Is there no middle ground with Home?
The sharp responses from both sides of the spectrum to my written experiences in Home have suggested this. Either you understand Home or you don't. Either you spend a lengthy amount of time within Home or you don't use it at all.
For more than a year, I was on the latter side. My Life In Home is about trying to understand what makes Home tick with the users who defend it. If I'm not a Home devotee by the end of this (whenever that is), that's not a big deal. I want to understand why other people are so into it.
Home does inspire devotion in some users. In some cases, it's a slavish attention to detail when it comes to costume manipulation. In others, it's about constructing a nearly 80-page online magazine dedicated to covering the cultural side of Home and the people driving its creation.
No, I'm not kidding.
HomeStyle Magazine, currently on its 78-page second issue, is a virtual publication launched last October by user NJRAMAL. The magazine promises "engaging, entertaining and comprehensive articles that cover all aspects of PlayStation Home through insider insights, fashion tips for our avatars and user reviews." Based on my perusal of the latest issue, HomeStyle Magazine provides keen insight into what Home users are actually doing with their time in Home. For a service that's been maligned by most of my peers, it's fairly shocking.
Who knew there were DJ competitions (with PSN card prizes), friendly rivalries over having the best "Home crib," fashion shows between community members, and controversies over glitch removals?
"Sony cant [sic] keep a good glitcher down, as the 1.3 update ended many of the old glitches that some of the Home community enjoyed," reads a section about the known glitches in Home, followed by an interview with a so-called leader of the glitchers, Elite_Shadow_AC. "Although the community adapted found [sic] new ways and glitched on. Glitching was not dead as so many had feared."
According to Elite_Shadow_AC, there's an "art of glitching" that's learned by observing the ability for others to find themselves doing things within Home that shouldn't be allowed (i.e. popping up on the roofs of buildings, standing on benches, etc.). Elite_Shadow_AC's online name is actually related to his glitching hobbies within Home, too. "Elite Shadow" refers to a specific group of glitchers. "Gods of Glitching" and "Exodus" are apparently two other organizations within Home dedicated to glitching.
There are even temporary "jail cells" that Home moderators can dump glitchers into, which Elite_Shadow_AC dismissed as a lost cause, as the user is only detained for 20-30 seconds.
If you're interested in learning more, HomeStyle Magazine includes several essays outlining the recent patch's effects on glitchers in the latest issue, each penned by a known glitcher in the community.
"After the 1.3 update hit the glitching community we knew it was the end of glitches as we knew it," wrote Home community member kev99gh in one commentary, "and a new way of glitching was born."
HomeStyle Magazine also includes humorous advertisements for the wares Sony's sells in their stores.
If I've learned anything the last few weeks, just wandering around Home doesn't appear to do the service justice. That's Sony's fault. The amount of effort spent producing HomeStyle Magazine highlights a selection of users expanding what's capable of Home, even if Sony doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot to encourage or highlight it. If users will do it for them, however, maybe that's the point. But if you, like me, wondered what going on beneath the surface in Home, this is your answer.
You can keep up with HomeStyle Magazine through the official website.
- My Life In Home, Vol. 1 -- Coming Back After A Year Away From Home
- My Life In Home, Vol. 2 -- The Chat Room Theory
Have something to share? Sitting on a news tip? E-mail me. You can also follow me on Twitter.
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Comments
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Amir29
I already recognize two posters in here as regulars in the Home Community. The reason I recognize them is because they take an active role in the community. They express themselves in the official playstation forum to help shape the future of the Home application with their public display of suggestions and complaints about the application.
The thing is, you can not experience Home by watching it unfold around you. You have to take part in it. The attachment many Home users feel is not to the application itself, but to each other. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have known about this article, if a Home user didn't point to it in the forum for all of us to see.
Spending one hour on the application for someone who has not been on for a year is also not going to show you much. As you mentioned in your first article, load times are a bit extreme on the application. I can assure that Home users are not happy about it, but we can't do anything but let management know this needs to improve and wait for the developers to figure out a way to deliver that improvement over time. However, that also means you have not given Home proper attention. The movie theater has ten different theaters within to explore, the mall has a ridiculous amount of items and personal spaces to purchase since last you visited our community, and though you point out the WAY overpriced items, you seemed to have over looked the majority of items priced at $.49 or the ones that were free?
Now please don't mistake my post for being defensive. There are many things I don't like about the Home application. I would personally like to see bugs and consumer complaints being addressed more quickly and efficiently. I would also like to see those load times decrease drastically, especially when logging in. This is especially important now that we can Game Launch to any game in the Playstation library (another thing you failed to mention).
Home is something that pays you with an abundance of friends to game and enjoy downtime with. But, only if you take the time to develop such a relationship with those in the community. What you're seeing in public spaces is only the surface of Home. Typically, this is the beginning of a friendship. The "Icebreaker" if you will. When people begin to feel more comfortable with one another or develop a good friendship, they'll move to private spaces to have more in-depth and intimate conversation away from the public eye in their personal spaces.
These "Organizations" mentioned are called "Clubs". Some clubs, like "The Homelings" (Which I am not affiliated with) are 400+ members strong, and it's quite an event when they make their presence in public together. Even I was (at one point) at the helm of a "club" brought together to help solve the "Xi Mystery", the first console based Alternate Reality Game introduced by Game Developer "nDreams" specifically for Playstation Home. That ARG brought together THOUSANDS of us together from both North America and Europe, and till today (it ended Summer, 2009) it's still sorely missed by many of us.
If you wish to continue your study of Playstation Home, I suggest you attempt to be more involved in our community and watch it grow from the inside out. There's a large difference between a tourist and a native in any real world location. If you wish to report on Playstation's Home application properly, I suggest doing so as a native. As a tourist, you can't reveal anything we don't already know with an internet filled with screen shots and videos.
Gamelife1
It's strange, I never actually read that magazine yet I know of pretty much all the stuff you mentioned. I found the bit about glitching quite amusing too. I remember back when Home first started and there were very few spaces. Thats what I would spend most of my time doing and thats how I made some of my first friends within Home. Dancing on top of railing is a really great conversation starter for some reason lol. However, after prolonged zig zag spamming of my joystick I messed it up a bit. So, when 1.3 hit and the glitches just got more complex I decided to preserve my fresh new Dualshock for Colorware.
V_Translanka
"Is there is no..."...? C'mon, run it through more than just a spellchecker! :P
Anyhow, I'm glad to see Sony really stepping up to the plate and offering something unique to their community...late or not...>_>
Conrad_Max
That's it? A week went by and you didn't interact with anyone? Have you immersed yourself yet? Most likely not, but you would highlight that "magazine".
Ciao!
Wozman23
After I consulting the the internet, I finally figured out what [sic] means. I just thought you had an weird form of typing Tourettes.
Now someone else who doesn't know, look it up then apply all applicable '[sic]'s to my previous statement.
TangoAlphaLima
I'm so confused by Home. So this Elite_Shadow_AC guy would rather find glitches in Home than play an actual video game? So strange...
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