Yes I am surprised, as I'd expect at least their creator to download them and get some of their friends to try. Having said that, I've heard statistics before that suggest something like 80% or 90% of apps have less than 1000 downloads (this was from a couple of years ago mind)
I have an idea. instead of seeking exclusion how instead we discuss the topic from another angle.
Why are these games put on the market. Can we give these developers what they want without polluting the the store with a glut of games. What constitutes of a crappier game that shouldn't be on the store.
Well heres something over 60% of the apps in the app store dont even have 1 download.
"Would you be surprised to hear that more than 60% of the apps in the App Storehave never been downloaded, even once?"
This is because of Apples horrible discovery problems and not necessarily related to the quality of titles. That being said, if Ouya intends to follow their lead then they will have exactly the same problems.
This is because of Apples horrible discovery problems and not necessarily related to the quality of titles. That being said, if Ouya intends to follow their lead then they will have exactly the same problems.
Where do they get the money from to do reviews and what-not?
"Here is a crazy idea.... Credit card companies only take a couple percent... What if we took 30% of all revenue!" - Ouya
Thats how they get their money. ;)
Actually there are a number of online stores for various things that take 30%. It's fairly common. I'm selling a couple of developer plugins on the Unity Asset Store, which also takes a 30% cut. It's not really that bad, imho.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
While I don't think its right to make a decision of whether or not that 30% is fair, I do believe that 30% while acceptable now, its just because other people are doing it the same. This 30% everywhere will eventually be unacceptable as soon as the only way different marketplaces can compete is by the 30% cut. 30% cut is worse than taxes for some people, keep in mind, and then you get taxed on top of it! This is a prime example of why the Windows 8 store has had so much back-lash, and they are only 20% cut for large businesses!
Completely goes against the open source and free thing Boxer8 wants. I completely and 100% oppose this.
And why are you asking for this to cost money? Do you REALLY want to pay to develop? Whats the point?
Do not confuse open source and "free". They are not mutually exclusive. OUYA is a business. Not a charity.
I agree nobody should pay to develop. But distribution is a different thing entirely. Hosting, evaluating, etc do not occur for free. Games that don't sell sit in the app store and consume these services but don't actually give OUYA (Boxer 8 doesn't exist anymore, btw) any sort of revenue in return.
The reason why issuing a cost of some sort is beneficial (be it voluntarily to get out of the sandbox early or some other thing) is to promote sustainability. Perhaps the 30% royalty is enough. But stores with much larger user bases (i.e. larger opportunties for sales) require some sort of publication fee. And that is usually to cover the costs of evaluation (if there is any) and hosting/support.
Where do they get the money from to do reviews and what-not?
"Here is a crazy idea.... Credit card companies only take a couple percent... What if we took 30% of all revenue!" - Ouya
Thats how they get their money. ;)
And if a game doesn't sell or even make it into the store at all due to review violations, that's a 100% loss of those "review and what-not" costs.
A single game like this isn't going to cause a problem. But say there's a sudden influx one day of a 1000 fart app submissions. Those are black hole losses, and delay legitimate games/apps that come after them from being approved in a timely manner.
Simple accounting says when debits out pace credits (as this model surely has the capability of doing if it goes out of control), then you can't sustain the model.
P.S. This is also how it works with world economies. Which is why so many of them are in trouble.
Yes it is a loss if they never get passed the wardens, but overall Ouya will profit greatly. 30% is a huge revenue cut for providing a platform. They will be rollin in the dough so to speak. I think they can afford being a bit altruistic here.
A better approach is to charge for QA services. We test your game, you pay us X dollars per revision and send you feedback.
Ouya is going to profit anyways. This royalty thing you guys *for some reason* think is a good idea, is NOT a good idea. Maybe you guys have money to do so, but small time developers like us dont. Thats why we flock to the ouya instead of others.
If this gets some kind of royalty system im gonna shoot on over to Oton in a heartbeat and leave ouya behind.
This is not what was planned and not what was announced. Apparently the ouya way is free fully.
@arcticdog The main cost for the servers is download bandwidth right? People aren't going to be downloading these shovelware games in huge numbers, so hardly like it's sucking up huge amounts of server resources.
