Are Advertisers Running Away From Home?

[John Funk]

Are Advertisers Running Away From Home?

The failure of PlayStation Home to capture gamers' attention may be having repercussions as advertisers jump ship to the more media-friendly Xbox Live.

When PlayStation Home made its open beta debut at the tail end of 2008, gamers responded with a collective shrug of disinterest. The world had barely any of the content originally promised, felt empty and lifeless, and offered little incentive to log in more than once. Home's failure to connect with users may be the reason for Sony's absence from this year's Engage Expo, believe brand analysts at Brand Week [http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i9384d92ba8c3b4bd3eff4eb643e30bd6], when the hardware giant had been promoting the service as the next big thing at the Expo just a year before.

Energy drink manufacturer Red Bull is still hanging out around Home, but the rest seem to be jumping ship - and to make matters worse for Sony, some are putting their marketing dollars to work on rival Xbox Live. "Microsoft has MSN," said Jon Epstein, CEO of DoubleFusion, a firm that specializes in in-game advertising, "They are much more of a media company than Sony has traditionally been."

While Sony claims that its free PSN service has almost 40 million users globally - approximately twice that of Microsoft's older, pay-to-use Xbox Live - analysts doubt that PlayStation Home sees constant use from the 11 million users who have checked it out. ""From moment one, it kind of felt clunky ... And once you got through that, there wasn't much there," said John Rafferty, creative director at Publicis' Denuo.

Leigh Alexander, news director at Gamasutra, said that the hype around Home was a product of the time, when people were predicting that virtual worlds like Second Life would be the way of the future, and that we would all soon be interacting with custom 3D avatars of our own choosing. But rather than 3D, said Alexander, people just wanted simplicity and ease of use: "One of the lessons we are learning on the Web-users want to do things as quickly and easily as possible even if that means static Web pages."

Sony, naturally, disagrees with statements that Home is in trouble, pointing out that entities like Fox and the U.S. Army have recently run advertising campaigns in the virtual world. "Over 30 partners have recognized PlayStation Home as an interactive platform to convey an immersive brand experience," claimed Jack Buser, director of PlayStation Home.

That may be true, Jack, but how many of these advertising partners actually go back after a single try?

It's no wonder that advertisers are growing to prefer the normal PlayStation Network over Home - at least people actually use PSN.

(Via Edge [http://www.edge-online.com/news/advertisers-abandon-playstation-home])

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[uppitycracker]

I honestly don't remember many people actually being excited about Home, except for the few people (at the time) who owned a PS3. I remember looking at the concept, and thinking wow, what a massive investment in failure.

Being a PS3 owner now, I honestly haven't even thought twice about checking out Home, nor has anyone I know.

 

[Jared]

I never used it, and, actually I dont know anyone that does...

 

[Nimbus]

I don't think anyone aside from Sony employees have ever thought it was a good idea.

 

[Worgen]

it was really missing the one thing that sl has going for it, letting you do whatever the hell you want to and making anything you want too

 

[DarkSaber]

Hands up who didn't see this happening.

 

[Hiphophippo]

I logged into it just because I could. I've not gone back.

Surprise surprise.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

I've had a ps3 for about 7 months now and this is the first i have even heard about this Home thing. from the sound of it i didnt miss much.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Home took the notion of scarcity and ported it into a digital environment. Chew on that for a moment - they create a virtual space where you can take an avatar and engage in various little games, but they artificially limited access to those games, thus simulating the single worst aspect of real-life entertainment: waiting in a damn line.

It's clear the designers of Home were morons, is it any surprise to see advertisers realizing it's a horrible flop and fleeing?

 

[NamesAreHardToPick]

1) they need to make the avatars less terrifying. There's something horribly wrong with their eyes.

2) Home doesn't make any sense as a product. I mean, you're sitting there in front of a game console and a TV... you have better things to do than stand around gawking at virtual people in a not-game thing. You would rather be pwning people, browsing the web, or watching a show. Most of the time, getting together with other people online revolves around some common purpose. World War Two, killing a big monster, captioning LOLcats, flirting.

What's the "theme" in Home? What is someone's motivation to log in? Competitive consumerism... buying and showing off virtual merch. I can see how someone raised from infancy entirely by television commercials would think this is the best idea ever, too bad real people don't have any interest.

