Home’s Five-Year Anniversary Party: the Moments We Remember
by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher
So, earlier tonight, Home saw one of its best community events in a long time: an MVP-hosted party, with multiple developers in attendance, to celebrate five years of open beta.
Other people will provide a more general recap of what took place. I leave that to them. Instead, I want to provide a perspective on tonight’s party that I doubt anyone else in the media scene, save for Melissa, Jamie, and a couple of others, could give: what it was like to be at that party from the viewpoint of a Home fan who became a Home developer.
First, some context.
Home, as a social MMO experience, is a place that appeals most strongly to people who are either running from something or running to something. In my case, it’s a bit of both: when I discovered Home in 2009, I was coming out of a divorce and watching a lot of my friends and coworkers become victims of “cost containment” as the Great Recession played havoc with our industry (resort development).
It is a sobering thing, if you’re a Type-A inveterate workaholic, to wake up to a failed marriage and a workplace filled with the echoes of friends long gone, through no fault of their own. That’s not how the story’s supposed to end.
So Home became an escape. But it quickly became more than that: anyone who was around in the early days recognized that Home was, at the time, a bleeding-edge concept for console gaming (it still is, by the way). And, more importantly, its conceptual concrete was still somewhat malleable. So when HomeStation was created, its two primary goals were to provide a platform for high-quality journalistic, cinematic and artistic expression — to become a literary journal for Home, since frankly it was a niche no one was filling, despite the obvious audience demand for such a project — and, in some oblique way, to offer constructive feedback that would help shape the future of the platform.
This hasn’t always been an easy road. To be blunt, a lot of doors were closed and a lot of people were dead-set against seeing HSM succeed. But we have an outstanding team with the work ethic, professionalism, talent, and determination to produce a consistently excellent product while remembering our spirit to serve.
Or, as Patrick Klepek so wonderfully summed up over at Giant Bomb when he interviewed Jack Buser, Tammy McDonald and I about Home: “HomeStation Magazine isn’t the only dedicated magazine or community for Home users, but it does appear to be the most well-written. It probably helps the authors are mostly older.”
Fast-forward to today, and HomeStation has achieved everything it set out to achieve. The promises have been fulfilled — and we’re still growing, still giving as much as we can to help make Home a better place.
On a personal front, Home represented an opportunity to shift careers from resort development to game development. And when that opportunity arose with LOOT, I took it and never looked back. Because if you’re hardcore Home user, it really is the ultimate fantasy to suddenly be in a position to write product descriptions, determine pricing strategies, film promotional trailers and more. I may not be Home’s best machinimist, for instance, but if I can put together a couple of Doctor Who trailers that get hosted by the BBC on YouTube and collect near-as-makes-no-difference 100,000 views, then I think it’s safe to smile.
Truth be told, the scope of my daily workload reaches far beyond Home these days. If you’ve ever tried out the PS3 apps for the MLB, NHL, Crackle or Gaiam — or the NBA app for Sony Blu-Ray players — then you’ve experienced a LOOT product that I’m the producer on. But Home is still a very important vertical for LOOT, and I have quite a personal soft spot for it (even when squinting through mountains of code when trying to fix the EOD, which if you follow the LOOTcast you’ve seen Danilo and I doing). In particular, Home means a lot to me because it was there during some of my lowest days four years ago, and it’s a place where I’ve made a lot of friends.
Which brings us neatly back to the five-year anniversary celebration that was held in Home earlier tonight. Because it was an evening to celebrate with friends. And it was an evening where all of us enjoyed that core magic of Home that’s always been there: the simple joy of hanging out and socializing with fellow gamers.
See, here’s the important thing to keep in mind: Home developers, from what I’ve been able to see over the years, generally don’t really compete with each other. To the contrary — we’re usually rooting for each other to succeed. (Which reminds me — Levi, if you still have that question about item descriptions, I’ve left a note on DevNet for you.) I got to know a lot of these guys first as a Home journalist, building up relationships with them over a span of years, helping to evangelize their products and triumphs. So to suddenly be one of them, and to be able to join in one of Home’s most momentous occasions on a developer account, feels like an amazingly wonderful reward for all the years of work. To me, the SCEA Digital Platforms guys and the SCEE team — Jack, Matt, Paul, Nathan, Eric, Scott, Sara, Simon, Mark, Andy, Angela, et al — are friends. My own coworkers at LOOT are friends. Jeff, Ben and the Hellfire gang are friends. David, Paul and the Digital Leisure team are friends. Stephen at Heavy Water is a friend. John at Game Mechanics is a friend. George and the Juggernaut guys are friends. Mike and the VASG team are friends. Patrick, Joe, Jamie (of course) and the fine people at nDreams are friends. Craig and his wild bunch over at VEEMEE are friends. Halli, Joel and the Lockwood team are friends — and, of course, Melissa at Lockwood (and HSM’s Editor-in-Chief) goes far, far beyond friendship.
