Personal Estates: Have We Reached the Saturation Point?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
There are now eighty-eight personal spaces in Home.
That means that if you have bought all of them, like some people I know, you have spent over $500.00 on this alone. They run the gamut from whimsical to war, from beautiful to ugly, and all the shades in between. If there isn’t something here that suits your fancy, I would be very surprised.
I was speaking to a good friend the other day about the fact that I haven’t bought any new personal spaces since the one Digital Leisure made (the Old West Saloon). I own twenty three spaces that I have actually bought, plus a club and one skin, the free ones we got for the welcome back pack, and the others you can get, like the Bat Cave, Darla’s Den and the Harbour Studio (the last of which we all have). I am at that point where anything new has to be something unique or very special before I would consider a purchase. My friend said much the same, and she is one of those people who has bought nearly every space available. Have we reached the point where those of us who have been in Home for over two years have had enough? I wonder.
Innovative and unique
After mulling this over I decided that the huge market and availability of different spaces isn’t the real issue here. The issue is what is being brought to the table for us to chose from. It is time for the developers to start thinking outside the box on personal space development.
There is one who is already doing this: Juggernaut brought us the very unique Cutteridge estate, and is about to bring us one of the most innovative personal spaces in Home, their MiniBots training arena.
The additions of some of the newer personal spaces in Home, such as the Gothic Cathedral, really made a point for me. Though it is big and well rendered, it has no functionality. No games and its sheer size and the inability to properly decorate it was an immediate turn off for me. Bigger isn’t always better.
Lockwood hit the nail on the head with the Dream Yacht — arguably the best one to come down the pike in a long time — and LOOT did the same with the functionality of their Space Station. But there are more ideas out there to create spaces we will buy, the more unique a space and the more gaming aspects or functionality it has the more it will sell.
One idea I came up with was this: how about creating a space that has a small cottage to decorate, with a huge open dirt yard so that we can create our own gardens? The possibilities are endless here if you think about it. An English-style cottage; it could even have built in window seats and useable bookshelves, perhaps a couch in front of a small hearth, but small so as not to take up too many of our coveted furniture slots. The main focus would be the outside of the space, not the inside.
A Thomas Kinkade in Home?
We already know that outside spaces are possible; look at the Silicon Lounge and Midnight Glade as examples. Size shouldn’t be an issue, as the Silicon is still arguably the biggest space in Home and it is almost all outdoors. So why not make it a daylight scene and allows us to create amazing flower beds and paths? It wouldn’t have to be as big as the Silicon either.
Instead of furniture, sell us different plants, flowers, trees, shrubs, and the like to create our gardens with. We have long been asking for the ability to be more creative in Home; this would feed that need for many, I think, as each garden would be uniquely designed by the owners. You could make it look like a Thomas Kinkade painting, a Japanese garden, any number of combinations. The tools that the developer could create and sell for this use would be endless, as all of these types of gardens are different.
Could we create this?
Speaking of tools: gardens need things like fountains, walkways, sheds, wheelbarrows, gardening tools. Even decorations like the sun-catchers you might see in a real garden. These are all things that could be sold separately at reasonable prices to add to the creations. I see stepping stones of various shapes and sizes that you could add to create paths, possibly even a pond and some benches. All of these elements wouldn’t even need too much in the way of new development, as they would be used like any furniture piece, flooring or ornaments.
As I said before there are many variations that could be used for this concept. How about a farmhouse, or a small Japanese house like the one already done, but with the ability to create the gardens yourself, or a vegetable garden in the case of the farm? The possibilities here are many. All it takes is for a developer in Home to take the idea and run with it. I am sure they can think of more things than I can to make this even more creative like weather changes, or perhaps a day/night cycle. These would be nice additions, but not necessary to make this type of space really desirable.
Would you like to walk here?
I know for sure that I would buy a space like this, as I could change my garden anytime I wished to something else just by buying and utilizing new things in its creation. It feeds the spark in all of us to do something unique and individualistic, make something our own, like in the way we decorate our spaces. I believe it would sell like crazy. My friend said she would buy it in a heartbeat.
This is just one idea of many I am sure that all of you who are reading this could come up with. What do you think about this? Do you think the market is too saturated with mediocre spaces now?
June 22nd, 2012 by Burbie52 | 14 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.
$500 in private places… when your aware that the deco itself will probably cost you a couple times the cost of the space…
I have around a dozen places. I use 3 or 4 max. I would love to have them all. Dont we all? But theres a point where an empty box is an empty box. No matter how good looking is the box. Nice suggestion about the exterior and garden. Not sure i’ll spend a fortune on that but i can surely see a couple hours of fun. We’ll need more floor item. Stone walkway of different type. or dirt. Why not an active item soil? Feed it, water it and with time see it changes, grow.
Maybe Tycoon can give us that? Who knows!
