[GDC 2011] Time for a New Home

Thought some here might find this and interesting read!
[GDC 2011] Time for a New Home - Home - Playstation 3 Preview

Joanna
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[GDC 2011] Time for a New Home

Well, sort of. Sony's prepping a 1.5 update with some interesting tools for developers.
Author: Sam Bishop
Published: March 11, 2011

Among those that haven't visited in the few years since PlayStation Home first went into an open beta, the mere mention of the service is met with snickers and derision. And, to be fair, that's not an entirely unwarranted reaction to what actually launched when compared with the early demonstrations we were shown -- there's still no Hall of Fame-style Trophy showcase, for instance.

But Home as it was years ago is not Home as it exists now, and much of that has to do with how Home Director Jack Buser and the crew at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have reacted to the people using the service. What was previously a sort of visual construct to a glorified chat room where people could meet and (hopefully) jump into games together has slowly morphed into a destination all its own. Home itself is now the destination, not merely a means to get into retail or PSN games -- though of course that still is very much a part of the service.

The shift came about, Buser explained at a roundtable breakfast during the Game Developers Conference last week, because of an unsurprising motivator: cash. More to the point, the fact that both Sony and developers that had opted to make interactive points of interest in home that could be monetized were indeed seeing the fruits of that labor pay off.

In terms of raw numbers, the results can't really be argued with: more than 8000 items, among them stalwart examples of microtransactions and avatar customization helped push revenue up 110% over last year. There are now 19 million people that have registered a PSN account, fired up Home, and logged in to walk around at least once. Of the ones that are still active, the average time spend in home is an amazing 70 minutes, most likely due to the fact that there are over 230 bits of interactivity in the US alone (though that includes not just space-specific activities, but stuff like pool tables you can put in your own apartment). Any way you slice it, that's an awful lot of dancing en masse around the avatar of some random girl.

The success of the platform has driven Sony to become something of a platform holder rather than content provider. They already have dozens of developers, from advertisers like Red Bull and Audi that make dedicated areas to pimp their products to big-time publishers with dedicated spaces for their games such as EA's massive gaming lobby to smaller-time operations that exist only in Home.

One of the most prominent examples is developer Outso and publisher Lockwood Interactive's Sodium space. Designed as a kind of upgradable shooter (Sodium One) with outlying mini-games and a social space, Sodium has become a profitable enterprise for Lockwood, who was on hand at the GDC breakfast to talk a bit about the success of building specifically for Home users and taking their feedback, in real time, from the very construct they built. Not only did it help the publisher understand the importance of updating certain parts of the experience to help users move around without getting lost, but it completely changed the business model of Sodium One with the sequel (fittingly dubbed Sodium Two).

Instead of a few levels that would tempt players into buying the whole 50 mission shooting experience, Sodium Two will employ a "freemium" business model. Free-to-play (and yes, that means theentire game), but with upgrades that can be purchased as players like. Even if one were to never plunk down a single cent, they can still do all the online races with friends (made possible by the new 1.5 update we'll get to in a second) unlock new hovercraft and upgrades, and even unlock additional customization options for their avatar. For free.

And yet, as has been established by other free-to-play ventures not just in Home, but elsewhere like massively multiplayer online games on the PC, this business model works. People will absolutely pay tiny amounts -- and often multiple tiny amounts over time -- to see long-term benefits in a game that is otherwise completely free.


It's an example, Buser says, of Home's metamorphosis from a simple graphical chat room meant to funnel players into another game outside of Home, to one that is actively interested in keeping them logged in and playing games inside the service. It provides an entirely new way to experience a game: you simply walk up to it with your virtual representation and jump in.

Until now, though, these have been pocket-sized experiences for the most part. Devs haven't really had the tools to create proper multiplayer-focused games in Home, instead opting for a kind of instanced set of experiences that people can play alongside (but not necessarily with) each other. With the 1.5 client update coming sometime this Spring, that all changes -- though it won't happen overnight.

1.5 adds a new physics system, a graphical overhaul that will allow better framerates and more detail and a new code that provides enough of a framework to get competitive, real-time action multiplayer games together (Sony specifically lists things like first-person shooters and racing games). In short, they're converting Home from the more casual chat room atmosphere into something that can handle multiplayer players squaring off in actual game-like scenarios... provided they build their new spaces with the 1.5 tools. It won't magically upgrade Home overnight, but like an SDK revision, anything using the 1.5 update's, well, updates will see an immediate effect -- and of course if the tools are properly tapped, things like the new graphics engine can result in markedly more visually impressive feats.

Such was the case with the aforementioned Sodium Two, which is now a track-based hovercraft racer not unlike a certain (former, RIP) Studio Liverpool racing franchise. Sporting grooved tracks with some impressive specular highlighting, rocky normal mapped terrain and some rather impressive speeds, the craft bank, turn and zip around tracks all while being piloted by your Home character. Times are logged on a leaderboard and winning races can dole out in-game rewards for upgrading your craft or buying a new one -- or, of course, you can just shell out real money to help the process along faster.

All in all, Sony has clearly decidedHome is a platform unto itself, something that complements the PSN and retail games already on offer while delivering a kind of meeting place and social interaction hub that's entirely unique even among platforms like the PC. We're excited to see what other advancements might come out of the physics, graphics and latency upgrades, and we're hoping it won't be too long after the 1.5 update is released to see more than just Sodium's transformation. More as we get it!