Coming with the creative for this space last year was a pretty exciting proposition. Guitar Hero is one of the few major gaming franchises that doesn’t revolve around a super soldier blasting stuff in a post apocalyptic future. Instead the style evokes the grunge and grit of a rock concert venue somewhere in America. Coming up with the concept for the Home space was the easier part… “backstage” at the type of venues you play in the game. But the trickier challenge was coming up with gameplay that felt like Guitar Hero without just mimicking the legendary video game mechanics. What resulted was a kind of simon says type rock challenge where players compete against each other to land the longest string of notes in their rock solo. Check out this video:

Creating this space was a pretty long and evolving process that went through quite a few iterations and different hands on its way to release. Happily though, I think the vision of Ubisoft’s gritty, war-torn African country mired in conflict is projected throughout the space.

Here’s the announcement from the official Playstation blog:

Far Cry 2 comes Home today

Posted by Bertrand Helias // Senior Producer, Far Cry 2

Hi All, the Far Cry 2 Space is launching in PlayStation Home’s closed beta as we speak!

The space will invite players to dig deeper into the game’s vast African landscape. Users will have the opportunity to investigate in-game environments, including a bombed-out train station that has been converted into the ad hoc office of Reuben Oluwagembi, a journalist caught in the middle of the propaganda conflict between the warring UFLL and APR factions.

In Reuben’s office, you’ll be able to analyze an interactive map of the game world to strengthen your knowledge of the Far Cry 2 environment to develop your strategy for future missions. Locate guard posts, safe houses to save the progress of your game, weapon shops to buy new weapons, and bus stations to expedite your travel across the expansive land.

Players will have access to Reuben’s files containing various pictures, articles, and dossiers that will delve deeper into the background of The Jackal, as well as that of the other warlords and opposing factions. And finally, multiplayer game of Mancala that uses bullets as game pieces will be fully playable.

Hope you enjoy it and be sure to look out for new features as we’ll be updating the space regularly.

DIY DAYS SF – The Art and Science of Crowdsourcing

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I’ll be part of a panel “The Art & Science of Crowdsourcing” at DIY Days this Sunday.

Lance Weiler, the film director behind The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma, has organized an interesting discussion series across the US that is called “DIY Days” (Do-it-Yourself Days). The series of live conferences / discussions known as DIY DAYS is happening in LA, SF, Boston, NYC and London. According to Lance, their goal is to explore filmmakers and storytellers in this day of shifting film distribution systems.
Presented by From Here to Awesome and Current TV – DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and workshops: A look at how to fund, create, and distribute and sustain.

Here’s the panel I’ll be appearing on at 111 Minna in SF this Sunday:

2:15 to 3:15pm
PANEL: The art and science of crowdsourcing
There is power in the crowd. When they rise up they can fund, create, distribute and promote. But how do you turn an audience into an active community where members become collaborators? Panelists: Slava Rubin (indieGoGo), Skot Leach (Lost Zombie), Jason Harris (Mekanism), Bryan Kennedy (Mobmov.org), Blair Erickson (Millions of Us) Discussion Leader: Lance Weiler

More about DIY Days here:
http://diydays.com/

Today we’re announcing the expansion of our closed beta test for PlayStation Home to begin at the end of the month. Later today, the PLAYSTATION Store will be updated with a PlayStation Home theme. By downloading the theme, users are submitting an application to join the PlayStation Home Beta test community. We will be using a variety of criteria including activity on the PLAYSTATION Network to determine eligibility for the Beta community. Existing beta testers have automatically qualified to be part of the expanded beta.

We’re really excited about this milestone and want our most loyal fans to be a part of the evolution of PlayStation Home.

In Europe, SCEE is also beginning their expanded closed beta, directly targeting consumers who have been most active on PLAYSTATION Network and PLAYSTATION Store. SCEE will be in email contact with their PSN audience very shortly.

We’re definitely excited too.

Several current MoU employees and alumni including myself, Lauren Lamonica, and Adrian Herbez studied “Building Virtual Worlds” and did research work and independent studies for Stage 3 under Randy Pausch at Carnegie-Mellon University. Though he’s now famous for his celebrated speech and autobiographical bestseller “The Last Lecture” about his battle with cancer, he should also be remembered and cheered for his pioneering work in virtual reality and 3-D social experience research.

I believe it’s no coincidence that so many of my colleagues in that class went on to become leaders in our industries of creating bold new virtual experiences and innovations in entertainment. It is my strong belief that they will carry on Randy’s legacy.