If Sony wanted this alternate-reality thing to have some potential, they should make it possible to use media in Home so that other people could come by and see/hear what you were doing. I'd go online to chill and read Something Awful just on the chance someone else would come by and check it out and think it was hilarious... or if I was listening to MP3's in Home other people could stand nearby to hear them too. That would give much-needed purpose to the human interaction besides humping dudes on the leg with the dance emotes.

 

[luckshot]

1) they need to make the avatars less terrifying. There's something horribly wrong with their eyes.

2) Home doesn't make any sense as a product. I mean, you're sitting there in front of a game console and a TV... you have better things to do than stand around gawking at virtual people in a not-game thing. You would rather be pwning people, browsing the web, or watching a show. Most of the time, getting together with other people online revolves around some common purpose. World War Two, killing a big monster, captioning LOLcats, flirting.

What's the "theme" in Home? What is someone's motivation to log in? Competitive consumerism... buying and showing off virtual merch. I can see how someone raised from infancy entirely by television commercials would think this is the best idea ever, too bad real people don't have any interest.

If Sony wanted this alternate-reality thing to have some potential, they should make it possible to use media in Home so that other people could come by and see/hear what you were doing. I'd go online to chill and read Something Awful just on the chance someone else would come by and check it out and think it was hilarious... or if I was listening to MP3's in Home other people could stand nearby to hear them too. That would give much-needed purpose to the human interaction besides humping dudes on the leg with the dance emotes.

this. whenever i turn on a game console i do so with only a few goals in mind (video game, movie), standing around and buying stuff to put in a virtual home just seems like nonsense...as in i could do that in real life, then invite people over for a BBQ, then bang my hot neighbor. i can only assume the BBQ and banging on psn's "home" is less than satisfying

 

[edgeofblade]

Home was a delusion. Pure and simple. Someone believed whole heartedly that "if you build it, they will come". Those aren't words of wisdom... that's a leap of blind faith. Many people forget the phrase came from Field of Dreams and a baseball field for ghosts in the middle of a farm isn't exactly the best business venture.

 

[NamesAreHardToPick]

this. whenever i turn on a game console i do so with only a few goals in mind (video game, movie), standing around and buying stuff to put in a virtual home just seems like nonsense...as in i could do that in real life, then invite people over for a BBQ, then bang my hot neighbor. i can only assume the BBQ and banging on psn's "home" is less than satisfying

Hold on there, I think there are people who would disagree about the quality of the bangin'... for a while the big joke about Home was that you'd have two or three people humping your character's legs and butt within seconds of standing still in a lobby. I logged in for a bit when Sodium One (a shooter videogame in home) came out and was shocked shocked when a man-train didn't immediately form around my character... I had started thinking of humpers as Home's version of "option" powerups from Gradius.

Another thing Sony could do with Home is tap into every kid's need for grandstanding. Add some Havok physics and get rid of the invisible walls that prevent you from doing Jackass-style stunts. Instead Home is even more uptight than real life about rules and not letting you do anything cool, you get to stand around like a dude in a fashion ad and that's about it.

I'd stand around just to watch dudes ragdoll off the top of the mall or touching the third rail in a subway station.

 

[Pigletdude]

Hold on i have heard of this PS3 home doo hickey, does this mean you have to WALK your avatars everywhere to do anything? If so then a big ol' LOL facepalm

 

[luckshot]

this. whenever i turn on a game console i do so with only a few goals in mind (video game, movie), standing around and buying stuff to put in a virtual home just seems like nonsense...as in i could do that in real life, then invite people over for a BBQ, then bang my hot neighbor. i can only assume the BBQ and banging on psn's "home" is less than satisfying

Hold on there, I think there are people who would disagree about the quality of the bangin'... for a while the big joke about Home was that you'd have two or three people humping your character's legs and butt within seconds of standing still in a lobby. I logged in for a bit when Sodium One (a shooter videogame in home) came out and was shocked shocked when a man-train didn't immediately form around my character... I had started thinking of humpers as Home's version of "option" powerups from Gradius.

Another thing Sony could do with Home is tap into every kid's need for grandstanding. Add some Havok physics and get rid of the invisible walls that prevent you from doing Jackass-style stunts. Instead Home is even more uptight than real life about rules and not letting you do anything cool, you get to stand around like a dude in a fashion ad and that's about it.

