Rediscovering Home: the Theaters
by Susan, HSM team writer
“The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe.” ― P.S. Baber, Cassie Draws the Universe
In part two of my rediscovery of PlayStation Home, I decided to go back to where all of this started for me, personally. For the most part, anyway.
In the warm summer of 2010 I immersed myself into the world of PlayStation Home. I did my time in the fams. About a year later, I moved on and became involved with PSTalent. I daydreamed about how I could become a “movie star” or machinima producer, since you can be almost anything you can think of in this virtual world. In that article I said I felt more empowered to step up, make a difference and assist others with the same goals.
I have gone from being a noob to becoming a humbled writer for the Home media site which has a larger in-Home footprint (via EOD and HPG News Reader) than anyone else: HomeStation. Top that off with becoming an award-winning machinima video producer, and it’s been a hell of a ride — none of which would have been possible without the support and collaboration of friends, family and the PlayStation Home community.
Thus, what better place for me to rediscover than the theaters?
Most of us remember the old theater setup, but for those who were not present in that time, the theater had a huge entrance off of Central Plaza. The theater had a decor I found favorable — as did a lot of the community, so there was a huge uproar when it became what we see today. For me, the current theatre design lacks any charm. The new theater lobby is huge, and looks like it belongs in a wing of a mall. The details are impeccable, but for me the ambiance just isn’t the same. Maybe if they added a Dave and Busters inside the complex, licensing permitting…
No popcorn or candy vendors.
I went to both SCEA and SCEE theaters to compare the differences. I visited both regions several times, and always at different times of the day, to take in account the time difference in Europe. In SCEA they are called theaters, but over there in Europe, they are named cinema. Both overall had something in common: a lack of people.
Neither lobbies had more than five people at any one time. This theme was also common in each of the individual theaters I went into. The SCEA region lobby has a dance area by the video screen which is not found in the SCEE equivalent. The video that plays in that lobby is also different. The SCEE region shows a video trailer for Gran Turismo 6 — which was dated before 6/12/13, when the game came out. Meanwhile, the SCEA video screen shows a VIDZONE video clip — which, if you didn’t know, is one of the largest VOD (Video on Demand) services out there.
There are some other differences. Did you know that SCEA has only six theaters to visit while SCEE has eight? Visiting theaters seven and eight in the SCEA region will open a prompt to which you can choose to spawn to another location — mostly the different Sony Mansion spaces. In SCEE Theatre #8, there’s a game trailer for Killzone. Theatre #7 was showing a game trailer for The Order: 1886 — highly compressed, which leads me to believe the theatre specs are somewhat different than LOOT’s EOD system.
And, on every occasion, I never saw another soul.
Back in SCEE, theater #6 is a theater you won’t find on your Home navigator; you have to walk to it from the lobby. It was showing some indie stuff, as well as PlayStation Now and Mobile videos. Nobody around. Cinema#6 in SCEE was designated for PSTalent. #5 was showing a movie trailer for Elysium. Cinema #4 was an EA FIFA video game trailer. #3 was a PS4 advertisement. #2 showed a Bad Grampa movie clip. And in #1, a PS3 game advertisement for Minecraft.
Christ, if we go any further, you’ll need to defibrillate me to wake me up.
Where is Theater #7 & #8?
The SCEA region wasn’t much better. In Theater #5 there’s an advertisement for a PS4. Theater #4 used to show a neat little show called PlatinumD; now it’s just a blank video screen. Theater #3 takes you to the LOOT Space Station and their Entertainment On Demand video screen, with free movies from Crackle. In Theater #2 you can watch video replay of Gamescom 2013 and other then-upcoming games. Theater #1 used to be called the Community Theater, but now it’s focused on PSTalent.
Remember when you could actually see a semi-regular influx of community content from people like Doc and HearItWow? Nowadays, aside from HSM’s EOD channel and the occasional burst of PSTalent content, it seems like there just aren’t any other major players left. Granted, Home’s never had more than a handful of machinimists who had the talent and time (and work ethic) to produce content suitable for in-Home broadcast, and nearly all of them are now with one of the two aforementioned groups. Meanwhile, in the non-community theaters, it’s hard to ignore the sense that Home just isn’t worth the effort required to keep updating the screens with new promotional materials.
What may have killed the theaters was LOOT’s EOD. With it, I can watch videos from the community, as well as free Crackle content and a bunch of other services, in the comfort of my personal space or clubhouse — or, for the freeloaders, at the LOOT Space Station — with no change of scenery required to go from one piece of featured content to the next. It’s pretty obvious that the EOD commands vastly superior audience numbers to the theaters as a result.
Is there a way to drive more sustained traffic to the theaters long-term? I’m not sure. Why not, if feasible, somehow add the theater to the Home Challenges? Next time the Home Challenges call for you to play the Scribble arcade games and you find that the ones in the Bowling Alley are always full, try going to the theater; there are five of them there, but only in the SCEA region. Imagine how much incremental traffic gain might’ve occurred if users were directed to the theater as part of a quest activity?
If you haven’t been to Home’s various theaters in a while, they’re worth a quick jaunt, if only to stir some memories. But there are other, more vibrant parts of Home that should not be overlooked.
March 30th, 2014 by Susan | 4 comments
Susan is a team writer for HomeStation Magazine, co-founder of the award winning media group-AvatardProductions, a PlayStation MVP and a Home Guide. PSNID SCEA/xx96791DEATHxx-SCEE/oXx_EnIgMa_xXo. An avid PlayStation Home user, she is most often found setting land speed records at the Sodium 2 velocity racetracks, sitting at the Pier Park or playing with the R/C vehicles at Acorn Meadows Park.
LinkedIn
TwitterShare
| Tweet |
Being from the EU region the EOD doesn’t really do much for most of us as a lot the content that the NA regions have isn’t available. With crackle not streaming in the UK from 1st April, the EODs will have even less. Incidently both crackle and loots parent company is Sony and none of them have answers or can be bothered to answer for what’s going to happen to the users that bought EODs in the UK when they included crackle. The only way users will use the theatre if theres rewards or challenges. No one goes to theatre to watch anything unfortunatly because really there’s nothing worth watching and the updates are too few.
Aloha Gary, For me I use the EOD to watch the videos from the community. The HSM EOD channel houses the biggest collection of PlayStation Home user generated content. When LOOT had their weekly movie night and was showing movies from Crackle, it did limit the region of people who could come to the event and participate. I would like to see the challenges include the theater, but without updating the content in the theater,I would almost say what’s the point…*writers note- It is in the SCEA,not SCEE, that theater 6 is only found by walking to it and not on the navigator menu,Sorry.
SCEA theatres were once a hot spot but not after Glasswalls left. That was his baby as far as community stuff.
There are reasons why HSM ultimately chose not to pursue any theatre exposure other than the EOD (and subsequently the News Reader) — reasons which this article inadvertently touches upon.
Perception of internet fame within a circle of friends is all well and good, but it’s visitor traffic that counts.