I've been scratching my head trying to figure out the same thing. Even Indie games cost money to make, with this platform basically being fully piratable on day 1 why would someone take all the time and risk to make a product and put it on this device? For those that support this device, would you be willing to front an Indie developer $50,000 to make a game for this device and expect to be able to make your money back?
OUYA - Android console
- Thread starter ninzel
- Start date
I've been scratching my head trying to figure out the same thing. Even Indie games cost money to make, with this platform basically being fully piratable on day 1 why would someone take all the time and risk to make a product and put it on this device? For those that support this device, would you be willing to front an Indie developer $50,000 to make a game for this device and expect to be able to make your money back?
Are indie games largely pirated on the PC today?
I could be wrong, but it just doesn't seem like that big of an issue (for games $10 or less). I mean what % of Android users actually root their phone, and out of that how many engage in widespread piracy?
But, the nice thing is we will probably find out one way or the other... I prefer to hope for the best.
I could be wrong, but it just doesn't seem like that big of an issue (for games $10 or less). I mean what % of Android users actually root their phone, and out of that how many engage in widespread piracy?
But, the nice thing is we will probably find out one way or the other... I prefer to hope for the best.
Well, their kickstarter page says:
I guess that's not directly their intention though, so my bad.
Okay, that makes sense in that respect. But it doesn't answer the business questions I have that ERP is having too. A console, any console, is a chicken-and-egg affair. You need software to sell hardware, and you need hardware to attract software. The idea of moving modern tablet games onto the TV is a fair one (and one I agree with, and one I expect the tablet to do), but I'm not seeing this bridging the gap in one step because the current Android library doesn't suit the TV experience. You'll need OUYA exclusives.
I haven't found anything on Android that I value, whereas I can appreciate Sony and Nintendo games even though I don't care for their handhelds. Most stuff I've seen is either in-your-face merchandising ('free' game of running chores based on psychological exploitation requiring $15 worth of extras to be playable) or extremely dull touch stuff, quite often both, and the good stuff can get old pretty quickly. Touch puzzlers and ball rollers and various good games can be fun, but they aren't very meaty and nothing something I'd buy a device to play; they are an added bonus to devices with other particular functions. Now I'm not an extensive Android game player (because I've found little I like!), so I might well be missing stuff. It's probably not a coincidence though that the Eurogamer mobile game-of-the-day rarely features an Android game, and there have been numerous reports over year of devs starting to avoid Android due to fragmentation and development difficulties/costs.
I absolutely agree (in principle anyhow, as we don't know what their takings per title are, but I know SDKs can be expensive). But what's stopping these indies releasing on PC? Okay, I guess the argument here is to move the gaming back to the TV, which is fair, but people have really been able to do that for ages with PC. Perhaps packaging it up in a user-friendly box is what's needed to make that happen, but their box isn't going to be any cheaper to develop for than Android or PC, and iOS development doesn't cost that much either.
Only if 1) There's a significant install base; 2) those people are spending worthwhile amounts of money (the Kickstarter video makes an explicit note all games being free to play); 3) You aren't lost under a deluge of thousands and thousands of indie games all vying for attention. I can tell you this - the developers that pay the OUYA company significant amounts of money for front-page advertising of their games are the one's who'll typically make the most money from the market. It's still going to cost to be successful in this biz.
I very much disagree. The GPU was unavailable, but homebrew devs had a new toy to play with offering amazing opportunities, and they just didn't bother. Cell could have powered amazing apps and I was shocked it was shunned considering homebrew has traditionally loved new, eccentric tech. Now Sony didn't really back and encourage homebrew, but it was there. Sony only axed OpenOS years after it was obviously dead. That's a whole other debate though.
Putting this all another way, the intention of this box is to get open game development and play away from tablets and back in front of the TV where it belongs. They effectively want to recreate the 8 bit experience. I can respect that. However, I'm unconvinced there's a market that wants to play Android games as they are on TV (one-button games where you just press X to jump), and I'm unconvinced developers will develop console-type, full controller games for this box if there isn't a significant userbase to support it. And I don't see who is going to spearhead sales to establish that userbase. At the moment it looks like the intenion is to sell OUYA to people who are playing Gameloft games on their tablets wishing they could play them on TV. These people will buy OUYA because it's cheap and enables that. That'll establish the userbase, and then devs will invest more in this specific segment of Android, which will encourage more adoption.
I think they should go ahead but also release the controller for Android devices, reducing the cost of entry for controller-based Android gaming dramatically ($30 instead of $100 for anyone with an Android tablet) and offering a much stronger market for devs. Devs could then develop touch and controller based interfaces to help with the transition. Once there's a clear market for Android games on the TV, then specific boxes will make more sense along with Android TVs.
I don't know that anyone has yet expressed that they dislike the device. I certainly won't lose money or sleep over its success or failure. It's another gaming product in the gaming market warranting copnsideration, which is all it's getting from anyone here so far.
