one of these pieces.
Loved the article by the way Orion, it needed to be said.
Love it Orion, I personally hate baked in anything, and would much prefer the option to buy furniture bundles designed for the space itself. Even an option to purchased furnished or unfurnished would rock my world
@ deuce_for2: I *love* the robotic canine. Thanks!
@ Orion_NGC1976: As soon as the Mansion was announced, I wanted it because of the connectivity. Well, that hasn’t worked out as I thought it would. Sigh. I thought maybe it would be the beginning of add-ons for some other spaces: a lower floor living space for the Harbour apartment, scuba areas at some beach spaces, garden access for some houses. I’m sure each of us could make a long list. As to the price … well, if it were truly a seamless connection for host and guests between areas, it would be worth it. I keep my fingers crossed.