Why nDreams’ Blueprint:Home Is So Revolutionary
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief, with information provided by Joe Dale, nDreams Digital Product Manager
Yes, yes, yes!
It’s about bloody time.
Let’s run through what Home’s hottest (announced) commodities or experiences for 2012 are: portable EOD, Mercia, Home Tycoon, No Man’s Land, Cutthroats (if they can ever get the problems fixed), PODI, MiniBots…and Blueprint:Home.
I know Sony’s been big on using the #gamechanger hashtag for their Vita initiative — and don’t get me wrong, I certainly hope to see the Vita succeed — but when it comes to PlayStation Home, it’s nDreams that’s delivering the real game changer with Blueprint.
Blueprint:Home is one of the most important commodities ever released into Home — because it actually changes the Home experience. The holy grail of a virtual reality is the ability to allow the user to create his own world and share it with others, and the way to make this work in Home without sacrificing quality control is to offer a basic construct and then tons and tons of permutations. Which, of course, is exactly what Blueprint does.
Consider the impact this is going to have on personal estates. As a market segment, personal estates are saturated — a problem made that much worse by the recent glut of blank-box estates from SCEA that are badly-reskinned copies of each other. Personal estates are static experiences that usually offer little incentive to revisit. The largest consumers of personal estates, as economic blocs, seem to be two groups: interior designers and glitchers. In both cases, the actual buying motive is the same: to use the space as a canvas for meta-gaming. In the case of interior designers, the challenge is to come up with innovative designs to make the space feel unique. In the case of glitchers, it has more to do with the challenge of breaking out of the box.
The message, underneath the surface, is clear: people want to create, and share their creations with others. Virtual realities in general, and Home’s personal estates specifically, should be looked at as places for creative expression; this is the consumer behavior that drives nearly every market segment in a social MMO, aside from pure gaming experiences. And, if we’re honest, it’s where Home has languished; aside from the Community Theater and the Activity Board (the latter of which being an unmitigated disaster), nearly every opportunity for user-created content of some type in Home has come from third-party providers.
This is why nDreams’ Blueprint:Home is so important: it completely revolutionizes an entire market segment in Home. Graphically, can it ever match up to bespoke estates? Probably not. But that’s not the point. Creativity and interactivity are more important to long-term revenue generation than purely graphical horsepower. The real strength of Home — what sets it apart from the rest of the PlayStation gaming world — is that it’s a game experience the user can have a hand in shaping. It astonishes me how Sony has underutilized this blatantly obvious aspect of what drives consumer behavior in Home — seriously, is it that hard to recognize? — and 2012 is the year when Home’s third-party developers are finally filling that void.
With Blueprint:Home, users actually have the ability to create unique estates to show off to others. This is a big, big deal. No matter how inventive someone gets with furniture and interior design with classic estates, it’s still the same basic classic estate that everyone else has. You can only stare at a Summer House so many times. By contrast, with Blueprint, it is entirely feasible — particularly as the number of style packs offered for sale increase — that you will never see the same experience twice.
This is a brilliant bit of preview PR. We’ve already discussed in HSM the wisdom of advance PR and asymmetric marketing to boost anticipation for a hot new commodity, and this walkthrough video really does an outstanding job of thoroughly explaining a new interface and planting ideas on how to use it.
Here’s the big question: what happens to personal estates now? nDreams has effectively butchered, dominated and reinvented this market segment in one bank shot. The days of simply being able to release a pretty setting and gobble up enough sales volume to turn a profit are more or less over.
What it requires is a complete rethinking of what the personal estate is supposed to do. What is it supposed to be? What reason does it have to exist, and why would someone want to buy it?
One answer is to jampack conventional estates with technological innovation. LOOT, in particular, is brilliant at this. The Sunset Yacht is easily the best bang-for-your-buck classic estate in Home, and the Space Station is one of the few premium-priced estates that actually justifies itself.
Another solution is to provide gaming experiences within the estate. Lockwood’s Blaster’s Paradise is worth the price of admission simply because of the TankTop game. Hellfire’s Officer’s Quarters and Hangar justify themselves by offering antigravity physics and a private-server version of Novus Prime. And, of course, let’s not forget that Juggernaut’s MiniBots Battlebox can turn any estate you own into a game. So this is another viable strategy.
The third solution, which I hope to see implemented more frequently, is to treat the private estate itself as an interactive game. The Loco Roco Island personal estate is the best example of this; as an unfolding game, it gave players a reason to return to it for weeks or months on end. The personal estate should be a game experience unto itself which unfolds as you explore it; this would lend itself quite naturally to interlinked apartments, which SCEA already established as feasible.
nDreams’ greatest contribution to Home, then, with Blueprint is something larger: it forces every other developer in Home to innovate an entire market segment. The ripple effect from this commodity will be felt for quite some time to come.
And Blueprint:Home itself? It’s already a hit. You know it. I know it. This isn’t even a question. It’s already a guaranteed hit and it deserves to be. It’s a commodity which deepens the social experience of Home itself, and it helps turn Home itself into a game.
