And it’s a shame, yes.

Something I should probably make clear: I don’t dislike Home. Or this magazine’s readership. (To the contrary, actually.) I dislike the entitlement attitude I’m seeing from some other parts of the community — particularly the SCEA forum — I’ve been lurking around while getting up to speed on where Home is at these days.

I get that my disenfranchisement is somewhat incongruous with a Home-centric publication. Art is as much timing as it is execution, though; whenever the inevitable day comes that Home is indeed announced for shutdown, and the truly vocal members of the community blow up on this topic, revisit this article and see if still seems so unjustifiably sharp to you. Betcha it won’t.

While I agree with your assessment 100%, I couldn’t help feel a bit embarrassed by the condescending tone of this article. I really understand what your saying here, I really do, but don’t belittle your readers.

I understand you left Home and have issues with the game. I myself don’t play Home half as much as I used to, but I still love the game and know that people come here to HSM because they enjoy partaking in many different ways with the game. I would never feel justified talking down to readers no matter how much I disagreed with them.

Again, different viewpoints make the world go around. I respect yours, perhaps next time you could return the favor.

And I really do. I agree to what you say in regards to published articles and social hot topics. I’m all for it.

I’ll discuss further privately. Thanks for the reply.

While I fundamentally agree with this article I am a little uneasy with my perceived spirit of the phraseology. I agree that Sony owes us nothing. I’ll even go as far to say that I don’t even like the idea of the PlayStation Plus membership as compensation. One of the reasons I say that is, plus membership is mandatory for online play on the PlayStation 4. Having to pay for a membership helps filter out some of the undesirables that enjoy trolling but not enough to pay for it.

We are beta testers! We will be beta testers until the beta is over. We should feel privileged that we were given this wonderful gift or free. Cost only comes into play when we ourselves make decisions to make purchases to enhance and personalize our enjoyment of said gift. In the national parks department decided to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday weekend by allowing everyone to camp in any national park for free, and I go out and buy a new tent, sleeping bag, propane grill and a canoe to enhance and personalize my camping experience, and I load up my new gear and go to the national Park of my choice for a weekend of camping and on arrival the weather is too bad for me to set up camp so I have to go home, does the Parks department oh me compensation for my purchases?

We are beta testers! But often it’s not just time we invest. Sometimes we invest money, emotions and friendships. These are valuable investments to us. So emotions may run high. I will be the first to admit that the thought of losing Home makes me very emotional. I’m emotional now. And I admit in my emotional state I am sensitive to some of what I perceive as harsh phraseology in this article. I do not like it when the over entitled squeaky wheels on the forums demand that Sony owes them. But as someone that truly loves Home and is very concerned about its future, terms like “grow up” or I should’ve invested my money in the stock market or real estate are uncomfortable to me.

We are beta testers! We will have many personal opinions. Emotions will run high, but I truly hope that respect for others’ opinions will run higher. But that’s just me hoping again.

We are beta testers! Be proud of that!

(Disclaimer: I could be totally wrong, of course. I don’t work for SCEA/SCEE, nor am I a lawyer. I just took the time to read stuff like the EULA from end to end.)

When we, any of us, disagree with a strong point of view, the natural reaction is to challenge it by pointing out that it’s op-ed instead of factual. It’s important to not dismiss, though, factual information that’s underneath an author’s opinions — even when that information is emotionally uncomfortable.

Do I personally agree with every single story published in HSM? No. But that doesn’t mean those viewpoints aren’t worthy of discussion. In this case, the primary thrust of the article appears to be the living-in-denial disconnect between user expectation for compensation if/when Home is closed versus the cold legal reality that no such obligation appears to exist, as well as challenging the (frankly odd) user notion that discretionary spending in Home constitutes some sort of investment vehicle. And given what a powder-keg social issue Home’s unknown future is, this is bound to provoke strong reactions on all sides.

(Heck, that’s what HSM *prides* itself on — bringing up these sorts of issues and discussing them. It’s amazing to go back and read some of the impassioned — and at times even heated — debates that have raged across the pages of this publication throughout the years, sparking counterpoint articles and even further discussion.)

Here’s the real question this article provokes, and I’m hoping someone on the team will write it: while Sony may not have a legal requirement to offer up some sort of consolation gift if/when Home ends, would it be a good PR move to offer something up, despite the cost incurred? And, if so, what should be offered? And how should Sony decide which users are eligible and which aren’t?

With any luck, Home has a long lifespan still ahead of it. But the great thing about social issues like this one is that they’re evergreen; they’ll be just as relevant next year as they are today.

If this article spurs other people on to write their own coverage of this topic (or related ones), then it has done its job. I think it’d be great to read a counterpoint piece written by a Home user who feels duly entitled to some sort of compensation, making a convincing business case — despite not having any readily apparent legal justification to stand on — as to why Sony would stand to benefit from a PR standpoint (despite the incurred cost), what sort of consolation giveaway should thus be offered, and to what level of Home consumer it should be offered.

In the context of Home’s eventual closure, “I expect to be compensated!” has been treated as some sort of sacred-cow inviolable user right; and up until HSM started challenging this issue over the last week or so, *no one* had dared to dig underneath the emotion and really start examining some of these cold questions — because doing so means you have to emotionally acknowledge the reality that one day there won’t be a Home. And that’s uncomfortable.

(As Eric Hoffer states: “We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive.”)

It doesn’t mean everyone’s going to agree with each other when these issues are brought up and challenged — indeed, this is why we keep looking for a multitude of different viewpoints on any given topic — but we do ourselves and our readership a disservice if we hide from them. Hopefully, additional articles will be written on these social hot-button topics that the Home community faces. I certainly look forward to reading them.

But this is literally bashing Home users as escapism and creative means of expressions. That won’t sit very well with those that uses this application legitimately.

I truly don’t know what to say about this at all.

This is opinion versus facts. I can respect that but that doesn’t mean it’s true.

I’m sorry but I fully disagree entirely with this.