The only people who should be more concerned over its future are those considering funding early or developing a title. If it turns out to be a dead end then they'll lose their investment. That's where open discussion serves a useful purpose.
Dunno. You can run "backups" on every platform. The people who are jailbreaking their iPads and phones are a minority.
http://kotaku.com/5924657/an-all+st...o-game-console-requires-950000-of-your-money/
I completely agree with this point of view.
scooby_dooby
Legend
What's getting missed here is the middleware argument.
Already we see a large portion of dev's using Unity, Corona, AIR etc to create their games, (I thought I read 50% but can't find the link) this will likely grow pretty quick over the next couple years as Android market matures, and Windows Market gains steam (or not), indie developers really looking to maximize revenues will need to turn to middleware.
The cost to port to something like Ouya is negligible if you're on middleware, and if Ouya is successful it gives developers even more incentive to look outside Apple's wall's and see what's out there, could have a nice symbiotic relationship with Google Play really.
Google Play is maturing pretty well already IMO, most of the large iOS titles are there and there's a TON of really great games to play if you care to try and find some. I'm personally seeing pretty good revenue growth compared to a year ago.
I think the tipping point will be 2012/2013 for Android to really turn a corner as a profit generator for dev's. It really is building up steam, and for the first time with Android 4.0 they've got their whole ecosystem in place and they've done it right.
Already we see a large portion of dev's using Unity, Corona, AIR etc to create their games, (I thought I read 50% but can't find the link) this will likely grow pretty quick over the next couple years as Android market matures, and Windows Market gains steam (or not), indie developers really looking to maximize revenues will need to turn to middleware.
The cost to port to something like Ouya is negligible if you're on middleware, and if Ouya is successful it gives developers even more incentive to look outside Apple's wall's and see what's out there, could have a nice symbiotic relationship with Google Play really.
Google Play is maturing pretty well already IMO, most of the large iOS titles are there and there's a TON of really great games to play if you care to try and find some. I'm personally seeing pretty good revenue growth compared to a year ago.
I think the tipping point will be 2012/2013 for Android to really turn a corner as a profit generator for dev's. It really is building up steam, and for the first time with Android 4.0 they've got their whole ecosystem in place and they've done it right.
The thing is, if you want your game to play well, you will actually have to redesign if for the controller if you are coming from a touch screen environment. But then again, fun game mechanics seems to be pretty low on a lot of forum posters' priorities these days
Do you have any data to back up your claim that PC game sales are going down?
You would need to utilize the controller instead of a touch device.
You would still need to go through the submission process whatever that is.
You may have to pay for ESRB rating if Ouya requires that.
You may have to pay a submission fee if Ouya requires that
Ouya may have restrictions on things like in game adds that have to be met.
The question is do the additional expenses result in enough sales to justify the cost. If it's successful, they probably do, but I don't know how many units need to be out there to call it a success. You'll probably get devs taking a chance on it at launch, but to sustain that they'll need to move enough units for devs to justify the cost.
That's why I'm primarilly interested in the business model and the store experience, putting an Tegra chip in a box running Android with some development tools, although expensive and certainly not trivial, it's not the real problem.
The hardpart is attracting the right developers, having enough of a barrier to entry for developers so as not to be flooded by crap and having a good way to present the high quality content to users.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Probably not, because what's happening is actually the opposite.
Also, the "30% cut" claim is coming solely from an elbow-hurt Pandora creator, I haven't seen that info anywhere else.
There's a point that's been danced around in this thread a bunch that I think is important.
For a long time, we've had a system where developers could produce any content they wanted and distribute it however they want to whoever wants to play it. That system is of course the PC. The system that allows developers to do it isn't in the living room.
The problem is, putting a box with an open development environment in the living room doesn't confer the same advantages on software that runs on those boxes as the traditional console model.
Part of what gives console software the reach it has is the fact that it is heavily controlled. The number of releases are relatively small. A couple games a week. This means that it's hard to get in, but if you get in, you have a lot of visibility. This is also the chicken and egg problem, it's only in-demand to be in that ecosystem if it has a lot of eyes, and it's hard to get those eyes.
The core of a lot of people's complaints about Ouya, as far as I can understand, is that rather than put an existing ecosystem like PC or generic Android in the living room by selling a box, Ouya appears to be looking to create another ecosystem, but one which, if you are a developer/publisher, does not offer you the install base of PC, nor the visibilty of traditional consoles.
It's hard to say how this -will- play out. But I'm kind of with Shifty on this that it seems like the core model of their system takes all of the weaknesses of the two existing models, but none of the benefits.
Honestly, I'd take a Win8 Pro tablet running Steam that I can easily connect to my TV over this box any day. It may cost a lot more, but all I need to do is disconnect the HDMI cable and I have a pretty servicable laptop too.
