by Jin Lovelace, HSM team writer & filmmaker

Let’s be honest: many who log into Home these days have a growing feeling of impending doom in their minds. In the absence of hard data, anecdotal observation must suffice: fewer users in popular public scenes. Fewer users on message boards. Less enthusiasm. The numbers may still be profitable to Sony, but only because it seems like the level of re-investment they put into Home is very low, and such addition by subtraction is not a viable strategy for long-term growth. Granted, many users will log into the application and check out the goods available, but when it’s all said and done, it’s hard to disagree when I say there’s little to no engagement involved in the Home community. The onus is, frankly, on Sony to prove this wrong; aside from what SCEE HPG has been doing with the News Reader, Challenges and 1.86’s trophy support, things don’t appear particularly favorable.

One exception to this might be Lockwood. Home’s most prominent third-party developer has been pretty busy as of late, with their updates to their own social MMO, Avakin, and their recent events involving the Sodium2 racing game. It takes me back to the golden days — which weren’t all that long ago — when Home social and developer events were pretty cool.

If anything (and much like any fan of theirs), Lockwood could possibly be the definition of the “engaging experience” of Home. We saw their past offerings with the Sodium games, along with other commodities like the Gift Machine, Mercia and the Iron Fusion series. The array of innovative items under their belt is astounding.

So recently Lockwood had been hinting — and having their fans guess — what would be their big announcement. Some said more Iron Fusion items; I said more fashion. But the question remained: what could they possibly have that’s bigger than anything else they’ve got right now?

Well, that answer is simple: LKWD Life.

For those that remember how Lockwood deployed the exclusive Sunset Lounge public space, they’ll be slightly familiar with the requirements of this new loyalty program on PlayStation Home: owning any of the Dream apartments available would grant you access to the Lounge area, met with nice shades of hues, rewards, and a couple of interactive areas similar to the ones found in the spaces you own.

This thinking is applied with Lockwood’s new program, writ large. By owning any (or all) of the Dream Universe abodes, you’ll be first met with tasks available. Completing or meeting certain conditions–whether it’s entering the space, sitting in the Jacuzzi, or feeding the fish–will net you XP. The amount of XP you accrue once you accumulate enough can then be turned in for Lockwood rewards via The Redeeminator.  You can keep track of your progress with the machine at the Dream Central or you can place one of your own at your personal space. The more XP you gain, the more rewards are unlocked, as you accrue.

To me, this is beyond awesome. 

At a glance, one can quickly see some similarities with the Home challenge, but this is vastly different. You’re simply rewarded for just doing your mundane activities around the Dream Universe. So if you want to live this experience, you just have to either own the spaces available or visit Dream Central. And it appears that there’s something for everyone here, from furniture items, to personal abodes, to fashion. It’s all-encompassing.

I can smell yet another engaging hit from Lockwood with this one, but you can see for yourself with this quick video below, explaining to you just how this loyalty program works. Be sure to check it out this week and be prepared to start logging back into Home to live this Lockwood life. I know I most definitely will.

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3 Responses to “Living the LKWD Life”

1. MsLiZa says:

   March 19, 2014 at 3:27 am

   Is there any activity left on Home that doesn’t simply consist of repetitive daily chores?

   The rewards might be OK but where exactly is the fun in visiting all these spaces each day to repeat mundane tasks? Home needs more games and stimulating activities to re-engage the fading user base. The Home Challenges looked promising but the daily repetition becomes quite mindless. I give Lockwood props for still trying but this Life program does not look interesting at all. Just more daily chores to wash, rinse and repeat every day ad infinitum.

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   • Jin Lovelace says:

     March 19, 2014 at 12:38 pm

     I believe this will immerse the players who has the Dream Universe spaces available to do something different, and then some. I believe this expands from the Home challenges that you find in your task bar and actually go for quality, LKWD signature items.

     For fans, this is good. For those that see this as yet another repetitive cycle won’t find anything else here but mundane tasks. I’m just grateful for tasks rather than in-Home game releases. LKWD is, at least, contributing to the social aspects of Home with this new program.

     Reply
     • Gary160974 says:

       March 21, 2014 at 9:21 pm

       Id agree with in home game releases they tend to be poor but a lot of users gave up home while there’s plenty of mundane tasks still to do. So another mundane task isn’t going to get the user base back. Most games are made up of repetitive tasks but homes tasks are repetitive in a shallow environment. And actually most online games have a better social environment to them as well now.

       Reply