Outside Gaming Merchandise In Home – Where Is It?
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
When I went to The Prairie for the first time after the update that brought us horses from Lockwood, my first impression was that I had stepped onto the McFarland ranch from Red Dead Redemption. I expected to see Bonnie McFarland walk around the corner of the house any minute and greet me as I entered on my Palomino. The only thing missing was the huge barn and the paddocks they had there.
We have been asking for a western style place for awhile and as usual Lockwood stepped up and delivered. The space has a lot of nice touches to it. There are a few bears hanging around, both inside the fence and out and there are wolves as well, a small family of them and a lone wolf outside the fence. There are a couple of out buildings, a parked train and a tall water tower that sits beside the large ranch house with a wrap-around porch. You can walk around the porch, but the house is just window dressing, it isn’t accessible. I wish they would make this public venue into a personal estate.
They have given us the horse locomotion we have been craving for so long, and now we need a place to ride them that is our own, not just a public one. I created one for myself at the Midnight Glade, complete with a stable and small barn. The only thing missing is a house to decorate. A western style space would sell like crazy — just look at how popular Red Dead Redemption is, so much so that they even gave in-Home rewards to people, something that very few disk based games have done.
That brings me to my wishlist — why don’t more disk-based game or even downloaded ones give us rewards or merchandise to buy in Home? There are a few I can think of off the top of my head that do so. Red Dead Redemption of course, Final Fantasy 13, Infamous, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassins Creed, Bio Shock, Tomb Raider and of course Nathan Drake and Uncharted, which has had the biggest showing of any other outside game in Home. It had its own public spaces (now gone) and also a nice playable area that gave us rewards.
Nathan Drake in costume at Uncharted 3
Some of the other games had free rewards, such as the Batman apartment, and some just had things you could buy in the stores. I think that all of these outside of Home games have probably benefited from their Home connections, which give them a (presumably) cheap way to advertise their products. With the exception of Forsaken Planets’ cow and alien ornament rewards, I can think of few other games that have given us in-Home rewards recently.
There are so many different choices in the gaming world that it amazes me that Home, which was supposedly created to be a gamers’ meeting place, doesn’t have a bigger connection to the gaming world at large. Sony itself has so many game titles out there that this seems very strange. With new content from games coming literally every month, I think more game-related content should be added to the Home inventory.
Wouldn’t you love to see a Skyrim Kahjit warrior, or even a Journey costume come out in the stores? I know we have some items that can make up similar warrior costumes, but it just isn’t quite the same as the real thing. With many saying that disk-based gaming will soon become a thing of the past, Home with its totally game-based captured audience would seem like a great target for developers to use. If the PS4 that is coming has a mostly download format, Home could become a huge marketplace for the games being brought to the same machine.
Daedric armor from Skyrim
There are so many possibilities here. In-Home advertising is sorely lacking for outside products of any kind. Why wouldn’t games be one of those? I think that people here would love a bigger connection to the games they love to play outside of Home, and giving us more rewards to strive for or spaces to roam would be a great addition to Home.
The only reason I can think of for this not already being here is that the expenditure to profit ratio wasn’t robust enough for the previous advertising campaigns in Home. If that is the case, I can’t fathom why. A walking, talking advertisement like someone dressed as a Skyrim warrior in Daedric armor, or as a character from any number of games would seem to me to be a constant reminder of the games that lie outside of Home’s confines. I know that when I see someone wearing the Red Dead Redemption free clothing, I am reminded of the game.
I hope we see a lot more Home content from games in the future. With the new Harry Potter and Dr. Who content here now, it seems like some third-party intellectual-property owners have decided that being in Home was a good advertising fit for movies, books and television shows. These are the first of that type to appear since Stars Wars added their two cents a long time ago, and it is an indicator to me that Home is still a great way to spread the word about outside entertainment. The games we play should be a bigger part of that.
April 20th, 2013 by Burbie52 | 3 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.
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I’ve been thinking this for a while myself, actually since Home began. I know we’ve had a fair amount of gaming content if you cobble it all together, but, if you did the same with all the bikinis and various other tat we’re offered you’d see the gaming content is but a fraction in comparison. To me though, it’s quite telling how most big developers often scoff at the idea of even bothering with making Home content. It eludes to how much developers are *actually* used to getting in return for their efforts financially as most of them say Home’s “just not worth it”. So why then, are LKWD, LOOT, nDreams etc happy to make Home their platform for their business? Surely all they do is loose money if this is true?
In my head, the only logical reason for most devs not bothering with Home is a simple case of greed. There’s just not ENOUGH to be made from Home for them. Not that they wouldn’t make anything, but rather, they wouldn’t make fast (and LOTS of) money, in the same way they do from initial game sales, the kind of money and sales they’re used to.
Same reason they’re still moaning about not getting any extras from used game sales and the secondhand market. Whole thing feels like an argument of entitlement to me, which is a whole other ballgame…
Home is a social network that evolved on a gaming platform, as such, some people are misled in what it is -- they call Home itself a game -- and so miss the point of it on some levels. The obviousness of Home is there, it’s just no one has pointed it out. Sony dropped the ball there, they need to rectify that ASAP. Home needs more time in Sony’s spotlight in its ad campaigns, needs more devs to be serious about it, needs a proper connection to the games we play via extras on game discs or PS3 exclusive games to tie it in with the gaming world.
Sadly, Sony still treat Home like a strange, mutated lab accident that never happened and do very little to push Home into the public’s view. I can only hope that one day, that will change.
Outstanding article Burbie.
One of the reasons I feel we don’t see more content like this is the general bad financial shape of the industry. Companies are dropping like flies. Look at Lucas Arts,and THQ. These are big companies. So many more are on the brink and farming out content and laying people off like crazy just trying to survive. Unlike when the PS3 launched it’s a really bad time for the industry now. I think that’s why companies aren’t willing to spend money on anything they absolutely don’t have to.
Harry Potter and Doctor Who are huge enough to be able to afford this kind of development and are kind of on the outside of the industry with their butts not on the line if it doesn’t make a huge profit.
Let’s hope more of these mega titles from outside the gaming industry come in and fill the space until this mess turns around.
Were I SONY I would do basically what they’re doing as to promotion until they feel they can remove the BETA stagnantatnon label.
I don’t think this article is about advertising in HOME but in places like HOME TYCOON I’d like to see names on buildings of well known businesses… even banks (GASP!). Hellfire could tell corporations for ($ unspecified by me cus I don’t know) that they would put their name on a building.
Hey! We’ve always got Wrangler clothes and Clearasil for those young at heart looking for love in all the right faces.
Teenager in Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQoz1fxRAEI