Now, I’m glad that Sony will not be robbing the older crowd of a more adult experience on @Home, but after a few moments of the beta here at work, I can tell that not putting the brakes on some adult behavior will run off the people who are more conservative.
Great example: We were standing in the foyer area, talking about the Lair fix. Some dude then comes walking along, publically blaring, “Fuck you fuck you fuck you, assholes, bitches, can’t make me shut up, fuck you, fuck you, etc.” I mean, it was distractingly continuous. Just repeatedly VOIPing it and sending it.
Now, I thought for sure that the nearby mod would say something, but he didn’t. In fact, instead, he caught another tester wearing a scanned Nike logo on his shirt and gave him a warning about losing personal clothing privilages for wearing name-brand logos on his clothing that were not liscensed or okay’d by Sony. I understand that. But meanwhile, Mr. Vulgarity keeps making loops in the foyer area swearing his head off and even getting in people’s … virtual faces.
That’s the thing that will kill @Home if it’s not curtailed. Gamers already complain about the vulgar, 13 year-old behavior on XBL and other systems. If Sony allows this to go on, they will lose a bunch of people who would use the @Home virtual world. And if they lose the people, they lose the advertising. If they lose the advertising, they might as well drop @Home, because it’s no longer paying for itself. I for sure am not going to pay for the somewhat silly interface that is mostly about virtual viral marketing.
