by Estim20, HSM Editor

It can be difficult to quantify how something that has been a part of your life for five years affected you over said years.

It is especially difficult when you need to figure that out after hearing it won’t be alive in six months. But, as with all things, even Home must come to an end – and we have the end in sight, down to the date.

Perhaps it is a little unusual to consider Home as a living organism; a vibrant, evolving lifeform as fickle as the users who frequent it. After all, it is but a series of 1s and 0s translated into a social MMO structured around the PlayStation Network. But in its own way, it’s just as real and living as any random avatar’s puppet master. It is another world unto itself, a virtual country with its own cultural and historical heritage – and a population that is as strange as (if not stranger than) anything we see in real life.

My first experience with it was a bit normal, or at least nothing mind-shattering. I became aware of Home before I even owned a PlayStation 3, and it enticed me to eventually get one. Before then, I owned an Xbox 360 – after the purchase of a PlayStation 3, I rarely looked back at the other console. Upon booting up the console and giving a few games a whirl, PlayStation Home naturally drew my attention.

As such, December 2009 proved the point of no return. One step into the virtual social biome was the first among many, my first tangible experience being 2009’s holiday season. Christmas was over and New Year’s Day loomed around the corner. Avatars whirled around Central Plaza, basking in the glow of a holiday-appropriate event, enticed by the promise of freebies.

Much of what Home would become hadn’t fully formed yet, but the foundation was there. In between the seasonal events, the founding developers, and the eclectic band of rogues we called ‘Home’s audience,’ we caught glimpses of Home’s potential – and its future. There was this sense of living on the frontiers of console capabilities, as console-based social MMOs simply weren’t a thing until Home arrived, and those of us snared by its siren’s call entertained notions of what Home can (and, more importantly, will) do.

Did we suspect it would last between six and seven years? Maybe; a few of us certainly hoped it had quite a life to live, quite a story to tell. Whenever something new falls upon the laps of consoles, there’s great difficulty in predicting every factor that will influence its successes and failures. For Home, especially, the concept of a social MMO was untested on consoles. Its predecessors existed (and still exist) on the PC, but it has no console-based peers. For all intents and purposes, it made new ground.

And now the experiment is ending.

Reflections on Home’s legacy are naturally going to be mixed; no two people will ever agree 100% on the details, though overlap is also inevitable. Either case, it is natural to ask the most ominous question one can dare ask any service:

How was it?

Ultimately, I feel Home worked. Obviously it has warts and wrinkles, being a first-time attempt at adapting social MMOs to a console, and the concept originated during the PlayStation 2 era. Perfection in such a scenario would be a grand dream, an ideal to strive for, but unlikely to happen. However, it showed that socialization is going to be an important factor in the new age of consoles, where online support is expected (and, indeed, necessary).

Home is a remark on the international appeal of games, where two people from opposite sides of the world are capable of holding a conversation, in real time, while dressed as hamsters. We crossed the barrier from largely offline play to online revelry and connections with gamers are going to be more important as we iron out the details. A social melting pot like this would be (and was) a positive step towards getting people together.

I know it certainly was for me. Five years ago, if you told me I’d be writing for HomeStation Magazine, gaming with people I met on a social network, and influencing a major corporation’s decisions in said social network, I’d ask you to pull the other one. After five years, though, I can’t see it any other way. I met a huge amount of people, some of whom I’m still close friends with, and wrote for a magazine that helped shape Home as we know it.

And now the grand gala is setting. Home is having its final months, HSM will be setting with it, and another opportunity (with LOOT, no less) looms on the horizon. This is the result of five years, countless articles, a gaggle of friends to see through it, and more than enough clothes for my avatar.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

Where we go from here is up to us, but a Home-free future is not a horrible future. Our stories needn’t end here; we have plenty to work with, now that the PS4 is a year old. Where will you be when it turns two?

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