Yesterday at E3, some footage of this work was unveiled to the general public for the first time:

For the past few months, I’ve had a very exciting chance to be a creative role during the development of experiences in an awesome new virtual tool by Google called “Lively.”

This ambitious browser based app aims to do for 3-D virtual social experiences what YouTube does for video. It lets you create your own space inside it and then embed that space on any webpage (or blog post as you’ll see at the bottom of this one).

Lively by Google  is the media, and as creative director for this project myself along with the project producer Eliana Sur (from Terminator) teamed up with our client National Geographic Channel to bring you the first of many experiences this product will offer. Last week we launched National Geographic Channel’s LA Hard Hats into Lively by Google.

Eliana Sur as her Lively avatar – a cartoon pirate dog

Lively enables users to visit, chat, and interact in a catalogue of 3D spaces, each space having its own unique style and experience. Users can customize their own space to add to the catalogue and share their spaces with friends. Creating a space can be as easy as picking a room shell, decorating it with objects from the Google 3D Warehouse, and naming your space. Integration with YouTube and Picasa Web allow users to stream video content and display photos right in their 3D environment. Evangelizing your freshly created Lively experience is important and this is simple as well. By adding a short piece of html code located under the room window, you can embed the space on any website, indicating this platform has great potential for viral content distribution. Lastly, and most importantly I would argue, Google’s scale and distribution places this product firmly in a category all its own.

To inaugurate this new product, Millions of Us has teamed up with National Geographic Channel to create an experience in Lively based on the LA Hard Hats  series premiering Sunday, August 3rd at 9 pm. I’m thrilled to say that we’re a participant in the Preferred Developer Program for Lively by Google, and that the L.A. Hardhats room is the first branded space in Lively. The television series chronicles the heavy-duty work of a construction crew as they build an LA high-rise for nearly 2 years. Our interactive Lively experience captures the best features of Lively while immersing the user in the LA Hard Hats story. Download the Lively application, create an avatar, and come see what this experience is all about by clicking here or on the embedded room at the bottom of this page! Then, grab a hard hat, some caution tape, a couple of barricades, and the LA Hard Hats room shell and create your own custom “under construction” Lively room. Or, you can just steal ours by grabbing the code.

Thanks to Eliana Sur (our extraordinary Producer and writer of much of this cribbed blog post), Ted Tagami (business wiz who made the Google connection happen), Adrian Herbez (incredible programmer who pushed the product to the limit and then found new limits), Kes Quinn (the artist who built an entire skyscaper), and the rest of the whole team at Millions of Us.

CNN enters the virtual world of Second Life
November 12, 2007 — Updated 1649 GMT (0049 HKT)

(CNN) — So, what exactly is news in a virtual world?  CNN aims to find out by opening an I-Report hub in Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world created entirely by its residents.There, CNN will look to those most familiar with the virtual world — the Second Life residents themselves — to determine what constitutes news “in-world.”

Developer Linden Labs opened Second Life to the public in 2003. According to its Web site, Second Life is inhabited by millions of “residents” from around the globe. However, traffic at any given time hovers around 40,000 users. Photo See the many views of Second Life. »

Just as CNN asks its real-life audience to submit I-Reports — user-generated content submitted from cell phones, computers, cameras and other equipment for broadcast and online reports — the network is encouraging residents of Second Life to share their own “SL I-Reports” about events occurring within the virtual world.

“The thing we most hope to gain by having a CNN presence in Second Life is to learn about virtual worlds and understand what news is most interesting and valuable to their residents,” said Susan Grant, executive vice president of CNN News Services.

When Second Life residents observe an in-world event they deem newsworthy, they can take snapshots, shoot video, or write a report about the event and submit to CNN.

Submissions selected by CNN I-Report producers will go back into Second Life for residents to view throughout the virtual world. SL I-Reports may also be viewed and discussed in the real world at CNN.com’s SL I-Report Blog.

CNN’s in-world I-Report hub includes a news desk where CNN producers will hold weekly editorial discussions, and an amphitheater for larger in-world events, such as training sessions and appearances by CNN anchors and correspondents.
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CNN’s first in-world training session will be held Tuesday, November 13, at 5 p.m. ET at the I-Report Hub.

At the I-Report hub, residents can also meet other resident reporters, as well as access I-Report kiosks, free-standing terminals where residents can pick up free gear and tools for gathering and viewing in-world user-generated content.

And now there’s a little pointy award now sitting on my very messy desk at work ready to impale someone if they should trip.