It’s about time.
Blueprint:Home — available in North America, Europe and Asia on August 1st, with Japan on August 8th. I’d tell you to buy it, but you’ve already made up your mind that you’re going to. And we’ll be right there with you.
July 30th, 2012 by NorseGamer | 9 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.
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I am totally amazed and can’t wait for this release. This is going to be a big boon to the machinima makers as well since they will be able to build their sets to match whatever they like.
I have had a house in my head since I was a kid, kind of my dream house, and if it is possible I will be building it here in Home as my first project with Blueprint. This is a way to vicariously do something I have wanted to do for many years. Kudos to NDreams for their ingenuity and expertise.
You touched on a point asking why Sony haven’t already given us the freedom to create our own spaces like Blueprint will. I think you already know though (you’re a smart chap after all) but for the benefit of others I’ll just go ahead and say it; by giving us the tools to create what we truly want from a personal space, nothing a legitimate 3rd party Home developer can make would ever match up quite as well. So through this, money will be lost.
It’s like lego. Why spend money on a toy robot, a toy car, a toy house etc, when with only one versatile toy, you can make them all exactly as you want? Blueprint isn’t just going to light a fire under Home dev space creators, it’s gonna scare the living crap outta them. While we rejoice, they’ll be in complete panic.
Still, looks really good eh! ; )
I almost peed in my pants when I heard it is being released. Then I almost died when I found out it’s released tomorrow! I am an avid decorator in The Sims 2/3(PC Versions)and now since I have joined PlayStation Home, I (sometimes regrettably)buy and buy decorations and decorate my spaces over and over and over again! I am going to abuse this long waited invention called BLUEPRINT!
I don’t even have it yet and I already love it.
I am totally looking forward to playing with this! I’m already planning spaces I want to construct. But I honestly don’t see Blueprint endangering traditional apartment sales, except perhaps for the recent spate of “cookie-cutter” big-box spaces. A developer can still create a sense of place, space and atmosphere we will never be able to achieve with a construction kit. They’re different things, with different purposes.
Blueprint is a game, and a brilliant one — a set of Lego blocks for Home. I totally love the concept. But I don’t expect it to create a new Silicon Lounge, Gothic Cathedral, Cutteridge Estate, Tropical Escape, Primarch’s Vigilarium, LocoRoco Island, Tropical Island Bungalow, Hollywood Hills House, Space Station, Blaster’s Paradise, Nebula Airship, Sunset Yacht… insert your own favorite space here. Even things like the Harbour Studio’s skylight and sea view, or the Hollywood Hills House swimming pool are (currently) beyond its capabilities.
Will new tools come? I’m sure they will. Skylights are an obvious addition. So is some way to dig holes into the platform and fill them with water. Or put up free-standing walls that are not connected into rooms. Or add a second story. Or levitating platforms, connected by stairs and suspension bridges.
I’m sure we will be seeing Blueprint upgrades and expansions for a very long time. But it will still be a Lego set for Home, with all the advantages and limitations that implies. Developers of innovative personal spaces don’t have to worry, as long as they offer something that Blueprint can’t construct. Integrated minigames are an obvious strategy. Let’s get some more of those!
The usual concern about limited furniture slots looks like it could hinder Blueprint. All that space and so many room options look appealing. Decorating it with only 100 items…not so much.
I’m also concerned about spawn points for furniture. Assuming that the space only includes a single spawn point outside of the apartment’s walls, furniture placement could be a hassle. Do we need to build all the rooms with wide entrances and then adjust or eliminate the doorways after adding furniture? It would be sweet if the user could add their own spawn points. I’ll reserve judgment until it’s released.
I might try out the space because it is something original for a change and nDreams deserves credit.
I think SealWyf has expressed it perfectly. For me, it will be fun to play with but I’ll always want more. Also, not addressed: is there a way to save each creation? For example, Loco Island, My Private Hideaway, Tropical Escape, and others offer variations on a theme. Each variation suits a different mood … I don’t want to have to recreate something or lose it for always.
And, yes, I’ll buy it! And almost certainly upgrades when offered. Sigh. Guess which of Norse’s groups I fall into?
As mentioned in past coverage on Blueprint, you will have five save slots.
One big problem, as is.
You can save 5 apartment designs…but only 1 furniture layout. It kind of defeats the purpose of saving 5 apartments. The save slots don’t have much use beyond storing back-up versions of a work in progress.
A major drawback in my opinion. I’m postponing a purchase of this space based on the Forum commentary. It’s not just whining that I’ve read. There are some major question marks regarding the functionality and usefulness of the space. Like many new releases, there seem to be some technical problems as well. I can wait for updates and bug fixes before buying anything.
Should have watched the video more carefully the 1st time. 5 layouts can be saved. They are saved online and can be accessed by Friends.
I’m off to the store.
Free layout to be available in Aurora. Another goodie!