In Memory of PlayStation Home

Ten Years Ago Today.

So, I’ve been through many iterations of writing this, thinking I wouldn’t really know where to start as I went down the rabbit hole of things related to this game. The only real thing I managed to do is reflect on the many things about PlayStation Home throughout literally an entire day. That said, let’s just get into the premise of why this article was written and expanding on that. To no one’s surprise, or maybe everyone’s surprise who cares enough, it’s been ten years since PlayStation Home shut down. Whether you want you to believe it was for the better or worst is up to you, but my main intentions are to reminisce, praise, and recap some things about the game.

Did I just call it a game? That’s both true and not true. PlayStation Home was more than a game for many people, including myself. Though, categorically, you could just refer to it as a 3D-virtual platform. Even still, it was a place of refuge, community, discovery, learning, expression, and therapy even. PlayStation Home allowed people to be who they really wanted to be, and be seen by who they really wanted to be seen by. Many of these things went beyond just sitting on the PS3 all day, if they wanted to. There was never quite a place like PlayStation Home, not before it, and not after it. I’ll expand on that portion of it a little later on on this post, but for now let’s talk about what it was as a PlayStation product.

A Gaming Abortion

So hear me out, PlayStation Home was always meant to be more than what it was. Even after it expanded so much over the years, it never quite reached the potential that the big bosses at PlayStation wanted for it. Or did it? Well, for starters, it never actually left the phase of being a beta. This means that PlayStation Home was technically just an on-going project, it was a simulation of services that never truly came to fruition. At least not in the eyes of the corporate leaders back at PlayStation. However, to the public, the gamers, it was all it ever needed to be, and then it started to flourish. Little by little, we witnessed this game grow in many aspects that allowed players to create the “Home” they wanted. Let’s be honest, nobody asked for this game, but it somehow showed up into everyone’s lives at the right time and provided an outlet that can only remain memorable and unique. PlayStation Home is like trying to explain to someone the details of a lucid dream that you can vividly remember, yet aren’t sure how it could have ever been. Was that a dream? A memory of the forgotten past? Am I just on my bullshit again? Maybe all of the above. Either way, it’s my belief that this was the time of PlayStation’s peak in creativity and risk, and home managed to implement that throughout its lifespan.

The Experience

The amount of things you could say about this game, or even the PS3 as a whole would be insurmountable. (I’ll write about that soon enough). For now, let’s just focus on the experience of the player. In PlayStation Home, you had the option of creating your avatar, no matter how charming or ugly, fat or skinny, old or young, etc. With that avatar, you could give them styles that reflect who or how you wanted to be. You could buy a variety of different clothes related to proprietary properties from PlayStation and third-party games. Mixed in there, there was your share of real brands or products from other companies that would be featured in the game world like movies, shows, music, etc. Different forms of media would help to grow the overall options for customization. You could purchase things via your credit card or PlayStation cards (Remember when people still used those?). There were furniture options, clothing, cosmetics, animations, locomotives, accessories, estates, and exclusive items or locations. We all started off in our bland looking Harbor Studio apartment, where the rays of the sun shined through the ceiling, and the view on the balcony was better than any place you’ve ever lived in reality. Though, in my case, I spent a couple of weeks in the Harbor Studio apartment before I was even aware that I could go outside. Admittedly, I thought the front-door was a closet, and never even considered getting close enough to it to see that it lead anywhere. I know, I know. I went full-blown retard before I truly discovered the greatness that Home had to offer. The fact that I was on PlayStation Home for a couple of weeks before I ever even stepped outside is just a testament to its greatness. I spent most of that time just interacting with the furniture, decorating the home with the limited options, stacking them for no reason, and wondering why my avatar continued to look homeless even with a home. But once I went outside, it was the start of an experience I could only begin to have imagined. It was like that one moment in your favorite open-world game, where the screen pans back and you get to take in the great landscape of the adventure that lies ahead. Well I’ll be damned. Which leads me to my next point, the public spaces. PlayStation Home featured many public spaces that you could visit to interact with people, mini-games (Notably bowling), stores, etc. You could sit around on the chairs, benches, rides, or shit, even the ground if you wanted. You could party at the dance floor, or start a line while doing the “Running Man” like a complete  noob, or troll anyone you wanted if that’s your thing. There were public spaces original to PlayStation Home, or related to games released exclusivity to PlayStation, or to third-party games, or to just whatever other thing that PlayStation wanted to promote at the time within the entertainment business as a whole. There was always a place you wanted to be, or to see, and often you would know right away which ones were your favorite. For me, I liked the Motor Storm, Rachet & Clank, Playground, and Acorn Meadows Park for when I wanted to find my peace of mind. Although, The Playground was very chaotic, anyone who was apart of PlayStation Home knows that it’s a fun place but you never know what to expect of people there. Though ironically I ended up meeting my best set of friends there, that carried me throughout at least 3-years of my time while on Home. PlayStation Home was a surreal thing for me overall, the moment I stepped out of my home after two weeks and reached the Central Plaza area that served as an original hub for players, I wasn’t even sure those were actual people. I thought they were all NPCs. I remember walking up to someone, spamming “Hello” as a noob with red braids, somehow expecting nothing. And rightfully, that person told me to get the hell away from them. It was beautiful. The community on PlayStation Home was what made you want to go on there each time, every time, aside from the public spaces. Most of your friends list definitely developed from playing on there if you did. From there you would make friends to play your favorite games with, or learn about new ones. Next thing you know, you’ve got yourself a friend-circle that felt authentic, even though you’ve never seen or heard this person before. Or, at least not yet. Eventually you could expand, start speaking to them on the microphone, share pictures of yourself in your home, or through your inbox. Obviously, it’s still the internet, so you always risked the idea that this may be someone who was older, or younger, or creepy as fuck. Though more often that not, you were speaking with genuine people, with real lives and personalities that fit their avatars. You began to see who they were, through the way they presented themselves and the way the bond grew overtime. On the flip side, you also could make enemies and be the target of other people by affiliation. Next thing you know, you’re hearing some random person asking you to “Mic up” just so they could yell at you, but hey, it was a good time if you knew how to make it one. The friends you made on Home felt like when you showed up at school during lunch time and could all just regroup and update each other on what’s going on, chill, or just be goofy together.

