There’s A Corpse In My Room!
by SealWyf, HSM Editor
A few weeks ago, my Comped Hotel Room from Digital Leisure became a crime scene.
This did not surprise me. I had already read about it on the forums. Everyone’s Comped Hotel Room sported a chalked body outline. A month or so before that, the rooms had been vandalized by a burglar. And, before that, they were flooded by a broken pipe. Once the water dried up, they all sprouted a bumper crop of mildew.
All of these changes had generated much discussion, and not a little astonishment. It’s very unusual for a developer to modify a private space that’s already been bought and paid for. The first time it happened was when LOOT added a day/night cycle to the Amaterasu, and renamed it the Sunset Yacht. Juggernaut was next, adding a weather control, a poltergeist and an additional ghost to their haunted Cutteridge Estate. There have probably been small changes in other estates — nearly subliminal aesthetic improvements, or invisible under-the-hood code tinkering. But obvious changes are rare.
Oh noes! Burglars!
Why would a developer spend time and money to improve something they had already sold? One obvious reason is that changes may increase future sales. Sales increase, not only because the apartment has been improved, but because changes generate “buzz” — word-of-mouth advertising among friends or on the forums, which may encourage people to buy the refreshed property.
The changes to the Comped Room are unusual in two respects. First, this is a free space, a promotion for Digital Leisure’s Paradise Springs Casino. Changing the room is not going to generate any revenue through the sale of additional apartments.
The second reason these changes are unusual is that they don’t add anything you would normally see as an improvement, such as EOD or a day/night cycle. They simply set a mood and tell a story, one that can be summarized as “Everything goes wrong with this hotel room!” It’s hilarious, and it definitely creates “buzz”. But you have to wonder why, exactly, Digital Leisure has done it.
Let’s leave the Comped Room for a minute and ask a larger question: Why is change good?
We answer this question by posing a smaller one: How does reality differ from a still picture?
Motion creates the illusion of reality
The answer may seem obvious. But it has layers. The first layer of the illusion of reality is the constant subtle sound and motion of the real world — leaves blowing, traffic passing, the shifting reflections on moving water. These contant small motions are present in nearly every personal estate. They create a sense of motion and shimmer — the breathing of the real world.
There are also passing events on a slightly longer cycle — drifting clouds, flocks of birds, schools of fish, passing space ships — the small, slightly periodic events that give a virtual world life and motion.
But reality has longer cycles as well. Day follows night, and sleep follows waking. Rain gives way to sunlight. Summer fades to autumn, and then to winter. There are also the slow changes brought by aging and the occasional large life changes — the epiphanies and disasters that define human existence. These changes provide a sense of story, of events unfolding in a singular and irreversible way, forever changing the participants. And all of them, in our own personal stories, leading to the one inevitable change: our own eventual death.
Of these larger changes, only the most shallow and periodic can be programmed into personal spaces. Day/night cycles and weather can be managed. But we do not yet have any personal space that attempts the change of seasons. The longer cycles of storytelling have been attempted only in the Comped Hotel Room.
Fractal geometry makes images seem real, or beautiful
Change in the real world is fractal — frequent small changes set the scene for less frequent larger ones. Major changes are rare. It is the fractal nature of detail and change that gives a scene the feeling of reality. And, within that reality, of beauty.
It’s not hard for real change to fall into these patterns. They are nearly universal, for reasons having a lot to do with probability. (What is likely will happen often; what is less likely, less so.) By contrast, virtual reality must be designed, in each and every detail. The easiest reality to create is a still picture. The rest is hard work. No change will happen, unless it is explicitly coded.
And so the large, long-scale changes in the Comped Hotel Room are unique. And unexpected, since it is otherwise a very static space, with small-scale changes limited to the static drone of traffic noise. The room’s changes must require major periodic rewrites, with all that implies about committing resources to an ongoing project.
And so we return to the obvious question: Why does Digital Leisure do it?
An early example of asymmetrical warfare
A concept that has been introduced recently in HSM is “asymmetrical marketing.” The term is based on the related concept of asymmetrical warfare — the ways a small force can take on a larger one, when a simple clash of arms is not going to cut it. Asymmetrical marketing is a set of techniques that lets a developer wield a disproportionate influence in the Home commodities market, basically by being clever.
Digital Leisure is by far not Home’s largest developer, but they manage one of Home’s most consistently popular spaces, the Paradise Springs Casino. It also appears to be one of Home’s most profitable spaces. Casino chips are always near the top of the monthly “top ten” list of the most common purchases.
So is the Comped Hotel Room a form of asymmetrical marketing? And does the “buzz” created around the room’s misadventures drive business to the linked Casino?
Possibly. The changes in the room do get people talking. People who don’t already own the Comped Room may visit the Casino to get one. When they arrive, they receive some free chips, and may decide to try out the games. If they like the games, they may purchase more chips so they can keep playing.
So many “mays”. It seems like an iffy chain of events. Does the viral marketing of the Comped Room really pay for the developer time involved?
Sometimes the bottom line does not reflect the bigger picture. My own suspicion is that the cost of modifying the Comped Room is not directly recouped in the form of greater chip sales. But it may still be justified.