Active soil is interesting, they have already done that as an unlockable in the Loco Island space where you grow a plant to harvest and have to water it, so we know it is possible. Perhaps they could build in areas of the space near the house like flower beds that were like that, or even flower boxes that hung under the windows. It would keep people coming back to make it grow, just like the dolphy space did with the dolphins. Maybe they could even have the plants die if you didn’t come at least once a week after they grew to water them, lol. There are so many ideas and possibilities here.
That would be cool.
Some nice ideas in there Burbie, as always. I can’t sayId be too bothered with a garden myself but then, I’ve recently noticed how much plantlife I use in my general interiors only lately. So who knows, I could end up really liking it! What baffles me is why they’ve still not given us the basic choices that the original Studio does -- wallpaper. I’m pretty sure all the companies that do spaces are missing out on this one fundamental (might seem trivial) thing. But imagine, how much money could be made from Killzone wallpaper, Uncharted wallpaper, Wipeout, Flower, flOw, Modern Warfare, GoW, Tomb Raider… I could go on and on really, but just think for a second about how many cool images that would lend themselves so perfectly to wallpaper in that tiny list. Not only would that bring in plenty of pretty pennies for the organisations attatched to each of these examples, but it could be a great (and subconcious) way of advertising new IPs and games within personal spaces. I know a lot of people would claim they are very happy about the escape of Home advertising when going personal, but it could be done in a rather less intrusive way than a giant BUY ME sign slapped across your walls.
Oh, and carpets too! Sorry if I’m taking this un the wrong direction Burbie, it’s a bad habit of mine. Umm, so yeah, back to plants people! Go!
Actually the wallpaper idea is kind of interesting. Being able to change the colors of walls is a good one, though some spaces have glass or wood walls where it wouldn’t work. I like the themed wall paper idea though, hey they give us that to redo our XMB don’t they?
Indeed they do, and I distinctly remember seeing game-themed wallpaper in the Studio apartment when it was being shown by its (kind of) creator Phil Harrison way back in 2007. This is why I’m so confused over its non-existence! True that glass or wood effect walls would have to be left out of the loop but just imagine the personal touches we could make with that kind of thing. In fact Burbie, you just gave me an idea!
What if we could use pictures from our HDD to use as wallpaper like we do with picture frames? Now that would be total personal freedom of decoration in our personal spaces!
Ooooo nice idea!
I’ve mentioned the wallpaper idea in the past. Along with the on/off light switches, the wallpaper menu makes the Harbour Studio one of the most customisable spaces on Home. And that’s pretty sad when you think about it.
The days of buying personal apartments because they have nice scenery are over. As the article mentions, there are simply too many spaces that offer lovely scenery and nothing else. I’m not sure that I’ll buy another personal space unless it offered some functionality that appealed to me.
Others have mentioned reviving retired public spaces as personal apartments. That concept could be a goldmine. What Home veteran wouldn’t buy their own Central Plaza? I’d snap up Feva Arena in a second, especially if it included a football-themed game or two.
How I would love to wallpaper or paint over some of that gray cement Sony loves to put into spaces! I might buy more than the one (City Penthouse) that I own.
In Rival world SecondLife, I was fortunate enough to come across a sort of ‘Private Space’ (Though it is a public one) It was a recreation of a ‘Beatles’ Recording Studio. Painstakingly recreated by a German Player. (On SL, their world is shaped by other players and not developers, although the developers give them the land of which to build on and the tools) The ‘House’ features the authentic art deco of the time. And three floors of which to explore. A classic Beatles soundtrack plays in the background as you walk, room to room, one room features an entire wall full of classic album cover art. While other rooms feature intimate photographs of Band members throughout the years and the famous white piano from which John Lennon sang the emotional message ‘Imagine’ sits in a lonely corner of the room.
It did make me think..Why can’t HOME have something like this.
There is an educational value in it as well as being a collectors item for hardcore fans. I’m sure there are lots of ‘Beatles’ fans who are gamers
Another great idea!
Developers now are really going to have to ‘up’ their game if they are going to bring something special as a private space on Home.
Great article! I think an interactive garden would be really cool. Imagine the possiblities and creative ways you could design them. I own several spaces but mainly use like 2 or 3 of them. I appreciate when Home gives a preview of a space because then you can tell if this is something you may like. A few times I got burned by a space that looked really cool and it really wasn’t so great. Since I own so many spaces, if a new space was to come out it would have to be spectacular and blow my mind just because I have spent a ton of money. I would totally be into a space that had a creative garden.
Personal spaces need to go in the direction of video game levels, with different zones that can be loaded and unloaded. You could have a very large space with two zones that are separated by a couple seconds of loading time, allowing Home to unload the area you are coming from, to load the next area. Even though the previous area is unloaded, your furniture layout is still saved, so it’ll all appear properly when you return. You’d also have a chat channel that covers the entire space, so guests can be in a different zone and still chat with you.