[It’s time for another Monthly Musing — the monthly community blog theme that provides readers with a chance to get their articles and discussions printed on the frontpage. — CTZ]
As to the carving of one’s own narrative within the confines of a specified gamespace, I would have to say RPGs are the best — or the worst — at allowing this kind of decision making as lead by the player. Then there are games like Sim City and The Sims that require the player to create his or her world in order for a world to exist at all.
What I’m going to offer, however, is both technically not a game as such and one of the most seemingly reviled pieces of data on Dtoid: PlayStation Home.
Don’t hate me yet — I promise to give more fruitful ammunition shortly. What surprises me about the hate directed at Home from members of this site is the vehemence with which it is hurled, and it makes me question whether said members are simply bored by the virtual human pornography on display — obscenity at its best, the sheer nakedness of anonymity — or if they were trafficked by one of the many he-girls wandering about in a humiliating realization of gullibility.
For those who may have misconceptions, let me explain something: it’s a virtual chat room beefed up with décor, costumes, and minigames. That’s all, and that’s enough, though I know the plans for Home extend to total immersion in gamespace and beyond. With game-launching capabilities finally arriving, there’s something to be said about visiting your favorite game’s virtual space, interacting with a piece of that world, chatting with other users to form a troupe and zap straight to the game from there. It’s also fun to have the game extended into minigames with unlockable prizes, even if they are “only” for your Home avatar.
I’ve read some mighty flaming on Home’s avatar system, which I don’t fully comprehend. The controls are varied and diverse, and I got my avatar so damn close in resemblance with my SELF-self that I consistently alter hair styles due to the overall creepiness of watching “myself” wander around, with the added bonus of some of the best damn female ass programming I’ve ever seen. If you guys can’t bother two shits about the rest of Home, you have to give the programmers props for that. Make a female avatar, throw on the jeans, activate a “Salsa,” and BEHOLD—EPIC SEAMING.
But I digress.
Then there’s the “why the hell would you spend real money on fake shit for your avatar” that I always hear, which is without merit whatsoever if you have ever at any time purchased DLC for your game. That’s what Home items are — DLC — be it in the forms of avatar clothing, personal spaces, picture frames, etc. It further adds to the customization of Home for each user, as each user authors his and her own characters, personas, spaces, and personalities for virtual interaction.
People can “be” whomever they choose on Home, which is one of its inherent problems and bonuses. Its fantasyland of gendery, prettier-than-possible or uglier-as-hell-on-purpose populous make for quite a spectacle. I occasionally assume the role of a naïve, lonely Russian émigré named Katja, all in the name of fucking with perverts who just can’t resist, “You are American mens yes? You like of me to dancing?” Most female avatars on Home are apparently assumed by males, yet somehow — even when I’m dressed AS a male avatar — the creeps hunt me down. Whatever. Easy to avoid. Easy to mute, block, report, and done.
For the most part, however, I’m myself in my creepy mevatar wandering around either talking to the numerous friends I’ve discovered through Home, talking to strangers (a habit), playing mini-games, or discovering just how poorly my photography translates to the deep shadows that linger in many of Home’s personal spaces.
As a natural voyeur and semi-professional eavesdropper, I wanted into PlayStation Home when I first read about it a year ago, but couldn’t get my hands on a PS3 until January. I quickly found (as was expected) that the median age was half my own and the average user had the intelligence level to spell curse words correctly enough to be censored, but little beyond. Yet I did find that there were the rare, interesting, intelligent individuals worth the bother, the harassment, virtual molestation, and sporadic dance competitions that force everyone to do the Running Man.
There are also the unique and highly devoted communities that have sprung from within Home itself, the Homelings, to name one. I’ve never seen such an intensely organized, interesting, strange, completely fucking awesome group of people spawn from any game or film or television show in my life. No, not even the Trekkies, as they suffered from a lack of technology that is what led to the Homelings creation in the first place. There are other groups; there are some stupid, junior-highish cliques; there are people who sign onto Home for the sole purpose of trying to fuck with people and get them pissed off. If you fall for any of the crap, it’s more yourself than Home you should be reflecting upon.
Home is, in essence, the ultimate space for user authorship — more than The Sims, more than RPGs — it is, quite literally, what you make of it, and if you go in expecting shite, there’s plenty to be found. If you go in curious, open-minded to interacting with strangers in a virtual world, expect the crap but be on the lookout for those few people who remind you humanity may not be completely doomed — then you might actually find something of value, of entertainment, and a place you can have a hand in creating just as much as those brilliant, derrière-entranced encoders.
