Home From Scratch: the Challenge
by SealWyf, HSM editor
What will happen to Home in the PS4? Nobody knows except Sony, and I’m not sure if they do either. Perhaps they are waiting to make the final decision based on the success or failure of recently-released content. There are plenty of rumors, and any number of educated guesses, as well as a surplus of unreasoning dread and wishful thinking. But no information, and very few facts.
But one thing we can be sure of is that, even if Home dies, the social MMO genre it represents will not die with it. Because this is one of the few areas where the gaming industry is doing well, as millions of people turn to their mobile devices for casual gaming satisfaction. And, being networked, these small games are social as well.
I have several friends who are addicted to Words With Friends, a Scrabble clone that can be played on a wide variety of platforms, from Facebook to iPhones. One of its features is a tiny chatroom. I have other friends who are totally hooked on social Facebook games such as Farmville and Sim City Social — so hooked, in fact, that I sometimes wonder if they use Facebook for anything else.
More and more, people are mixing games with communications. They don’t just want to communicate; but they don’t just want to play games, either. They want to hang out with friends while playing, and make the kind of casual small talk you would normally have over a cup of coffee.
And that’s one of the real strengths of Home, despite Sony’s attempts to transform it from a social chatroom with avatars into a gaming platform. We can talk here. That’s what makes it special.
Early social gaming
Back in my childhood, we played a lot of board games, including Monopoly sessions that went on for hours. Those who say Monopoly is boring don’t really get the point of it. For most people, the game provides an excuse to sit around a table. It stimulates conversation as well as providing a pleasant competition. The game itself may be unexciting, but the experience is as interesting as the people you play it with.
Home is much the same way. People who find Home boring have not yet tapped its deep social elements. The games can be fun and even challenging, but the best of them exploit and facilitate the social side of Home. They provide ways to compete and cooperate, and some of them allow conversation during play.
Any social MMO that seeks to be Home’s successor needs to keep this in mind. Home may indeed be a gaming platform. But it is first and foremost a place to conduct relationships. It is also a place to be creative, even if that creativity is only putting together an outfit or decorating your apartment. We share our creations with others — and so the creative side of Home also benefits from the social.
Let’s allow ourselves to think the unthinkable. Suppose that Home does not survive the PS4 transition. We will be bereft and Homeless, but we won’t be floating in a vacuum. Because there are already startup social MMO’s eyeing the potentially empty niche that Home would leave behind.
Avakin poker
One of these startups was announced just today. In an article on venturebeat.com, Home developer Lockwood released its plans for Avakin, an avatar-based social MMO which will include games as well as Home-style social interaction. Avakin will be cross-platform, running on iOS and Android devices, as well as on web browsers. The first game to be released will be poker.
Lockwood could not have picked a better initial offering. Poker has long been one of the best social games in Home, first in EA Sports’ popular implementation, then in the poker room behind the bar in the Sportswalk, and now in Digital Leisure’s Paradise Springs Casino. Home’s poker players are a close-knit group, and extremely loyal to their game. If Lockwood creates a good-quality interface, I predict they will have a huge hit on their hands.
And poker is just the beginning. What Lockwood is planning with Avakin is a serious entry into the social MMO field, which will either complement Home (if it survives) or potentially replace it, if that niche is vacated. I would not be surprised if there were other startup projects out there, seeking to create a Home-like online community. It’s a wide-open world for the company that finds the right mix of gaming and social elements. And bringing it to mobile platforms is definitely the way to go. Those tiny devices now hold real computing power. Populating them with software has become the computational equivalent of the Oklahoma Land Rush. All the cool kids are going there.
“Smartphones, here we come!”
All of which is by way of introduction. Because this is the first of a projected series of articles on what features we would want to see in any new social MMO community — designing “Home from scratch”.
It’s a good time to think about Home — what works and what doesn’t, what features we would like to see in any successor community and what we would rather see abandoned. It’s also a good time to think about how a social MMO might work on mobile media — what must be lost, and what might be gained in leaving a console-centric world behind.
I encourage all of you to share in the conversation, both in the comments attached to these articles and in articles of your own. HomeStation is always looking for new contributors, and now that we are expanding our scope to cover other online communities, we have an even greater need for writers. If you wish to join in the conversation by contributing an article, please click the Submissions link at the top of this page for details.
We have a great opportunity here, watching the development of Avakin, a brand new virtual community. And it’s all the more exciting, since it’s being created by one of Home’s most trusted developers. We all know what Lockwood can do.
We also have the chance to participate in the conversation, and possibly influence the future of this new community. Lockwood has made it clear that they welcome user input. And I trust the readers and writers of this magazine to provide thoughtful commentary.
The future of Home may still be undecided, but I find myself optimistic. Whatever happens to Home — and I’m still hoping that it, or something like it, will survive into the era of the PS4 — it’s a fascinating time to be active in virtual communities. The future has never looked more interesting.
May 14th, 2013 by SealWyf_ | 7 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.
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I agree Seal, this looks to be a very interesting new idea that Lockwood has. If anything was needed to be lost in Home I think it would be the trolls first. If all of the games Lockwood comes out with have a social side as depicted in the pictures, then a strong filter to eliminate that sort of behavior should be a strong one. Hopefully this will be an option when this hits.
It will be interesting to see what they do about that.
I like poker well enough and may give this a try on my laptop if it is available. I don’t have a smart phone and probably never will unless my financial situation changes at some point. Nice article as always.
That is such a good article. We should write more on this topic. You put this in the best terms, people can understand. I feel inspired to write more about this.
I hope others take this up as well.
Theres a lot of successful social MMOs already out there, not too many have made it multiplatform though because generally you are only as good as you weakest leak. If you have a pc I guarantee you that you will find a social MMO already out there to fill any void that a homeless world would leave, in fact if you pick an aspect you really like on home theres probably another social MMO that does it better its just home is the best all round package
Hey Gary! Agree.
When I looked into LKWD on a much deeper level about a year or two ago, what I saw impressed me so much, I wondered how long they’d stick it out with Home. Thankfully, they’re still taking their “lion’s share” of Home user’s wallet funds -- see what I did there? : P
Anyways, this news could be taken one way or another -- LKWD branching out from Home may mean they know something we dont? On the other hand it’s just a smart move for any company not to keep all their eggs in one basket.
Having looked into this project a while back myself, I have to admit that they’ve taken a lot from Home to implement in a more universal system, they’re obviously paying attention. An avatar that can transcend OS’s is a fantastic idea, one that can lend itself to so many options and deals with other companies… Very clever.
Good luck LKWD! Just try not to forget about us Home-folk when you get to Apple size eh!
While Lockwood’s new MMO venture is interesting it still is just one game, even if Home were to disappear this would not be any form of substitute I would be interested in. I’ve been loosing Facebook games left and right recently and I’m not replacing them with the most similar type available because the fun I was having has been ruined and I can’t get excited over a replacement that isn’t what I was enjoying or find contentment in what’s available. I would think that most people would feel so burned and jilted that they would turn their back on this new venture just because Lockwood was associated with Home, even if it wasn’t their fault the money people had lost would be justification enough for many to not want to put a penny into something else by them. Looking at all the new content and spaces by the Dev’s globally that has been coming lately it’s hard to fathom that Home is close to having it’s final breath, but if it does it will surely spell trouble for the PSN gaming network. Selling the projected 15 million PS4 consoles Sony is hoping on without Home in the line up may be a difficult task and a big oversight which may lessen sales and flood the resale market with PS3’s that stores can’t get rid of. it’s a possibility, just as Home not going to the PS4 is.
For every moment,change follows.