E3 2013: Yup, Awesome
by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher
One of the questions that I saw pop up on occasion, after last year’s E3, was, “Do we really need E3 any more?”
The argument is straightforward enough: that in this age of video streaming and near-instant news and social networking, is E3 an antiquated relic? It’s all completely logical.
Yeah. So was the Maginot Line.
Here’s the reality: E3 is an industry trade event. It’s no different than similar such trade events in other industries. Not everything has to be open to the general public. Granted, E3 in this regard is somewhat like various auto shows (NAIAS comes to mind), in that there are elements of it which are consumer-facing. However, it is still ultimately an industry event. And this sort of event has to exist, because it’s the one real opportunity for the industry’s many disparate parties to all coalesce and interact.
This year’s E3, of course, is a real meat-slammer. You’ve got the birth of a new console generation finally at hand — made all the more interesting by the fact that major social media outlets such as Twitter and YouTube didn’t exist when the previous generation came into being — and further amplified by the very real ideological split between Microsoft and Sony with this new generation.
(It’s really quite simple: PS4 appeals to gamers. XBox One appeals to fascists.)
Trying to sum up all of E3 is impossible. It just is. It’s a bit like spending an hour on a beach in Dar Es Salaam and assuming you can describe all of sub-Saharan Africa. No. Even if you could technically sum up all of the various parties and their offerings at E3, you still can’t quite capture the electro-pumping strobing thudding people dancing music oh my god look at that whoa candomble cante jondo techno-A-Ha mindblow that IS E3. If you are even remotely interested in gaming, it’s a bit like making a holy pilgrimage. I genuinely hope footage of E3 is rediscovered by social anthropologists a thousand years from now, who will piece together this social behavior as best they can without any of the context for comprehension, and simply assume that we all worship a pantheon of gods such as Kratos, Sackboy and the Call of Duty Dog.
(Did you know, by the way, that the fake Call of Duty Dog has over twenty-thousand followers on Twitter? That’s just so meta. Pure win, that.)
With this year’s E3, it’s blatantly obvious that Sony is the place to be. They’ve got a superior console at a cheaper price, and Jack Tretton can bring an audience to its feet simply by telling them they will continue to enjoy what they currently enjoy. Which, in our age of involuntary wiretaps telling the NSA how many times we’ve Googled certain entertainment involving search words such as “tenacles”, there’s something to be said for applauding the lack of erosion of consumer rights and privacy.
I don’t mean to sound too biased, but really, was anyone smiling at the Microsoft pavilion today? I sure as heck didn’t see it. The Microsoft pavilion felt a bit like the last Matrix movie: you have to queue up to see it because, well, you just have to, but it feels a bit like attending a wake. Meanwhile, the Sony pavilion — which is larger this year than it was last year, because, ya know, having a pavilion the size of the Battlestar Galactica just isn’t enough — is hoppin’ and boppin’ like a rock concert except it’s a rock concert filled with EVEN MORE GAMES THAT JUST LOOK AWESOME.
(There are also, blessedly, fewer booth babes this year. Thank god for that. Women make up a very large percentage of game purchasers nowadays, and the industry is rapidly growing out of the image it had as an overgrown neckbeard sausage fest. Girls have, ya know, brains. And wallets. And do not need to be instructed on how to hold a controller.)
On a personal front, what’s most enjoyable about E3 is once again the personal connections. Getting to hang out with Cubehouse and Terra, especially now that all three of us work in the industry. Meeting cool people from the forum like Y2David and StephieRawks. Meeting and chatting with fellow Home developers. Hanging with the Digital Platforms guys from SCEA.
And, of course, booth duty.
Forsaken Planet at E3!
LOOT’s showing off Forsaken Planet at IndieCade this year, and a big chunk of what I’m personally doing is helping introduce people to the game. This means that Cubes and Terra get to regale me with stories of playing PS4 games that explode like shotguns full of win in peoples’ heads, and I get to have what is a surprisingly fun E3 experience: the infectious enthusiasm of introducing people to a game we’ve created, and subsequently enjoying the enthusiasm that builds as they discover it right there on the show floor.
One question that’s been popping up on the Sony forum a lot recently is the future of Home itself. Leaving aside the fact that there’s no logical reason for Sony to mention a product which is more than half a decade old at this point (particularly as the attention and focus is on a new console generation), there’s a bit of personal advice I’d like to offer:
Let go.
From left to right: Cubehouse, Terra, Norse
Honestly, let go. Let go of the worry, the concern, et cetera. Keep in mind that even after the PS4 launches, the PS3 is going to continue to be a viable console for quite a while, so it’s not like anyone’s going to shut off the lights here and now. And even if Home stays strictly with the PS3 (something which none of us know), we’ve had a phenomenal virtual world to enjoy for over five years. If you’ve spent a bunch of time and money in Home — which, if you read HSM, you probably have, given our demographics — it was money well spent. All you have to do is look back at how much fun you got out of it, and realize just how awesome it was. I think we all want to see it go on for as long as possible, but if there’s one thing I hope you saw with the onset of the PS4, it’s that there’s a whole lot of Sony out there to enjoy in addition to Home.