I'd stand around just to watch dudes ragdoll off the top of the mall or touching the third rail in a subway station.

well ok, the bangin could be...bangin...but your own testament, this didnt happen. meat trains work better when beef and pork are involved. fried turkey could also be added.

having never accessed Home, the actual problems and bright spots are unknown to me, but yes having a world based on the outside world with the ability to do crazy things involving ragdoll physics could be entertaining

 

[Sewer Rat]

I used it once when I got my PS3, and near immediately lost interest.

 

[AceDiamond]

I don't know who at Sony is so determined to make this thing work but I guess they have to since they made such a big deal about it in the first place

 

[Therumancer]

Here is the skinny on PS Home:


I don't know how many of you have followed this from the beginning, but Home was originally supposed to be based on "Second Life". The original statement was pretty much that Sony wanted to make Second Life, but "without the naked people in the sky" (I believe that was exactly the quote). If you read wikipedia on it, it was planned specifically to allow people to stream music, movies, and other media from their collections through Home, as well as support user created content.

The overall idea originally being to create a sort of virtual space that people would use to replace the default interface, and use as a platform to communicate en-masse, meet other gamers, meet, and launch games. A place where you could get a new movie or CD and invite your online buddies over to watch it with you in your virtual apartment.

The big question is "what happened to this idea?". One of the first things to go of course was user created content. Both because if users could make and trade anything they wanted like in Second Life, there would be little need to pay Sony directly for goods. What's more trade back and forth would cause issues of using real money, and risk making goverments take note of the "Wallet" system and transactions taking place through Home just as there were issues eventually over currency transactions taking place through Lindens with Second Life. The biggest issue of course was that Sony went from trying to create a free, virtual service as a feature of PSN, to trying to figure out how much money they could make off of it aside from advertising. On top of this I feel the "Naked people in the sky" comment sort of showed the downfall, because most "virtual chat rooms" and such work based on freedom, and with political changes underway even then, and Sony being unwilling to fight, they had concerns about the potential for what might happen with user based content. Even now as people point out they run the thing like a police state where it's set up to greatly limit what you can do within the context of Home, far more than was originally intended. You will also notice that when developing it, one of the first rules they created for develepers was "no weapons" so you couldn't for example walk around with Cloud's Buster Sword, or the Glaive from Dark Sector strapped to your Avatar.


Streaming media seemed to be the last thing to go, and largely based on the idea that one of the first things people mentioned when they heard the idea was how they were going to show off their porn movie collections and such. This needless to say raises questions about how Sony would police who could see what media, or even if they had the right. As well as copyright issues apparently which Linden Labs ignored, over the general idea that streaming a video even for free through Home sort of doesn't count as use in your own real world home. "Nah, I'm not going to buy that, I'll wait until someone shows it through PSN Home". I sort of suspect what little I heard of this issue came from Sony's own movie departments, or perhaps from rivals who felt Sony might find some way to use Home to steal THEIR products somehow.

The end result was a fairly empty virtual chat room, with some overcrowded mini games, and an almost total lack of space that makes things like the ancient "Club Cairbe" (On Q-Link) look massive in comparison.

I suppose the idea does allow for some cool advertisements with virtual rooms and such set up by differant companies themed around their games and the like. But in the end it simply turned into another graphic chat with a constant barrage of microtransactions.

I loved the IDEA of Home, but the reality turned out to be far from impressive.

Had Sony taken the approach of Linden Labs and basically said "D@mn the torpedos, full speed ahead! Let's call this an experiment" and stopped thinking about politics, what people might (and probably would) do to abuse the system, and everything else, they could have created an interesting virtual "Wild West" that would have attracted the same interest as Second Life did, but also drawing in gamers (like me) who had no interest in that due to the gamer aspects of the whole thing. Besides it would be kind of cool to sit around and show off some of my horror movies.

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That said I get a lot of lulz from the idea of advertisers going to XBL, almost in the "What have they been smoking" vein. The reason being that XBL doesn't even really have a social hub, even one that bad. What's more a lot of people (like me) don't even pay for gold membership because with both systems PSN is free, and XBL is absolutly horrible in it's enforcement. A month or so here to play a new fighting game (when I get one) is fine, someones within a week or less I get POed at being griped at by 9 year olds who swear every other word, and then hit with poor sportsmanship complaints should I have the audacity to beat someone.

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That said even if they chose to make it close to what it was supposed to be, it would take so much work from what Home is now that we likely won't see it for years.