For a long time, we've had a system where developers could produce any content they wanted and distribute it however they want to whoever wants to play it. That system is of course the PC. The system that allows developers to do it isn't in the living room.
The problem is, putting a box with an open development environment in the living room doesn't confer the same advantages on software that runs on those boxes as the traditional console model.
Part of what gives console software the reach it has is the fact that it is heavily controlled. The number of releases are relatively small. A couple games a week. This means that it's hard to get in, but if you get in, you have a lot of visibility. This is also the chicken and egg problem, it's only in-demand to be in that ecosystem if it has a lot of eyes, and it's hard to get those eyes.
The core of a lot of people's complaints about Ouya, as far as I can understand, is that rather than put an existing ecosystem like PC or generic Android in the living room by selling a box, Ouya appears to be looking to create another ecosystem, but one which, if you are a developer/publisher, does not offer you the install base of PC, nor the visibilty of traditional consoles.
It's hard to say how this -will- play out. But I'm kind of with Shifty on this that it seems like the core model of their system takes all of the weaknesses of the two existing models, but none of the benefits.
Honestly, I'd take a Win8 Pro tablet running Steam that I can easily connect to my TV over this box any day. It may cost a lot more, but all I need to do is disconnect the HDMI cable and I have a pretty servicable laptop too.
scooby_dooby
Legend
1. In alot of cases, porting to keyboard controls will be trivial, but it's case by case. Some will be harder than other, but for many, this will probably just take a day or two. This is probably something that is either really easy, or really hard / impossible, depending on the game.
Any action games, shooter, endless runners, platformer etc will port easy. More touch centric stuff will be alot harder.
2. Submission for mobile stores is all the same, it's pretty easy. Upload your App, wait for approval.
3. No mobile app stores use ESRB, they use a voluntary rating system. This is the same for Apple, Blackberry, Android, Amazon, Barnes and Knoble and Windows Metro. You just fill out a 10 question form and the rating is assigned to you.
4. Doubt it. Standard fare is $99/year for a dev license with unlimited submissions. Don't see why they would depart from that mold if they're already copying the 30% rule.
5. Maybe? Doubt it... doesn't make any sense. It sounds like the only requirement is that you at least have a demo, or lite version. Something most mobile developers already have since it's the best way to maximize revenues.
scooby_dooby
Legend
The thing is, if you want your game to play well, you will actually have to redesign if for the controller if you are coming from a touch screen environment. But then again, fun game mechanics seems to be pretty low on a lot of forum posters' priorities these days
Ya, I think this sorta falls inside Genre guidelines.
The dev's will have to decide, but if I have an Android Action, Shooter, RPG, Endless Runner etc type game, I'll be looking long and hard at Ouya as a quick and easy port.
Games that rely more on touchscreen's, gyroscope API's, etc will probably be much less likely to be ported. (But for good reason? Touch games are touch games, and should stay so. MANY Android titles though, are just a normal game with virtual joystick/buttons slapped on top)
Personally, I wire keyboard controls into many of my mobile games, it just makes it easier to debug on desktop. Can't be the only one
OT, but I was amused by the concept of "looking long and hard" at something "quick and easy."
I know what you actually meant, but it reminded me of an article about how people will spend hours agonizing over which $5 ice cream scoop to buy.
That's true, and Android ports should be cheap and plentiful. That though means the games you'd buy this $100 console for are the same games you play on handheld device, which isn't quite the same as a console game. Will that be worth $100 to people to buy to watch on TV, rather than just using their handheld? I dunno. My gut reaction is 'no'.
The controller already has a touch pad AFAIK, but without a screen, it's not the same as a tablet. And if you do se a screen to game, what's the point in displaying it on TV? I tried Dungeon Hunters on my ASUS, which is a good test I think. I had already played the demo on PS3 and it was quite enjoyable. Controlled well. As this game was an Adnroid game first, I was expecting good thing on my ASUS, but it had dual-virtual thumbsticks and diabolical controls along with occluding the screen. So I wired it up the TV and payed on that, where I could see the game like a console game, but the interface was still a touch interface and I had to look down at the screen to play, defeating the point of using a TV! If there was a BT controller I could wire up and play the game as the PS3 version, it'd work, but that means doing away with the touch-screen interface.
Games will need to be proper controller-designed games I think. Mapping dual virtual sticks will be easy, but things liike touch selection of targets is going to be hard to emulate. Someone could probably look on the Play store and see how many of the top rated and selling games are direct fits for a controller. The fewer of these there are, the less reason there is to buy this Android console. Unless of course they can secure development.
Bzzzzt.
First of all I wasn't talking about PC game sales. And the fact you haven't seen something doesn't make it not true.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407060,00.asp
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...ds-for-100-game-consoles-to-take-on-big-guys/
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