    There’s also the element of going deeper. You could engage in romance, as many of us have. I was married on that game at least three times, just because I could be. We role-played to the next level, being families and such. I mean it was almost just something you couldn’t avoid after a while, or have tried out a least once. My objective was to do as many things as I possibly could on PlayStation Home, and I’m glad that I did, given the ending. People there could pursue friendships, or romance that went outside of PlayStation Home, and then outside of gaming in general. The relationships became real, in-person, and like something out of a nerdy fairytale or something. It would go as far as you would allow it to go. There were groups and gangs (Fams) that you could join to meet people and get connections a lot quicker. I spent a huge chunk of my time being the member of different gangs, seeing the perspectives of people, watching them think they actually controlled anything on the game, but was fun nonetheless. Then I spent a significant amount of time just being alone, taking in everything as a solo-player and meeting people who organically gravitated towards me.  I’d been involved in parties, competitions, videos, developer meet-ups, and showcases. Speaking of showcases, it was always so interesting that you could go to the E3 Showcases. You got to walk around the public space, see full-scaled models of the characters you were excited for in upcoming titles, and soothe the pain of not being able to visit an actual E3. Sadly that didn’t age well even in person though, so thank you to PlayStation Home. The point is, you had many things bringing you back to the game. I’m glad that I still have the majority of my photos from that time that are sprinkled throughout these passages.

The Off-Spring

When PlayStation Home was ending, there were some contenders that were meant to replace it, that were meant for Homesters (Is that a term we use? It is now.) to migrate to once all was said and done. If I’m not mistaken, the first of this bunch was a game called Neotopia. Neotopia came into everyone’s attention near the ending of Home, maybe some months in advance. They even had a personal space that you could have that supported the game. It was under a Kickstarter for a while but it never made it out of hell and burned before it could live essentially. Then there’s Avakin life, a mobile game (Now coming to steam on PC supposedly) that takes a lot of the brands and developers from PS Home and allows you to explore and connect in much the same way you did on home, albeit with many more paywalls for things. I spent a bunch of time on there for a while especially when it was said to be all that we truly had as a basis after PlayStation Home. Of all the games that came of PlayStation Home, it’s definitely the main one that’s been growing and expanding. It’s pretty much just its own thing now entirely. Next there were two games called Nebula Realms and Atom Universe. These were also people who developed things for PlayStation Home that split-off to make their own worlds. They actually managed to make it onto the PlayStation 4, but it was short-lived all things considered. I tried them both out of curiosity but never stuck around.  Atom Universe basically ended up merging into Nebula Realms, and then Nebula Realms committed suicide, so there’s that. Then there was Big City Stories, a full-scaled game that started as an add-on to PlayStation Home called “Home Tycoon” at the time. Once again, it committed suicide. Atom Republic (Or Home Legacy, I guess?) still exists currently, but is basically unplayable. A game called The Four Kings Casino & Slots is also a child of the PlayStation Home. Although, that game is still active and has a seemingly niche community of players that like the games on there, but it has its issues much like any other game of this nature. Finally, at least in terms of games on my radar, there was a game in development called Avilife (Not to be confused with Avakin Life). Avilife was honestly the most promising of them all, it was basically exactly how you’d imagine a PlayStation Home sequel or major update to look. Sadly, some things happened in development that prevented them from continuing, mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic to my knowledge. All in all, as you can see. There weren’t many things that succeeded after PlayStation that tried to replicate that experience. Which only reinforces the idea that PlayStation Home was really a once in a lifetime kind of experience. Or is it?

