Fear of Loss
by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher
“We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.”
–Eric Hoffer
“Ultimately,” my instructor explained, “all human behavior boils down to one of two motives: hope of gain, or fear of loss.”
It was day one of my formal training in resort development, back in 2003. And I’ve never forgotten that lesson. When you learn to look at everything from that standpoint, you can quickly discern the root cause underlying any particular behavior, no matter how foreign it may seem.
Hope of gain, or fear of loss. That’s it.
I’m bringing this up because it’s particularly relevant to a lot of behavior we see within the Home community. Generally speaking, in Home’s early years, a lot of power users appeared motivated by hope of gain: gain of internet fame, gain of societal status, gain of employment, et cetera. Even within the HSM team, while most of the contributors hope to gain nothing more than the satisfaction of creative expression, there are a couple of people who want to gain more out of it — and there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it’s done in the right way (indeed, AlphaZone4 and HomeStation are two Home media sites which can boast of multiple people being hired within the games industry).
But these days, it’s fear of loss which seems to be driving some behavior. Specifically, the fear of losing Home itself.
It’s an understandable fear. Two of Home’s four regions (which, to be fair, are far smaller than their SCEA and SCEE counterparts) are essentially moribund. There’s no official statement on Home’s future (if any) beyond the PS3, which is now last-gen hardware. And the overall scale of product releases and events seems diminished compared to previous years. Meanwhile, games like Grand Theft Auto Online and Final Fantasy XIV offer Home-like elements and are running atop brand-new architecture, presenting very compelling alternative experiences to enjoy. Interestingly enough, even though Home has recently deployed some fantastic new features — the challenges, trophies and the News Reader, along with a core client update that introduced two-player interactions to the Home community — it’s been the absolute silence on any declaration of Home’s long-term plans that has people rattled.
This isn’t going to be a rehash of what is, at this point, a very old discussion. My personal stance on the issue — from a consumer’s point of view, mind you — is already well-known: enjoy the moment and spend money on experiences you want to enjoy, whether they’re around for another decade, another year, or simply another day. Home isn’t any more of an “investment” than any other video game or disposable entertainment experience. In some regards, I’d actually argue that Home experiences are a fantastic investment in personal enjoyment because they can potentially pay dividends for years, which not too many conventional video games offer.
No, the reason why this is being brought up is because at a recent HomeStation production meeting, a long-time contributor — who had been absent for some time — decided to drop by. Their reason for having largely stepped away from Home and into other gaming experiences? A need to emotionally insulate from the pain of possibly losing Home.
Metaphor.
I get it. Some users form very powerful emotional connections to Home. Sure, the same can be said of other MMO experiences, but there’s something about Home being a social metaverse with no clearly defined purpose that attracts a very specific type of personality. And that personality, if we’re honest, really isn’t served by many (if any) other conventional gaming experiences offered up on consoles or elsewhere. The thought of losing Home at some point doesn’t just worry these people; it causes genuine emotional distress.
And so, some users have started to pull away. Not necessarily because there’s anything materially wrong with Home, but because they want to preemptively soften the emotional impact of one day losing Home.
(Melissa has raised a really interesting point which I agree with: Home’s product lifecycle roughly corresponds to the Great Recession. As such, Home — being free to experience, and offering the ability to escape and commiserate inside a virtual world — may have inadvertently become a haven for a number of damaged souls who were displaced, unemployed, frustrated, et cetera. The hope of gain — the desire to be someone, even if it’s in a virtual world — is amplified by real-world setbacks.)
The fear of death is the single most pervasive fear that humanity universally suffers from. And that fear translates into a general fear of endings. We want things to go on forever. And for some reason, unlike conventional video games — even unlike other MMO experiences — there’s a general sense that Home should somehow be more timeless.
I have a lot of sympathy for fellow Home users who have spent a lot of years in this particular rabbit hole. But I guess what I’m appealing for here is a sense of perspective. Home’s a really fun experience, but — and I’m saying this as someone who’s put a lot of time and money and years into Home, and commensurately gotten a lot out of Home in return — it’s not something that should run your life. Once you have that emotional distance, you can (paradoxically, perhaps) enjoy Home a hell of a lot more, because you’re no longer so obsessed with the future that you miss out on the present. The moment you need Home — or anything else — to get through your day, and it becomes a dependency…that becomes cause for possible concern.
Let go of the fear of loss. The moment you do, you gain. It is, in my view, a self-inflicted mistake to leave Home prematurely in order to try to emotionally insulate from future loss.
Home’s still got some mileage left in it. How much more is anyone’s guess. But my point is that it shouldn’t matter. Enjoy the moment; in the end, it’s all we have.
April 8th, 2014 by NorseGamer | 3 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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I agree with the enjoy it while it lasts stance. there are millions of users spending big time and money on ps3 titles like gta5 online knowing full well in the future that gta6 will be released probably on next gen consoles. I cant see home going before the ps3 shelf life has ended and will probably outlast gta5’s shelf life. But saying that home has got to want to continue as well. What I mean is updates have to remain exciting, any mods, hacking, glitching or exploits in games, events and spaces should be limited. Load times should be respectable ( not ultra fast because thats unfair with the amount of information sent down the line ). Broken items should be either fixed, removed, refunded. Part of what has made home users stay or go is just they ability to put up with homes issues. So the question that me and my friends have to answer is. Where do we go and spend our precious time and hard earnt money. Home has been great. Ive got friends that would of never played certain games without having been on home first but dont let it go into an unloved mess. if that happens put it out of its misery.
It’s an oddity for sure, Home does feel “timeless”. It’s maybe the constant, weekly updates or the ever-expanding spaces; whatever it is that makes Home feel like a perpetual, never-ending story is what keeps people coming back to it, even after months or years. In this circumstance, “Home” is such an appropriate name for it. Honestly, I never thought about the end of Home a few years ago, it just ‘was’ and as I thought, always will be!
I’m very sure Home has a good few years left in it too, so I’ll keep buying stuff I take a fancy to but sadly I’ve now been spoiled by other on-line games that do not suffer the same volume of loading screens and background checks. If Home is to ever move forward it’ll have to become a more seamless experience for the user.
I’m still hoping for a new VR version of Home from PS4 and Morpheus, but I get the feeling I’ll be waiting a LONG time for that! In the meantime, I’ll still be doing challenges and gathering LKWD Life XP, and whatever else busy-work they can think up for keeping us motivated.
It’s the sheer amount of stuff you can own on home. Most games won’t let you own so much. GTA is limited to a bunch of reskinned clothes, two apartments and 20 cars ( in high life update coming soon ). Once you own the stuff you want theres little need to start buying more. Theres a couple of phases on games first is to buy everything you need to progress. Second buy high end items that have a kudos factor, third buy or find stuff thats rare or limited, fourth buy stuff you like and not because it’s rare, the best or has any real kudos factor to it.
Home on the other hand just lets you buy and buy and buy. The price of this level of choice is the issues home suffers with. But you can repeat several of the phases. A new game is released in home there’s always associated items that tend to be required to fully enjoy that game. Kudos factor is having new outfits that aren’t just reskins plus High end items are continuous because you can have them all. Rare or limited well acorn pack covers that expertly how many users have bought souvenirs from every park theme. Home could outlast GTA 5 because of this but again it does need several functions to continue. One is we need to be able to get rid of unused items.