Who sets the categories, how about any gamer with common sense?
I do realize you're being sarcastic here, but maybe this isn't such a terrible idea. I'm a huge fan of tags. I think letting users create and set any tag they want for every game could be a fantastic system. The problem would probably be the small user-base during the OUYA's early days. Normally, it's not really a problem if people make unhelpful tagging choices for an item, since they'll be drowned out by the majority, who are making good choices.
But I suppose it could be a problem if there aren't many people actively creating tags and tagging games. Even then, though, there are also ways to guard against abuse. The most obvious one is restricting the ability to create new tags to some certain subset of users.
Problems aside, though, user-managed tags offer a lot. It would be hard for any company to create a section for every single possible game genre. For OUYA, it will be even harder, since they're a small company and they're under tremendous pressure to make good and do it fast, lest they be beaten by a slew of competitors. And with all the experimental indie games on OUYA, it'll be even harder, as subgenres and new genres continually emerge.
So, instead, users can create tags. Instead of relying on OUYA to create a dozen different categories for every type of RPG, for example, users can create and use whichever tags turn out to be useful. aRPG, jRPG, cRPG, Roguelike, MMORPG, etc, etc.
It's all much more fluid and allows for discovery based on much more specific criteria. Want to find other cel-shaded games? Click the cel-shaded tag, and find them. Want to find more steampunk games of any genre? Check out that tag. Just want games with chiptunes? Games with local co-op? Whatever you want.
simple quick thought- have a "I feel lucky" button kinda like google has-when you click it- it shows you a random game's "page"....
also-maybe the ability to vote up or down the game might be useful-but that comes with it's problems..
The "Feeling Lucky" button is a great idea. I absolutely love it. It's not hard to implement, it keeps the end user interested, it's unique (to app stores), and it can generate real revenues for indies who didn't get a ton of attention. Please email the OUYA dev team about this idea, it certainly can't hurt to try.
Who sets the categories, how about any gamer with common sense?
I do realize you're being sarcastic here, but maybe this isn't such a terrible idea. I'm a huge fan of tags. I think letting users create and set any tag they want for every game could be a fantastic system. The problem would probably be the small user-base during the OUYA's early days. Normally, it's not really a problem if people make unhelpful tagging choices for an item, since they'll be drowned out by the majority, who are making good choices.
But I suppose it could be a problem if there aren't many people actively creating tags and tagging games. Even then, though, there are also ways to guard against abuse. The most obvious one is restricting the ability to create new tags to some certain subset of users.
Problems aside, though, user-managed tags offer a lot. It would be hard for any company to create a section for every single possible game genre. For OUYA, it will be even harder, since they're a small company and they're under tremendous pressure to make good and do it fast, lest they be beaten by a slew of competitors. And with all the experimental indie games on OUYA, it'll be even harder, as subgenres and new genres continually emerge.
So, instead, users can create tags. Instead of relying on OUYA to create a dozen different categories for every type of RPG, for example, users can create and use whichever tags turn out to be useful. aRPG, jRPG, cRPG, Roguelike, MMORPG, etc, etc.
It's all much more fluid and allows for discovery based on much more specific criteria. Want to find other cel-shaded games? Click the cel-shaded tag, and find them. Want to find more steampunk games of any genre? Check out that tag. Just want games with chiptunes? Games with local co-op? Whatever you want.
Interesting that you brought up tags. Is anyone familiar with how Little Big Planet's discovery system worked? :) Players would play a level, add a few tags at the end of it and give it a star rating. The most common tags on a level were then used for search filtering or something.
@MadMax83 They're going to only feature dev backers. To feature backers of every level for a year would be insane. That was a part of the draw to be a dev backer :)
is turning into a cartoon as well as a game! Check out our Facebook (and like!) :)
The mini web game is now live, play and compete for high score here: bimey.com!
@MadMax83 They're going to only feature dev backers. To feature backers of every level for a year would be insane. That was a part of the draw to be a dev backer :)
That's what I mean. Feature backers that are devs- no matter what the scale or quality of the game. There are a lot of devs that are still in infancy that may not be amazing yet that deserve what they paid for.
@MadMax83 I totally agree, we're a new indie team and I fully expect to to be featured the same as any other dev who backed the same level on Kickstarter I did with the year long promotion perk. I didn't get from your post if you meant they should feature any backer who happens to be a developer, or people who actually backed at the developer level. I'm sure the people who backed at the developer level will be promoted as they should. I was just saying if you meant anyone who happens to be a developer and backed at any level, that would just be too much.
is turning into a cartoon as well as a game! Check out our Facebook (and like!) :)
The mini web game is now live, play and compete for high score here: bimey.com!
