Online chat between anonymous gamers has existed since the good ol’ days of BBSes and 300 baud modems.  The current hubbub over virtual worlds, from Second Life to Sony’s just-launched-in-beta Home, often neglects to realize that it’s still largely about chat—and therefore who is there is as important as what is there.

In just a few days, it's already become clear that Home is, well, home to a lot of jerks. When I first downloaded the beta, I used their deep and sophisticated creation system to make my avatar a fat, mohawked dude in red sweatpants and no shoes who enjoys doing the Running Man. Within moments someone had called me fatty. Fair enough. Then they called me gay. Another avatar standing nearby me in Home’s Central Plaza meeting place thought he was being slurred, thus prompting this enlighting convo: “me?” "yeh.” “***it ho.” “****o.” “I don't roll that way.” “I rolled it with your mom. And it was gud.” “**** ***.”

I left and came back as a plus-size woman in a plaid skirt to see what would happen. It took seconds before someone called me a pig. Then when I sat down, an avatar came by and started hip-thrusting near my head. He typed out: “I’m ****ing your face. lol.”I replied, "I'm a dude." He left.

Home's social interactions start out funny, but with reports (and YouTube footage) of female avatars being swarmed by male avatars, it eventually gets creepy (even if most of the female avatars are, like mine, controlled by dudes). Maybe this puerile behaviour is endemic to any public chatroom, 3D or otherwise. But there’s not much else to do in Home yet, beyond some mildly entertaining minigames—the bowling alley also features pool and an arcade, which includes Sony’s cool spatial-puzzle download Echocrome. Otherwise, there's a mall to buy digital furnishings, clothing, even a new crib. But unlike Second Life, content creation (and micro-transaction money-making) is a purely one-way street. There's also a movie theatre, but for now it's just running an ad for Twilight.

I do expect Home to improve, with more areas dedicated to specific games (right now just Uncharted and Far Cry 2 have theme rooms) and like-minded gamers setting up clubs or gathering in seaside apartments to keep out the griefing riffraff. It is beta, but Home still needs more renovations and better tenants.