There is such a thing as a corporate personality. We in the US have seen this recently with the kerfuffle over the Chick-fil-A fast food chain. The chain’s corporate personality, established by such things as Christian music on the PA and being closed on Sunday, turned around to bite them when it was revealed that a substantial amount of their profits are being donated (through the allied Winshape Foundation) to organizations with an anti-gay agenda. Whether this will ultimately end up making more or less money for Chick-fil-A is an open question — probably both, with some franchises gaining and some losing business, depending on their location. The point here is not to examine the pros and cons of CfA’s corporate strategy, but to point out how a well-defined corporate personality can shape perception of a brand. In a way, maintaining a corporate personality is a form of asymmetrical marketing.
Does a filthy tub lure business to the Casino?
The spaces and items that Digital Leisure has put in Home, taken together, have a definite personality — one that I would describe as “an ironic, quirky sense of humor.” The greatest irony, perhaps, is that this is the developer who brought us the Casino. Real-life casinos are some of the least humorous businesses out there — their whole corporate stance depends on presenting gambling as a fun, relaxing, glamorous, and potentially profitable activity for attractive young adults. It’s not unlike the portrayal of cigarette smoking in the 1950’s. Irony is simply not part of a casino’s public-relations arsenal.
The Digital Leisure casino is realistic in many ways. You can even say it’s more realistic than real casinos, because the Vegas tackiness is there, right under the surface. It shows up in the smarmy wording of the welcome messages, the tasteless nature of the lower-level prizes and, most obviously, in the Comped Hotel Room. This room is an amazing statement — small and dingy, with stains on the wallpaper and rumpled bedding, an appallingly filthy bathtub, a constant drone of traffic noise, and a blank, graffiti-sprayed wall outside the shabby curtains. It’s a visual quote of every cheap, depressing hotel room you have ever had the misfortune to inhabit.
In short, it’s utterly brilliant.
The flood that started it all
But the brilliance doesn’t stop there. As we have seen, the room is subject to periodic disasters, up to and including murder. What else could possibly happen to it? Terrorist attacks? Alien invasions? I find myself looking forward to the next installment.
The disasters also present a fine decorating challenge. I celebrate humor when I find it, and happily contribute to the effect. When my Comped Room was flooded, I filled it with rubber ducks and goldfish. When it was burgalized, I threw around some other items, and added tilted pictures to the walls. When the body outline appeared, I put a dead horse on the bed.
My reading of the Casino and its problematic hotel rooms is that Digital Leisure is making a corporate statement: Yes, we are after your money. But don’t take us seriously. It’s all a big joke. Let’s have some fun with it, and also make fun of real casinos, which would never do anything so hilariously outrageous.
And it works. If the Casino and its spinoffs were as serious as a real Casino property, I would be much more alarmed at such things being in Home. As it is, I’m still concerned about gambling addiction and an underage clientele. But I’m willing to step back from my concern, and laugh with the developers at the joke. And I’m looking forward to the next chapter of the story. What disaster will strike next, in my much-abused Comped Hotel Room?
August 21st, 2012 by SealWyf_ | 4 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer, who has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is obsessed with creating new aesthetic experiences in PlayStation Home.
Great article Seal, I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head. Digital Leisure is having a lot of fun doing this, and I think the coders have fun with this like they do when they throw stuff into personal spaces like the sign way out in the Harbor that says something to the effect of “you shouldn’t be reading this.” Or the tombstones on the island in the nDreams personal space with the names of what I think is the team who made it on them.
They do this because coding can be a very demanding and boring job, so why not have a little fun with it?
I love what Digital Leisure is doing because unlike the other examples, they are doing it right out in the open and in your face, and it is fun for both them and us.
Nice write up! These little things ( also known as easter eggs) in games have been around forever, and I love them. From Minecrafts “notched pickaxe” appearing in Skyrim or the movie title Assassins Need… Love Too from inFamous2 to the gnome robbing the teddy bears at gun point under the Pentagon in Fallout New Vegas. It’s these little things that make me smile.
Even though DL are just directly removing the urine from real world casinos, it’s still a nice acknowledgement that they’re aware of how they could be perceived and are separating themselves from that stigma.
I think that this is great buzz! The fact is that as a deco guy, the place is not good becuase all the furniture is baked in. The user can’t move anything, so I went the way of “The Hangover pt 4″ and trashed the room with a bbq inside as well as a turkey in the sink and a computer in the bathroom and a monitor in the dirty tub (I know that Burbie has seen it). But sure enough, when you hear of a new change, we all flock to our places to see the change for ourselves. This is great buzz as the room itself is very static, and one can visit it without going to the casino itself. What purpose does it serve then? We remember the casino and if that gets somebody in to buy chips and gamble, then tactic successful. A p.s. to my point: I have bought many places , some are very static. No dynamic time changes, no waterfalls or clouds, and I paid for them. DL went the extra mile and offered us a new experience though we did not have to pay one shiny penny for the place. Thanks DL and good job…by the way…I also go often because they added that daily one pull slot machine. Another great marketing ploy. I come for the pull and go to my favorite regular slot machine. I even have it counted out and that’s the only one I will use. Good ideas Dl, very good and good write Sealwyf
Seal this is a great article!
Yes I thought of Hunter S. Thompson during the flood and the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas… and then when ransacked it was crazy… my friend put 4 -yes count them 4 poltergeist chests full of knives in her room and filled the walls with zombie blood and invited me for a look-see without any warning. OMG! Nothing like walking into a ransacked room and getting flying knives coming at you from all directions!
Now with the chalk outline its almost like a whole new thing could open up… like a game of Clue in the Casino. So many possibilities.
And yes they do get the buzz as my friends are saying “have you seen what they did at the casino hotel room?” And we all have a laugh about it!