Home beta finally open and still disappointed
Yes, I admit that I was excited to see that Home had finally hit open beta. I mean, how long has it been since even those of us that review games had given up on the thing and thought that it had fallen to the blackest depths of hell. So when I first logged on, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that it wouldn’t let me on.
Figures. Guess they didn’t work out their connection issues. So after dinner, I tried it again. And then…
BEHOLD! The Light! I finally see the Terms of Service!
I go through and get to creating my avatar. My initial reaction was that it was so pretty and the controls weren’t stupid-like. I mean, it was fit well into a console controller, which is more than I can say for most FPS games that are suited for mouse-aim. But I digress. So I created my avatar and went to check out my apartment. And boy were the graphics crisp. I’ll give Sony that much. With all the time they spent on this project, the graphics look really good and they can support a good deal of ambient streaming and avatars in one area. That’s actually pretty good.
But then it hit me. There was still nothing to do. Open beta, and still nothing to do? The closed beta testing rumors were true! You figured that being that this was delayed almost a year, there would have been more to it. A couple weak arcade games, and pool and bowling along with video ads that stream, and that’s about it. The mall didn’t have enough things to amuse oneself and you couldn’t even buy a pool table to play against your friends or arcade games. Maybe they need to introduce QVC or something. Who knows.
And in the world map, I was actually expecting Red Bull. I mean, it’s not like they didn’t announce it. Even bumped into fellow author, TD, as we explored the limited realms and chatted via BT headsets. I had synched up my Bluetooth Think Outside keyboard so it was actually pretty nice to see that the PS3 could manage to bring new BT connections up without having to restart the application.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed. The scaling was great, the graphics were fabulous, but in an open beta, you just don’t release with just a little bit like the games Uncharted and Farcry 2 and expect to get a standing ovation. There should have been a full-fledged mall from the get-go and there should have been more push for independent development as it would spawn some interesting combinations of indie arcade games and interactive areas.
There’s no doubt that it’s beautiful. But for the wait, it has very little to hold one’s presence. Maybe they’ll start rolling out more and more things quickly. But if they drop the ball on this one, it’s going to end up like many of the other virtual worlds where it’s great to look at but no one wants to use it.
December 12th, 2008 • 
Darius Sartre • 
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comment | December 12, 2008 at 14:14 | individual comment-link
Are you approaching this with a virtual worlds mentality first, or a gamer mentality? The contextual difference and expectations are vast. Sony has a great framework here to a) create mini games in a social/waiting space, b) social spaces around brands (there are others built, not released yet: Watchmen, Red Bull, Warhawk), and c) a tremendous catalog of media between movies and music.
I’ve been in the beta for a while, and it has improved over time, I’m quite happy with (just not the jump from a few hundred thousand to million people over night). The console is for gaming first and downtime second in many cases (some use it for a media console, sure). The potential of every ‘freemode’ in manmy games connecting to a space so freestyle in nature is promising, and the economy/rewards part has yet to be realised to its fullest potential.
It’s also great that Home isn’t so visually condescending and childish like Xbox with their Mii World [sic]. Home itself is just a compartment of 3D socialization that already takes place in freeplay game modes, it’s just scrutinized more because of its placement in plain view. The userbase is built in, with zero barrier to entry.
I fully expect it to be hated, and having to deal with ‘you are as good as your competition’, even Sony has to sell being ‘not like Second Life’. It’s tough, but not impossible.
pingback | December 14, 2008 at 04:14 | individual pingback-link
[...] to listen to and try and fill over the next year. He owns a PS3 and Wii and in his post at VTOR shared similar disappointment as me with Home. If Sony can’t get somebody like him excited who is already on board – as you might say about [...]
pingback | December 14, 2008 at 05:35 | individual pingback-link
[...] the comments to Darius post on Sony Playstation Home now in open beta Eric Rice asks a great question: Are you approaching this with a virtual worlds mentality first, or a gamer mentality? The [...]
comment | December 14, 2008 at 08:21 | individual comment-link
@Eric:
Viewing from both ends, virtual worlds and gamer. I’ll go with gamer first. First, it’s been way too long. If you delay releasing a project as many months as Home has been, it doesn’t matter to the rest of the world what you’re opening to and in what form. You have to keep up with what’s going on outside especially in the gaming industry.
So to release with only Uncharted and Farcry 2 as areas? Huge no-no. It really just gives the impression that you’re not with it. And as a self-admitted Sony fanboy, I still believe that you have to wow your players. The system itself does that, and back when it first started the closed beta and even perhaps when Home said it was going to go open the first time…. this might be acceptable. But from where it stands now, today? Unacceptable. If you’re going to release, release with a core base that’s finished and provide areas to give the gamers more things to do. Roaming around gave me about an hour or so of amusement, and maybe thirty minutes of trying to figure out what I could buy and mess with. That’s not enough time to hold your “easy captive” audience. Need way more than that.
Virtual worlds wise: I agree. The framework is far greater than Second Life, and the Xbox virtual worlds. However, here’s where my virtualization and gamer worlds collide. Regardless of how beautiful the framework is, the industry of virtual worlds moves forward and doesn’t slow down for anyone. Just look at how Second Life started and where it is now. The point is that while technologists might be wow’d by what’s under the hood, the majority of your audience are not technologists. Thus, you have to captivate them in a different fashion. That’s where I think Sony has failed or will fail in the Home open beta unless they some releasing some content fast.
It’s like buying a car. A lot of people don’t really care what’s under the hood, as much as how it drives and how it looks. Home looks good but the driving is only so-so for now. And the longer it waits for content, the more it opens the gap between to have users flock to different worlds.
So far? I’d say that implementation wise, SL has done the best job although their execution as of the past year or two has been extremely sloppy which has decreased their user base. Home itself needs to have the content from that end if they want to compete, or they’ll just go the way of most virtual worlds.