by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher

One Home site, for half a decade, has offered an annual awards ceremony that people take notice of: AlphaZone 4.

Any developer’s happy to accept accolades and community feedback; if people are talking about your products, that’s a good thing. But when AZ4’s annual awards — voted upon by you, the community — come around, it’s a properly big deal, because AlphaZone captures a statistically significant sampling that merits attention.

If you want to see a full statistical breakdown of the voting results, please visit AZ4’s page for details. This article’s more of a quick reaction to the winners:

• Best Active Item: Spinning Light Projector (nDreams)

I honestly hadn’t seen the Spinning Light Projector in action until the awards ceremony, and now that I’ve seen it, I totally understand why it won. The projector lights up huge chunks of real estate with its patterns, and if you’re into Home’s party scene, this is basically a must-have item.

• Best Companion: Kittens, Black & White (VEEMEE)

When in doubt: kittehs.

• Best LMO: Forsaken Planet Zombie (LOOT)

Woo-hoo! The LMO market is supersaturated — it was Home’s hot market segment for 2013 — so to end up on top in such a crowded field is a huge accomplishment. We hit on the idea of having an LMO that controlled your avatar, and that’s reflected in several Forsaken Planet LMO items (the UFOs that abduct your avatar, for instance). None of them are quite as memorable as the Zombie LMO, though; aside from the cool factor (zombies are the “it” thing right now), there’s just something hilarious about seeing your avatar dragged across the ground. We knew we had something special when we first saw it on our dev kits, and it’s awesome that the community feels the same way.

• Best Animation: Floor & Standing Poses — Ultimate Gesture Bundle (nDreams)

You know what I like about this? Given just how many poses, gesticulations, etc. got released last year, something so seemingly pedestrian as this wins. It’s proof that there’s a real market demand for things that we might find to be mundane in the real world, but make a world of difference with immersion in a virtual one.

• Best Male Clothing: Drey Fashion Detective Ultimate Bundle (Lockwood)

Lockwood nailed the retro hipster appeal with this release. Remember when Home had virtually no suits? Gentlemen’s apparel has come a long way in the last few years.

• Best Female Clothing: Not So Basic 1.2 (Dani/Codeglue)

Unsurprising. Dani’s become incredibly popular because her clothing designs have a crossover appeal — they’re in the real world as well as the virtual world — and because they’re quite alluring. In a market sector that often seems to err on the side of salaciousness, Dani’s designs are more alluring and sensual.

• Best Costume: Fairytale Queen of Hearts Dress and Stockings (Lockwood/Jennifer Whitbread)

You can’t help but cheer for this victory: the user whose sketches became virtual goods in Home. That’s just fantastic, and is one of the best examples of user-generated content to ever hit the platform. It also helps that the design itself is quite good.

• Best Furniture: Simple Bed (Juggernaut Games)

For all the bleating and caviling about Home not doing enough to cater to gamers, let’s face it: the people who use Home are using it as a social MMO. Period. Which means that virtual goods which cater to creating deeper social experiences are going to sell well. nDreams’ poses and Juggernaut’s Simple Bed are proof of this.

• Best Estate: City of Flowers Penthouse — Window to the World (Granzella)

Personal estates are the benchmark of the Home economy, against which the pricing schemes for all other virtual goods are compared. And when it comes to estates, users have clamored for years to have more options built into them: controls over lighting, carpeting, furnishings, weather, et cetera. Granzella nailed it with their delivery.

• Best Public Space: Acorn Meadows Park (VEEMEE)

Is anyone even remotely surprised by this?

• Best Clubhouse: Hollywood Hills Nighttime Clubhouse Bundle (LOOT)

Not gonna lie: I really, really wanted LOOT to win this category. Hollywood Hills Nighttime is designed to be the ultimate Home clubhouse: EOD, radio that plays throughout the whole scene, swimming, and a nighttime vista that’s just amazing. Home has a vibrant dance/party subculture, particularly with club owners, and there just weren’t any clubhouses which catered to this until we went for it with Hollywood Hills. This scene took an enormous amount of work to pull off, and this award — along with our sales reports — feels like the validation. It was very cool that AlphaZone 4 chose LOOT’s Hollywood Hills as the venue to hold their awards ceremony; it’s exactly the sort of purpose that this clubhouse was built for.

• Best Reward: Sodium Fuselage Active Object Bed (Lockwood)

This was a reward? Hell, Lockwood left money on the table. No wonder it won.

• Best Game: Spunland (MadMunki)

I really, honestly thought Granzella was going to win this for Kikai; it seemed like the game to beat in 2013, particularly since Home has more or less abandoned its grand experiment as a gaming platform. To hear some users talk about it, Kikai was second only to the original Xi in terms of popularity. But it lost. To Spunland. Interesting.

• Best Home Event: Home Challenges (SCEA/SCEE)

This is a great choice. The Home Challenges have turned Home itself into a game, and my only criticism is that it’s a shame Home didn’t have this feature when it was first launched into open beta. Home needs to feel like a living, breathing, come-back-or-you-miss-it world.

• Best Developer: Lockwood

Not much of a surprise here, although some folks commented that this was the year when Lockwood’s perennial grip on the top prize might have lessened. Thing is, this is where Lockwood’s penetration into every single market segment in Home has paid off; they have a reputation of being just a little bit better at everything (rather than being see as specialists in one or two segments), which makes them the safe, top-of-mind answer for Home’s best developer every year.

Ironically, you know who the real winner might’ve been? Crackle. Because everyone kept accidentally triggering the EOD during the awards proceedings, leading to repeated Crackle ad-bombings. I’m shuddering to think what the output log from my PS3 console looked like, but the EOD handled it like a champ!

Here’s to Cubehouse and Team AZ4 for an awesome awards ceremony, as well as their fifth birthday as a site. They done good.

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2 Responses to “AlphaZone 4’s 2013 Awards Results”

1. John C. Ardussi says:

   March 24, 2014 at 5:11 am

   It was great to get so many nominations. The people who got the awards deserve them. They worked hard and it shows. Congratulations to the winners all!!

   Reply
2. MsLiZa says:

   March 24, 2014 at 4:07 pm

   I’d have to agree with many of the rewards. As little as I spend on Home these days, many of my purchases are reflected here.

   I bought the City of Flowers Penthouse on day one. It’s so nicely done that I had to buy the City by the Bay as well. These GZ releases really set the standard. I don’t think that I’ve purchased another space since then but I would look into another Window to the World release.

   The LOOT Hollywood Hills bundle was a major steal, especially at half price. I don’t really use the clubhouse for much but it’s still a great space.

   On the rare occasion that I’ve purchased avatar clothing in the past year, it’s mostly been from Dani’s line. Really nice work.

   In principle, the Challenges were a great idea. In execution, they’re a bit too repetitive and simple to be considered challenging. Still, they do create some incentive to visit Home each day. They were the only reason that I logged onto Home many days.

   I’m also surprised that Kikai was not the runaway winner for best game. Home needs more games/events like that one but I wonder if we’ll ever see another.

   Thanks to AZ4 for recognising the winners.

   Reply