This doesn’t mean you should walk away from Home. To the contrary, this is a great time to enjoy Home and all it offers. And without giving up any details, I can tell you that Home still has some (very exciting) tricks up its sleeve. So, if anything, we should continue to support and monetize Home, as that is the ultimate consumer vote of confidence in a product. Just remember to take a look around and see what else the Sony PlayStation experience can offer you for additional fun.
And E3, 2013? Yup, it’s as awesome as you think it is. If you’re there this year, come drop by and say hi. And if you couldn’t make it this year, then we hope to see you there next year.
June 12th, 2013 by NorseGamer | 14 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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You all look very happy! Obviously you haven’t been to the Home E3 booth yet. Good luck with Forsaken Planet!
Yes! The PS4 really does appeal to gamers.
And it appears there is no competition.
I did see a lot of talk about the Music Unlimited service that seriously peaked my interest too!
Every trade that involves selling something tends to have an expo, some more glitzy than others and some companies put on a better show than others, the sony PS4 E3 reveal was a bit slow too much chat, but had several clear points it wanted to put across, which blended a few other points in as well. But its all sales hype trying to shout buy me louder than your competitors. Product wise most arent released yet so dont be surprised if products dont live up to initial expectation. As for home this time last year we were looking forward to several big home game releases, this year we are looking at, well not so much hype on the home game horizon currently.
I keep saying this to the kiddies but they’re always to hyped to listen! The BEST that a console will ever have ALWAYS comes to it in it’s last cycle of its life. The best, always comes, at the end. Always.
And we have some phenomenal stuff for the beginning of the end so far; Black Flag, Watchdogs, GTA5 and we can’t ignore the fact that The Last of Us has just taken the title of “Highest Rated Game Ever” of 2013. And there’s plenty more where that came from. The PS3 is FAR from dead, this is when it shines.
As for Home, well look how far it’s come. LMO’s, interactive actives, loads if beautiful and diverse spaces…
Home will have it’s swan-song too, maybe a couple years from now, and I can’t wait to see what that will be. Interactive ballroom dancing for you high-class ladies? Maybe a live then streamed concert with U2? Maybe in a year’s time we’ll have global spaces for global concerts, who knows what the future of Home will see. All I know is that I’ll be there to witness it.
Glad you had fun at E3 Norse, ya jammy git! LOL! Really though,thanks for the write-up.
About Home;
Let go?
Really?
Knowing that you work for a leading Home developer I hear you loud and clear. You would know above just about anyone else, other than Jack B., about Home’s future. As far as we Homelings are concerned, letting go of Home is letting go of our existence.
Thanks for the heads up however. Now I know to not spend any more “Loot” in Home.
Re-read the last four paragraphs. I’m suggesting that people let go of the hysteria that’s building about whether or not Home is going to be shut down any time soon. Even when the PS4 launches, there are still a whole lot of PS3 consoles out there, and it’s going to be a viable platform for quite some time.
To be clear: I have no idea whether Home will transition to any other platforms besides the PS4. I do know that there are some proposed upcoming features for Home which are very exciting. And as was written in the article, I’m encouraging people to continue to spend time and money in Home, because a fiscally successful vertical has a much greater chance of continuing to be supported than one which shows diminishing returns.
The one thing I would caution against: Home, like most any social MMO, has a power-law distribution “whale” economy. This means that a tremendous amount of the revenue is being generated by a relatively small percentage of the active user base. The catch is that it’s easy to fall into the belief that Home has to be continued because we happen to fall into that whale percentage. The reality is that Home is running on architecture more than half a decade old, doing things it was never originally designed to do. It is frankly remarkable what it’s been able to achieve, and will continue to achieve.
But nothing lasts forever.
There was a time when we all had VHS machines and huge videotape libraries. And when the technology was finally discontinued, what did we do? We moved on to the next order of magnitude — DVD — and in many cases repurchased a lot of the same experiences we enjoyed previously, even though many of those VHS tapes sat and gathered dust.
Game consoles are the same. We amass huge libraries of games which are, for the most part, played through and then left to collect dust for years. Then we buy a new console and start the whole process over again.
The Home consumer is a bit of an anomaly in this regard, because we assume that somehow, for some reason, Home should be treated differently. This is compounded by the fact that there is a percentage of hardcore users who really have invested massive amounts of their lives into this application.
I get that. I’m one of them. There are few people who champion Home as much as I do. And this is presently a very Home-centric publication which caters to fellow Home whales. But I have to admit it concerns me when I see people who go too deep down the rabbit hole, because it means they’re tying too much of their emotional well-being to something which is out of their control.
And that’s why I’m recommending to let go of the hysteria. Not for Sony’s benefit — for your *own.* Home is a wonderful virtual world which does affect and change peoples’ lives, but we must remember that it is ultimately a for-profit business venture and not a social charity. By keeping a healthy perspective, we can actually derive *more* enjoyment out of Home, not less.