Is it just me or should the rating system work so that if a player gives the game either 4/5 stars or a thumbs up or what ever floats your boat, he would also have to give feedback via a comment or review? So that immature reviews are seen for what they are and people get a general sense of what kind of crowd is rating the game?
@MadMax83 I totally agree, we're a new indie team and I fully expect to to be featured the same as any other dev who backed the same level on Kickstarter I did with the year long promotion perk. I didn't get from your post if you meant they should feature any backer who happens to be a developer, or people who actually backed at the developer level. I'm sure the people who backed at the developer level will be promoted as they should. I was just saying if you meant anyone who happens to be a developer and backed at any level, that would just be too much.
Oh no worries man. We're on the same page! Whats your game site??
Unfortunately we don't have a game site yet, just a private development forum as we're updating things :p We're actually in need of someone who does the whole web design/social media aspect of things so when we have something to show at the end of the month we can ramp up some genuine interest. If you, or maybe some you know does that sort of thing, I'd love to chat with them :)
I did post a high level view screenshot of our first level here if you'd like to see it! HERE
is turning into a cartoon as well as a game! Check out our Facebook (and like!) :)
The mini web game is now live, play and compete for high score here: bimey.com!
I agree on the part that says it's part of the deal you get for backing OUYA on the dev level. That's only fair, but that is not the intention of this thread as it is about the store's design. Getting featured because you backed OUYA is a one-time event, and you could consider that a paid spot.
@Magnesus, I don't think they are intending to do either of what you say. Personally I've lost confidence in both AppStores and rely on third party information (review sites, friends recommendations) on buying stuff in both stores. I, and many with me, find their stores cluttered from a user perspective, but also from a developer perspective.
As a user, star ratings don't even seem to work anymore since the sources of these ratings, the raters themselves, are unreliable and we have become weary of reviews. As developers we have become weary and scared of these noob ratings and want more reliable sources to rate our game, and respect their outcome of how much they appreciate the game.
Apple is a very closed as everyone knows, but the people at OUYA have been listening to us guys. It's a crowd sourced project and for them it's only natural to give something back to the public, and in it's wake improve their product.
I think the store should have a gamerankings-like system which you can use to link to outside reviewers as to have more reliable opinions. People are unlikely to write detailed reviews on a store site, and I believe people who like a game are more like to rate it than people who hate it - when you like it, you are likely to play it for a long time and eventually rate it, if you don't you will likely forget and not bother with it.
@MangoDown - I meant only the way payments are handled in regard to taxes. On Google Play you are the seller, in AppleStore as I believe it is Apple who is selling and later pays you royalty. This changes how you handle taxes (at least in my country). The Google Play method requires me to do a lot of paperwork while for Apple I would only need one invoice a month.
I do like the idea of an "Undiscovered" category that gives you a short list of games with good ratings, but poor download numbers.
I'd like to recomend that it be randomly generated only daily. That way multiplayer games get a burst of players all at once, and you can click through the menus and go back to a game that interested you without worrying about it regenerating the list and never being able to find it again.
Here's something I posted in the Upload Your Games thread, that Nick suggested I put over here (didn't even know this existed... lol).
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And I had an interesting idea for game discovery. I got it when I saw the option to "delete" a game with 'U'. What if games worked like topics in a forum that are "read". After you have tried a game or looked at a game and decided you aren't interested you could "delete" it from browsing, sort of like marking a thread as read. Browsing would only show games not "deleted/marked as read". There are those of us who would like to browse the library for games we haven't seen or tried yet and wading through games we've already seen makes it a hassle and we become dependent on a "new releases" sort of section. The problem being that sometimes we can't get to a game before it leaves "new releases" and hence the game is lost in the large library of games forever.
Basically I look through the games, and I see "RANDOM INDIE GAME X" that I'm not really interested in. I don't want to have to keep seeing it when I'm browsing so I hit 'U' to "mark it as read", essentially hiding it while browsing the library in the future. It would still show up in places like "New Releases" "Most Popular" or whatever, but while browsing I could slowly personally whittle down the games that I have to browse through. This makes it easier to see new games pop up. And if a new built is pushed out, it could possibly clear the "Read" tag and make it visible in browsing. So anytime a game I passed over in the past gets updated, it is now viewable again while browsing until I hide it again.
