by Burbie52, HSM team writer

With Home’s uncertain future looming over us like a Sword of Damocles, many people are wondering where we go from here. A timeless question asked for as many reasons as the human mind can come up with. Whether it is a relationship, a physical direction, a life choice, or the ending of a project, this question opens up an ocean of possibilities for us. Where  do we go from here?

So I ask: where does Home go from here? If 2012 was the Year of the Game and 2013 was the Year of the Locomotion, what should the new year bring us to help us keep content-saturated older users and entice new ones into Home? What particular new thing can the developers come up with to perk a waning interest? Indeed, will there be any new core client updates to introduce new functionality and features into Home which can be monetized?

I spoke to several people in Home about this very thing, and there was one universal answer that resounded back: interactivity. I kind of already knew what they would say, as it was the very thing I was thinking myself , so I was not surprised at their reactions. It was a confirmation that I was on the right track and still had my finger on the pulse of Home.

Better interactivity with objects, such as personal spaces, and most important to all of us, better interactivity between avatars. The first thing all of us thought of was dancing together, cheek to cheek, as it were.  This was a universal request, even if a personal or public area has to be created for this to happen via mini-game; it was the number-one request, and has been for a long time.

Dancing has been a staple in Home since the very beginning. Central Plaza had it, Singstar does, of course, and now the Serenity Plaza, Hub, Sportswalk and Adventure District all have dance floors attached with music to them. It is the next logical step in Home’s evolution to allow us to do it together if we choose to. The recent addition of a NPC dance partner only served to bolster that want.The fake partner looks like a blow-up doll by comparison to another avatar, and though it is a fun little locomotion, it only shows how much people want this one thing to come to pass.

Any and all forms of interactivity are big draws in Home. Just look at the successes of the Casino and Acorn Park and you can see that we all want to be able to do things with one another. A band-shell with an interactive dance floor would be a huge hit in Home; either added to Juggernaut’s Serenity Plaza or to Acorn Park it would be a big seller for either developer, as would the creation of a new space by whomever gets there first. We know it is possible, as there was a special dance floor at the Winter Event a couple years ago that allowed this to happen.

Personal spaces — or, better yet, clubhouses — with this ability built in would be a big seller as well. Club owners love to throw parties, so it is no surprise that an interactive dance floor would be a huge hit. This one new thing for Home would be a great way to keep people here. If possible, they could offer different dance packs for the floors, similar to what has already been done with the Musicality space so long ago. This would work for both the public and personal ones. The main thing is the ability to dance together, not standing feet apart from each other. Waltzes, tango, swing, the possibilities are endless.

Bowling is still a big hit in Home

Another thing that would be big is a personal bowling alley, be it club or personal space. This is another interactive that has been requested for years, ever since Home has been around, really. The bowling alley provided by Sony in the base group of original spaces has always been popular with people, mainly because of the interactivity it provides for those who play the pool game and bowl together. The game has been flawless for the most part when it comes to lag and other factors that govern interactivity, and a personal space with even a single lane for bowling built in would be an instant hit.

When it comes to LMOs and interactivity, there has been one idea circulating that would be a big hit as well. Sony gave us the shrink potion a few months back and it was a hit, but the one thing about it that some didn’t care for was the lack of choice. Once shrunk, you have a predetermined pose and motion; it is a locomotion, and therefore when you dance, it disappears. Instead of making it a locomotion, would it be possible to make a set of predetermined clothing that when put on made you shrink or get larger? With all of the Mechsuits out there it seems it should be possible, and that would allow the addition of an LMO like a dance set or whatever to be used as well. Just a thought.

Will this year be the year of interactivity? There is no way to know, but it was the one thing that everyone I spoke to agreed would make a big difference not only in their continued use of Home but also their continued purchases of the products provided by the developers here. With the massive avalanche of content we have experienced in the past year since the release of locomotions for our avatars, any new adaptation of that ability will be a welcome one, and will set apart whomever comes up with it. There has been so much done already in this particular area that it has become ho-hum to many already, and they have backed off buying them.

One thing is clear, though: as much as this may be a wishlist article, there must be something — some sort of new feature implementation which opens up a new market segment for developers to exploit — in order to drive reinvestment in the platform at this point. Home has managed to successfully tap-dance and survive for half a decade, and Sony may have increased its net profitability by decreasing development for the platform, but there is a prevailing sense that this may be Home’s most challenging year to stay relevant. Perhaps such new features will be forthcoming after the new fiscal year starts in April; we can but hope, and keep the faith.

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