I strongly want Home to continue and thrive. And I suspect it will be supported for as long as it’s fiscally justifiable to do so. But if they pulled the plug on it today, no one should be going on suicide watch. That’s unhealthy. But I have little doubt that the Homelings, like other close-knit Home groups — or, far more importantly, the friendships made between the real people behind the avatars — will continue to survive and thrive long after Home has gone to dust. *That* is the true legacy of what Home gave to us.
For now, though? Eat, drink and be merry, for Home is still with us.
I don’t understand why you (Norse) say XBox One appeals to fascists. XBox One has taken it’s share of knocks and maybe deservedly so. Oh well, whatever.
As for Home not being on the PS4 well I don’t know that much but it seems to me that if old games will be available in the clouds for purchase then Home could be available also. But what do I know? Not a whole lot. Home will be around until it ain’t and I believe that ain’t is quite a ways down the road as long as the PS3 is supported.
If I get this typing right I’m gonna’ be a programmer.
I still believe that Home will be on the PS4. They did say in their press conference that all of the features of PS3 would be ported over to PS4, I would think that that includes Home though it wasn’t mentioned specifically. I will continue to support Home until it stops producing new things, and even when that happens I think that it will be around for a very long time after that. Home is its people, at least to me, the stuff we get is just to augment the social experiences we have there. Nice read Norse as always.
Amongst us Homelings, there has been some discussion that Home moving to servers like it did was to prepare the way for porting it to the PS4. I certainly hope this is the case. I, as I’m sure many of you also are, am heavily invested in Home items that I would hate to lose. Of course, Home is really no different than any other digital product and certainly has a finite life span, even though it has the potential to exist forever. I’m sure my 2nd PS3 is nearing the end of its life and I just can’t imagine having to buy a 3rd to continue on Home after the PS4 has been released.
The speculation rumbles on about home on the ps4, maybe the reason why they haven’t mentioned it is because PS4 is new and home is old none of its continuous issues will be sorted by the PS4 as they tend to be server or internet speed based or programmer issues, the only real sales data we have heard is from N Dreams which were equivalent to a fairly good game sales in one region and they were talking sales in 4 regions, also do you think if they released PS4 home that the PS3 version would be supported anymore. If they do put it on the PS4 I would think it’s going to be the PS3 version with no PS4 upgrades. I hope they do, but will they make a song and dance about it, I think it will be a bit like where they put home on the psn maintenance messages, an after thought at the end of the message
I think you are on to something here. What would the reaction of the gaming community be if they announced Home was moving onto the PS4? My guess is it wouldn’t be a net positive. For Home users, it would be a big win. But that is a small portion of the gaming community.
But as long as Home is on the PS3, I will have access to it. I am never an early adopter. I will wait to get a PS4. So nothing will change for me as far as I can see.
I told you Cubehouse has a baby face..
The price of Home to me can not be measured by the moneys I have spent on it… vast as that may be. Its in the priceless moments and friendships I have gained. All the speculations on the future of Home eats away at me. Home is aptly named, if I am to someday lose Home I will indeed be homeless. No amount of money that I have spent on Home compares to the value I get from it! Boiling it down to the economic level feels like breaking down the value of a beloved family pet to there chemical worth. It is like worrying about how much war cost money wise and forgetting the human cost. I realize it is a business and has to be profitable to continue and that does worry me. Sony is a for profit company and have to do what they have to do to make there stock holders happy. But I can’t help but hope that Home proves to be something that Sony sees as valuable… because it is priceless to me. But, living your life in fear of the future that you can’t control isn’t living, it is waiting. So, I will soak up as much Home as I can and virtually live like there is no tomorrow but hope that there is. I choose to see the PS4 as it pertains to Home as the Mayan Calender in the future of Home. I also see this as something that if you feel as strongly as I do that you should stand up but in a stand up way. Write to Sony and explain what Home means to you. Don’t threaten them or wave recites but share what you have gained on a personal level. I am reminded that the awesome TV show Arrested Development was canceled and because of a public out cry that was done respectfully, after six years has come back. Don’t wait till you lose something to let others know how much it means to you but please don’t work against yourself by being belligerent. I am in no way trying to unionize Home users and hope that recommending these actions doesn’t get my brakes Silkwooded. I will fight to keep what I love if it is a fight that is worth fighting and can be done in a way that isn’t a fight at all but done with class and logic. This is not a war! We are beta testers! when help debug and make recommendations. I as a Home Beta tester would recommend to Sony that they continue to allow us to enjoy Home and I would even go further to hope that Home can find a home on the PS4. And I would also congratulate Sony for rocking E3 and showing that listening to their customers is what helped make them not only great but the best in my humble opinion. (Doesn’t hurt to kiss up when you already believe it)
There used to be many moons ago, an event aptly titled the ‘Playstation Experience’ held in Earls Court, London, in early (PS2 Era) 2000’s.
Although it was a much smaller event than the one in L.A. it was as close as i was going to get in terms of being at E3.
Glad you guys had such a great time!