I've always been fond of innovation in features for usability goals, and I feel like the OUYA is the chance to try new and experimental models/systems like above. Could definitely be worth a shot to strive towards better game discovery. The system works for forums and email. If I feel like I need to go back to an email I mark it as unread to look at later. The difference with this system is that people would manually set games as "read/hidden" as opposed to emails getting automatically marked as read when you open them. A button to "Show All" could easily exist for when you are looking for a game you may have already marked as hidden and then you can toggle it back to viewable. The feature may be worth at least discussing. I know that I would love to try out every game on the OUYA at least once, and something like this would ensure that no game gets left behind. Reviewers with the goal of reviewing many games could use this system to hide games that they already reviewed or don't see the value in viewing. I feel there are a lot of solid uses that could come from such a system. It allows us to control our own pseudo "new releases" in the form of "games I haven't had time to look at yet, but still want to".
Aggro Tactics - A tactical strategy virtual board game built with Unity3D 4.0, designed around the concept of Threat/Aggro inspired by the mechanics of chess and a customizable party like in table top games.
@GodlyPerfection that's a pretty good idea! I'd definitely like to filter out some games after I know I don't want them (even games you don't wanna see in the store because you already downloaded them!)
Good idea, but remember to undelete games that had updates, so you won't miss new, refined versions. I always install games from Google Play again after I notice for example that they updated the graphics.
Good idea, but remember to undelete games that had updates, so you won't miss new, refined versions. I always install games from Google Play again after I notice for example that they updated the graphics.
You could totally game that, though. Remember when "Google Marketplace" had a category for "New or Updated Games"? Everyone would release a patch once a week whether they'd changed anything or not.
Good idea, but remember to undelete games that had updates, so you won't miss new, refined versions. I always install games from Google Play again after I notice for example that they updated the graphics.
Agreed... I addressed that in these lines:
And if a new build is pushed out, it could possibly clear the "Read" tag and make it visible in browsing. So anytime a game I passed over in the past gets updated, it is now viewable again while browsing until I hide it again.
You could totally game that, though. Remember when "Google Marketplace" had a category for "New or Updated Games"? Everyone would release a patch once a week whether they'd changed anything or not.
Yeah definitely a potential problem, but something that might be able to be worked around.
@GodlyPerfection that's a pretty good idea! I'd definitely like to filter out some games after I know I don't want them (even games you don't wanna see in the store because you already downloaded them!)
Agreed, removing games that you've already downloaded is definitely another great bonus to the system. It ensures that the library of games to browse can be made personal to each individual. Could be possible to auto hide it on download as well, if that is something people would like.
Aggro Tactics - A tactical strategy virtual board game built with Unity3D 4.0, designed around the concept of Threat/Aggro inspired by the mechanics of chess and a customizable party like in table top games.
On a slightly side topic, Will the store eventually have a "More Games by This Developer" button? That's my favorite way to find cool games on Google Play and iTunes store.
You could clear the "read" tag only if the update is 30-60 days or more past the last update. This should help decrease "gaming" the tag, and reduce user annoyance at having something they hid keep showing back up every couple of days or so.
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You could also have a user setting that says, "hide till updated", "hide for a long time", "hide forever, never show me again!" That way if someone is gaming it, they end-user could "block them" ... "forever"
I definitely like the "read games" idea. It reminds me a bit of the "Remind me again later" button that just got added to Greenlight on Steam.
Sure, some people will game the system with false updates, etc, but not everyone will, so it would still help quite a lot.
It would also generate one more metric that could be given to developers which they could use to try to measure user interest. For instance, if they change something in the description of the App, and suddenly they start to see twice as many "don't show this game again" actions per day, then they know they've just made a bad move. More marketing info you can get to devs, the better.
It would also generate one more metric that could be given to developers which they could use to try to measure user interest. For instance, if they change something in the description of the App, and suddenly they start to see twice as many "don't show this game again" actions per day, then they know they've just made a bad move. More marketing info you can get to devs, the better.
Comments
So that immature reviews are seen for what they are and people get a general sense of what kind of crowd is rating the game?
I'd like to recomend that it be randomly generated only daily. That way multiplayer games get a burst of players all at once, and you can click through the menus and go back to a game that interested you without worrying about it regenerating the list and never being able to find it again.
Founder of ReachingPerfection.com
Founder of ReachingPerfection.com
[edit]
You could also have a user setting that says, "hide till updated", "hide for a long time", "hide forever, never show me again!" That way if someone is gaming it, they end-user could "block them" ... "forever"