A Thank-You Note From HSM
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
HomeStation Magazine was an experiment.
Can you have a literary journal for PlayStation Home? Can you have a platform for community expression that’s polished and mature — a cross between The Atlantic and Firing Line fused together? Can you have, in today’s blog culture, an all-volunteer group that commits itself to daily product output, minimum word counts, editorial standards and a focus on studying virtual reality from a sociological perspective? A publication that provides constructive criticism to Home’s developers, advocating solutions when highlighting problems, and revels in the simple joy of creative expression?
And — most importantly — was there an audience for this sort of product?
On 28 October 2010, this concept was met with skepticism, disbelief, slammed doors and a whole lot of laughter. Fast-forward to the dawn of 2013, and…well, the results speak for themselves.
HSM was an experiment. It succeeded.
It succeeded for two reasons: an incredibly talented and hard-working team collectively brought this vision to life, and you as the audience proved that there is indeed demand for a brand of pro-Sony/pro-Home/pro-developer Home journalism that goes a bit deeper than simple PR copypasta.
Let’s start with this team. Good god, they’re an amazing bunch, aren’t they? What makes something like HSM so challenging to pull off is that it requires multiple contributors and editors to work, all working towards the same ideology that they all agree with. Anyone can set up a Home blog as a vanity project, but HomeStation is designed to be a creative platform for the entire community. Its enduring strength lies in the fact that it reflects the collective will of a large group of people, not the individual aspirations of a single user. So let’s look at the remarkable level of consistent product output, from a wide chorus of voices — all of whom have done an incredible job in raising the overall standard of Home community journalism.
Look at the hundreds upon hundreds of articles written this year by Burbie, Cheeky, FEMAELSTROM, Gideon, Godzprototype, Jin Lovelace, johneboy, Kassadee, Keara, KrazyFace, Olivia, Orion, Phoenix, Sue, and Ted — as well as all of our guest contributions over the course of the year, including deuce_for2, one of Home’s own developers! Look at the fantastic artwork, photography and machinima that have been released under the HSM gonfalon. Look at the amazing work done by our editors behind the scenes — BONZO, Cubehouse, Estim, HearItWow, Jersquall, Mike, SealWyf and Terra.
When you stop and look at just how many people labor day in and day out to bring HomeStation to life, it’s truly something to behold.
And their hard work has paid off, thanks to you. As 2012 draws to a close, HSM is going to finish the year at over 110,000 unique visitors. This is more than double our 2011 audience. And since we don’t indulge in any SEO, purchased traffic or on-site advertising, our explosive audience growth has all been done the old-fashioned way: through pure word-of-mouth. Indeed, as 2012 progressed, our audience numbers have curved upward; just this month alone, we’re going to finish somewhere between 17,500 and 18,000 unique visitors. And that’s with half the month predictably slower due to the holidays and no new content being released.
That’s insane. That’s literally quadruple the monthly audience numbers we were pulling at this time last year.
The coup de grâce, however, came in the form of a Christmas gift from LOOT Entertainment: the HomeStation EOD channel.
Think about that for a moment: thanks to the awesome people at LOOT, a new method of community-generated content is now available for Home to enjoy and contribute to. You can enjoy HSM-branded community machinima, and in fact open up the HSM website from the EOD in Home itself. And one glance at our opening-fortnight traffic numbers from the EOD alone shows that a whole lot of people are doing just that. This team is now legitimately providing content for PlayStation Home itself.
If that ain’t a Home platinum trophy, tell me what is.
2012 is the year in which HomeStation, thanks to a whole lot of hard work and support from you, truly took flight. This publication exists for you. Our greatest hope is that we’ve been able to entertain you and enhance your Home experience. If we’ve done that, then all our hard work has paid off.
From all of us at the HSM team, we’re massively grateful for your support. And if you think 2012 was big, wait’ll you see what we have planned for 2013!
Happy New Year!
Kudos to the whole team, it has been a fun ride this year and I look forward to the next one. A special thanks to all the readers out there, without you we are nothing, and though I would continue writing irregardless just for the sheer enjoyment of it, I am glad you decided to come along for the ride.
I also want to thank Norse for the vision he had when he started this whole thing, I am glad he asked me along, and also to Terra for the extremely hard work she does keeping this magazine functioning, all while raising a young child. We all owe you guys more than you know for giving us these opportunities.
Happy New Year everyone! May the next one be bigger and brighter than the last.
This has been a great year overall. Coming here has taught me a lot of things and opened my eyes to a lot of opportunities on my creativity. It’s a blessing and an honor to share my learning experience and to be humble to some of the experienced here with HSM.
Thanks Norse and the HSM Team. Here’s to 2013!
Thank You LOOT, and the Home community!
Such an excellent gift to all of Home. Lets have fun folks.
2013 Cheers!
Stupid Mayans…. much like the cake, the end of the world was a lie! On the bright side… 2013 HSM ftw.