I’ll let you in on a little something: you know how people complained that there was no Home presence at E3? Well, actually, there kinda was — albeit informally. Several of the aforementioned Home developers were there, and at one point, we all kinda gathered together at the LOOT booth on the show floor and had a really fun hangout. What was discussed there will remain private — and, frankly, it doesn’t really matter. What mattered was that moment.
Tonight’s five-year anniversary party was another such moment.
What the party felt like.
The odd part about having one foot in each world — being a Home developer and at the same time serving one of the largest Home media sites on the planet — is that there are a lot of people within the community whom I consider friends, too. So to see everyone online at the same time, consumer and developer alike, all just having a good time and reveling in the fun that Home really can be…I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, personally, it was a magical experience. It’s a bit like the Star Wars saga ending in a giant teddy-bear luau: you don’t necessarily expect it to be so warm and fuzzy, but damn if it doesn’t leave you grinning.
Is it possible to “win” the game of Home? Tonight felt like that for me. HSM team members are being published in Home by HPG, LOOT’s 2013 content has my fingerprints on it, and I’ve just been to a marvelous party with a lot of people whose company I genuinely enjoy, as we all collectively celebrated half a decade of this place we call Home.
In billiards, I think that qualifies as a bank shot.
Most importantly, though — Home’s had five fantastic years of open beta so far, and I think everyone who’s been a part of that journey will agree: Home has changed us. It’s pretty rare to find an experience that can do that. And for that, we all win.
Special thanks to Y2David and the other parties involved in the creation and administration of this event.
December 12th, 2013 by NorseGamer | 6 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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Great article, and view on how you see this Norse, we all are Home fans,so we can share that passion I must say and many others I;m sure see the same, the Anniversary event was nice, as Home users got to hang out with devs celebrating and it was nice seeing them work together,I am sure there is more that meet our eyes that we don’t know about in close doors, but can imagine the greatness from it by seeing devs working together, sharing some of what you all develop as an example, Loot has the EoD screens that would be awesome feature to see in other non Loot spaces, as they would be integrated as well as other things other devs have that be great to see implemented. That would be something wonderful to see as a Home consumer. But that’s a whole different topic, do have to say that tonight for me this event was magical as well and it was a great surprise seeing you come and being there with you all celebrating this great day
Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a lot of Home developers (including SCEA/SCEE staff) in person, and the biggest thing that I get from every meeting: every single one of them (and I guess I’m part of that “them” now) is passionately engaged with the platform.
What made last night’s party so great is that the community at large got to see some of that enthusiasm. And I think that’s important to see as we finish out the year — that Home is still here for us all.
;^) Norse, it was a real pleasure meeting you in PSHome last night. Meeting you, virtual face to virtual face, was a treat.
:^, I’d missed meeting you in person at E3, -by minutes, I understand- and look forward to meeting you next time. Last night helped to tide me over, I suppose.
;^) As for Home’s fifth anniversary, when I compare Home today to Home back then, and marvel at how much has been added, I ponder what the next five years have in store. When I factor in that Home’s future is heavily influenced by developers who share your passion, I see Home as being in good hands.
Gah! It sucks that we missed each other at E3 by only a few minutes. It’s such a madhouse, though, that sometimes it can be a real challenge to fit everything in! Was great getting to finally hang out with you in Home, though.
Here’s a tiny tidbit I think I’m safe in teasing: there are some additional cool features planned for Home in 2014, including something that *a lot* of people are going to like. Can’t give out any specifics, of course, but I think it’s important for people to know that Home has more stuff coming over the horizon.
I discovered Playstation Home by a happy accident, and it opened up my world. It also saved my life. I’m so grateful for friends and experiences PSH has given me.
I remember many years ago when I first started using Home. I met wonderful people (NorseGamer was one of the first, actually) and at first, I just wanted to see what it was about. I was also running from something at the time. I actually managed to meet someone on Home that became such a close friend that we ended up flying out to meet up twice already. I have Home to thank for that. I think it’s a wonderful place to meet new friends and even if you’re not feeling particularly social that day, you can just decorate your personal space or try on “clothes” to make different outfits. I never want to see the end of Home. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready if that day comes.