Not all forums are happy places, in fact quite a few of them are full of animosity and anger. There’s a commonly held perception that European owners get a poor deal from Sony Computer Entertainment, and that the European region is way down their list of priorities when it comes to things like PSN & Home content, well Home Community Manager for SCEE has spoken out in a reply to a post entitled “Ted can you enlighten us” on the EU Community Forums.
In his reply, he goes over the reasons why he can’t make announcements left, right & centre about all the content he knows is coming soon, he also states he isn’t happy where they’re at, they want more, they want it better and they want it more frequent too. He also interestingly points out why a T-shirt takes more than 20 minutes to make, and the problems they have with something this simple may go some way to explaining why content is perceived as being delayed for this region.
TedTheDog’s post in full:
“Calm please, calm. Man you guys get angry quickly.
Yes, I’m working on getting approvals to mention all the new things coming and planned, or as many of them as I can. Theres an awful lot of it and I cant just assume the teams and businesses involved are happy for me to “out them” yet.
For example, theres quite a few games on the game launching list but that involves, in some cases, patches to their games, and that sort of thing I need confirmation on before, in effect, I announce a patch to their game.
Its the same with many of the spaces and other content coming. Theres multiple game teams and companies working on these and some will want to manage the information release at more appropriate times.
And then of course theres the stuff we dont want to tell you about, we want to surprise you.
I appreciate the crux of the matter is you’re seeing new content in the other regions and automatically assuming our silence means you’re not getting new stuff here. Thats not the case. Timings will differ and you’ll get new stuff when they dont sometimes and vice versa. The recent PSP3000 Treasure Hunt is a good example, there was a similar reaction elsewhere to that as there was to your reaction to the ninja costume in America.
Please dont read into that we’re happy where we are either. We also want more, we want better and we want more frequent too.
We learnt quite a bit from the PSP3000 Treasure Hunt. Things like Terms & Conditions and how we present them in Home (and the legal issues too), competition interfaces like the Touch Pad (we know it wasnt perfect but the idea was proven to be sound) and then the type of entertainment it provided against the other types of Space we’ve done before. And, of course, railings = madness with you guys around.
I know this next bit is the hardest to accept, but Home is a long term project (and the “beta” bit shouldnt be under estimated either). Whilst we want for you to have something to do in Home every day, be it the same thing you did yesterday and the day before but its fun enough to continue, the immediacy some of you expect right now is unrealistic.
Creating Home and the content within it takes longer than you’d think.
I saw a post today where someone speculated that making a virtual T-Shirt takes 20 minutes. It doesnt. It takes hours to make the item if its simple but then it has to be tested with all avatar sizes and other clothing in in the existing spaces. Then it has to be localised (translate all the accompanying text) and then entered into the store system (theres 5 of them, the 5 languages Home supports.) Then, finally, published into the live Home environment. Bearing in mind the Home teams dont stop and do one thing at a time and there is, in fact, hundreds of items being developed, this process can take a couple of months all told, from design to someone wearing it in Home.
We’re going to bring you a lot more spaces in the coming months, new apartments, a lot more Game Launching support, far more clothing, more games, more furntiure, more tools & features for clubs and more tools and features for the general client. We’re also looking at various ways of providing ways for language groups to get together without segregating the EU community. Oh, and we’ve got an update to Home Square coming as well.
Theres a lot on the way and I’ll try and get a more specific list together for you. We do know some of you want everything now, its not going to happen, but over time you’ll find Home to be more than you thought it could be.”
Thanks Ted, communication is a wonderful thing, and I hope whoever oversees the PSN updates gets on board the communication bandwagon, and then everything will be rosy in the SCEE garden.
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