The Legacy

So, unless you’ve been living under a bridge, that’s under another bridge. You’re aware that we have a resurgence for PlayStation Home through the preservation projects created by a community of loyal players. So far there only seem still be two notable ones, Destination Home and Home Head Quarters (HHQ). To put it bluntly, some people that are technologically smarter than the rest of us have managed to revive the corpse of PlayStation Home through hoarding a bunch of files and cached data that’s been donated by players who still have PlayStation Home on their PS3s. I think they already have some cached data related to my username on Destination Home, but I haven’t explored that fully just yet to see what that’s about. In a repository of sorts that can be viewed online. Regardless, I’ve played versions of both of these games and it’s such a good time. I haven’t played the online versions of either one however, only the off-line versions since I haven’t been wanting to go through the extra steps to play it online just yet. Playing either of these games regardless of your preference, you get to feel that sense of nostalgia and appreciation from PlayStation Home. There were plenty of spaces I got to experience again that I forgot about, or that I never even heard of. It’s partly also what inspired me to make this article about it all. I figured, why not? Plus I’m almost certain this will be one of the first articles on this website and I’m somewhat proud of that timing. There is one thing about those PlayStation Home revivals that is an issue, but it can’t be helped. That being, there’s no support from PlayStation/Sony. So, while you’re playing them it feels like “Wow, it’s all here! I remember this, this, this, and that too! I loved all of this!” And then the sudden, looming empty feeling that follows. Like, “Damn… I’m glad I get to experience this again, but it’s just a shell of what it was.” Now, something is better than nothing, and that’s the point of these preservation projects collecting data. The objective is to reclaim as much as we possibly can for the restoration and enjoyment of PlayStation Home, but certain things just don’t work the way we’d hope they would due to this not being it’s original, native form of the game on the PS3. Videos, images, games, music, store purchases, etc. Things that are missing or incomplete for a good portion of it. Still, we have to give so much credit to the people who are able to bring this game back to life as much as possible, with what they’re able to get. I imagine it’ll only expand over time as they figure out more and possibly receive more. Personally, I don’t think this kind of information should be under gatekeeping, so we could only hope that people be fair about this information. It needs the right kind of management and the right kind of support from both creators and players alike. I’m glad that it allows me to go back into a time machine and find comfort in the game in similar way that I use to, but it’s still missing some vital ingredients for me.

There’s no place like Home

For some time in my life, I’ve been back-collecting games that I once loved. Whether they were from PlayStation 2, or PlayStation 3 through emulation or modding. I hold these games valuable, nostalgic, dare I say, important? The thing is, I learned pretty quickly while playing those games that something was gone. The time was different, the people weren’t presently there that I enjoyed it with, the child in me was conflicted. That’s the way I felt when playing the PlayStation Home preservation projects. It’s like the quote goes, “You can go back to the past, but nobody is there.” Well, that was certainly true for me. That’s actually part of why I’m not that concerned with being super involved with the preservation projects. It’s a great thing, that I’ll enjoy here and there, but I know that it’ll never be the PlayStation Home that I remember. Too many factors are missing, people, places, things, and atmosphere. It’s a beautiful thing, but it made me think. If you could bring someone back from the dead, would they even still be the person who died? Now, I’m not about to get all deep and philosophical here. These themes will be explored in other types of posts as I expand, but you get the premise for now. It’s nice to keep a piece of time with me that hopefully I can cherish until the end, knowing that it likely will never be around again in the way that it did. If you didn’t experience PlayStation Home when it was around, then you’ll never experience what it actually was. Back when it was thriving, supported, and on everyone’s PS3 by default. Back when it was a home, other than your home.

Roses

This whole article has been unnecessarily long, and yet necessary. I mean, it’s my blog, I can do whatever the fuck I want so deal with it. Now that that’s settled, PlayStation Home is a game that I use to really love. I have many memories and current interests that started from things I learned, experienced, or shared with the community of people from there. Home was there for me at a point of time where I basically lost some of my closest friends, and then I eventually made new ones. During the daily life of that time, I could always count on coming back to my house later on and getting online to see what was new, or just the same. It was something you could always rely on to find enjoyment, no matter how your actual day went. I definitely spent an unhealthy amount of time and money on that game, which is probably also a contributor to why this is all so strung-out and long-winded. But much like the inevitable fate of PlayStation Home, this has to come to end. I’m grateful to the things that I got to experience, the people I got to meet, and the perspectives I was able to attain while being there. It left its mark on me, and many other people who were involved. I can live with the fact that it’s gone, I’ve been living with that fact, and life has moved on to many other great things of equal value. I can’t live with the idea of letting the memory of this game fade off into the abyss as if it never existed. And with that, I’m done here. This was a love letter of sorts to the game.  Thank you, PlayStation Home. We didn’t deserve you, maybe even took you for granted in the past before we knew what would happen. For some people, you’ll just be a weird game that they hopped on once and never touched again, but for the ones that remained, you’ll never be forgotten.