Phil Harrison wowed the crowds at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco with a barnstorming keynote, in which he revealed his vision for a new era of gaming fuelled by the PlayStation 3 – which he calls game 3.0 – and unveiled two key PS3-related items. The first is called Home, and essentially it is a Second Life-style, 3D, avatar-based world which exists on the PlayStation Network and will let all PlayStation users chat, socialise, display their achievements and set up multiplayer games. Equally well received was an innovative, incredible-looking game called LittleBigPlanet, which is designed to let users create their own levels – fitting in with the user-generated content aspect of Game 3.0.

Harrison explained that Game 3.0 had been prompted by last year’s Time Magazine cover, which declared that the public was the Man of the year, with the line: “Yes, you, the people, control the Information Age.” Explaining that Game 1.0 was the age of games existing only on cartridges or disks and game 2.0 involved connected gaming but still constrained by the amount of content on a disk, Game 3.0 is about: “Community devices empowered by their audiences. It’s about emergent entertainment, powered by an audience at the centre of the
entertainment experience.”

Demonstrating Home, he started off in the Central Lounge, a space which players can move their avatars around (Home has powerful facial design tools, and Harrison said that there will be free clothes, premium clothing that users can buy and clothing that will be unlocked when you buy games), chat using text or voice and play “low-intensity” games including pool, bowling and even virtual arcade machines, for which users will be able to download specific games. Home has a physics engine, so objects inside it behave more or less like they do in the real world – as Harrison demonstrated by throwing a TV running the casino Royale trailer down stairs.

PS3 users will also each get their own private apartment in Home, which you can decorate and fill with furniture (again, some will be free, some will be paid-for) and even media from your PS3’s hard disk. Private apartments will be the perfect launch pad for multiplayer games: Harrison said they could: “Become your clan’s club-house.”

Other key aspects of home include a Trophy Room – trophies, which could be made from in-game assets and even animated, will be awarded for milestones in PS3 games. A huge global Trophy Room will show all available trophies, even for unreleased games. There will be a Home cinema space, and Sony will make spaces available for brands, including publishers, developers and non-games brands. Harrison showed a mock-up space for a “Multi-franchise games publisher” in which you could play football, golf and basketball mini-games. Advertising will be allowed in public spaces, which may not please everyone; as yet, Sony hasn’t spoken about any level of moderation in Home. Home is in a closed beta testing phase now, but beta testing will be opened up in April, and the service will launch in the autumn.

LittleBigPlanet received a rapturous reception from GDC attendees, as it looks likely to from the public. Created by the recently set up Media Molecule – founded by the formerly independent UK team which created Rag Doll Kung Fu – Harrison described it as the: “Most fun and creative embodiment of the Game 3.0 concept. This game is all about creativity, allowing users to use really easy-to-use in-game tools to create their own levels.”

User-generated gameplay may sound like a wacky concept, but the LittleBigPlanet demonstration, in which two of Media Molecule’s founders quickly created a platform-style level, was very convincing. Starting off with two little soft toy-style characters, apparently made of Hessian, they introduced objects into the game space, constructed from apparently real materials like wood, and added things like cogs, giant footballs and oranges, plus stickers which could even be taken from the contents of users’ PS3 hard disks, and which could still be applied, graffiti-style when playing a level.

With gameplay dynamics revolving around grabbing onto objects and letting physics do the rest, Media Molecule and Harrison showed a longer, pre-made level which required both co-operative and competitive play. The game’s tactile nature was deeply impressive, as was the way in which it puts powerful level-creation tools in users’ hands, without making them feel like programmers. Harrison said LittleBigPlanet will be out: “Later this year on the Network, and early next year on Blu-ray disk.”

Finally, Harrison announced an initiative called Playstation Edge, designed to empower developers, by essentially giving them tools that Sony has created for its in-house game creation. The first of these is called GCM Replay, and is: “A set of powerful RSX profiling tools allowing developers to eke out the highest possible graphical performance from the chip in the PlayStation 3.” The second manifestation of PlayStation Edge is: “Highly optimized libraries for geometry processing, animation and compression.”

At a private event the evening before his keynote, Harrison also announced a change in strategy for WarHawk, which will be available online only, with a multiplayer focus, and also showed the downloadable games flow and Calling All Cars, which we’ll review for you very shortly. But Home and LittleBigPlanet finally give some tangible proof that Harrison’s Game 3.0 vision could bring about new, very 21st-century forms of gaming.

By Steve Boxer