Also if OUYA is already taking 30% of my games' revenues, it hardly seems fair to charge me again on the pretext of server costs
I think the 30% cut makes perfect sense. I think of it as a tax, because it serves essentially the same purpose. In the real world, the government taxes people and then (ideally) uses those funds to do important things, like maintain bridges and build roads. OUYA "taxes" it's developers and will be using those "taxes" to do important things for everybody like maintaining servers. I think they also probably chose that 30% number to take into account that a lot of games on OUYA will by their nature tend to be way cheaper than other platforms. I mean, a 5% cut would work a lot better on a bunch of AAA $60 games, but obviously wouldn't work very well at all on a selection of relatively unknown $5 indie games.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
Ok.. fair warning here. I have and continue to manage large budget software projects on a daily basis. So while my following opinion might be unpopular, it's an unfortunate reality. Nobody wants to pay more. Including myself. But what's worse than paying more is dumping a lot of time and effort into a platform that ultimately implodes from unsustainable policies against those costs and disintegrates completely. But again, this is completely my opinion from the trenches. And you know what they say about opinions.
In response to @SpoonThumb, Server costs are just one thing. Hosting is actually an on-going cost (albiet an inexpensive one generally). But the bigger ones are the overhead costs not directly related to maintaining the technology. Go check an average salary of a systems developer (easily 6-figure), software developers (high 5 to low 6 figures), web designers (mid 5 figures), marketing/evangelists(high 5 to low 6), support personnel (lower to mid 5 figure). I won't even get into the salaries commanded by C-level executives/top-level employees, compensation to investors, warehousing and fulfillment costs (Easily $10K+ a month to maintain an inventory not constantly plagued by backorder for a company the size of OUYA)
Also figure that OUYA is based in CA, so those salaries are going to be leaning toward the high side of my estimates for cost of living reasons alone. It takes a lot of nickle and diming of software at 30% to maintain all of those things and maintain quality results in the long term.
OUYA has chosen to evaluate all content that comes through the door. So unless they have volunteers doing this (they don't), this is an on-going barrier software has to overcome before it actually starts to make money at all. If you break it down by an hourly rate of the evaluator, how many IAPs at 30% royalties does a unit need to actually break even on those costs alone?
Can the hardware margin sustain the business? Maybe. I think I heard somewhere that the pre-retail units were actually being built at a small loss. If that's true, the margin at retail is likely VERY thin if it's there at all (at least for awhile).
Can 30% of a few runaway hits carry the shovelware that never gets downloaded and converted (and by consequence, is actually a loss for OUYA)? Sure. But that's a toxic way to run a business in the long term. It also requires a lot of hits to do this. And there is virtually no way to prepare for the famine that occurs between the feasts.
Of course, there are other ways to get money. You can turn the dashboard into an advertising billboard (aka X-Box live), charge users to use the service (Again, like X-Box live, but OUYA needs some pretty extensive features to justify something like that). Take a bigger cut from developers to further offset the overhead (aka raise "taxes"). Or pad the price with a flat rate (either instead of or in addition to) that OUYA skims every time.
I can really sympathize with those that claim they can't afford to develop something. But if that's the case, then you're in for a lot of disappointment even if development is always free. Assuming your development tools and hardware aren't a cost for you already, getting your game known outside of OUYA is not going to be free. In this case, it's a matter of hobbyist vs professionals. Hobbyists don't want to spend any more than they have to. The sandbox they're playing in has on-going maintenance costs. That's not fair to those making a living there. And if OUYA can't provide that kind of profitable environment, they will have a very tough time attracting quality developers to the platform.
Maybe a good compromise here would be a sponsorship program of some sort. I know I may eventually be willing to help a developer out with costs if I knew they had a decent game ready to publish and they would agree to pay back that fee before taking a profit. And Kickstarter, indiegogo, etc have proven that reasonably budgeted decent games CAN get funded pretty easily.
As I said, the 30% cut alone might do it. But I am skeptical. I'm one of the survivors of the dot com bubble in the nineties. Flaky, non-sustainable business models were 100% the cause of those business failures. It doesn't take any less effort to burn through kickstarter money in 201X as it does to burn through venture capitalist money in 199Y. Right now isn't critical for OUYA because developer adoption is key. But I would not be surprised if the sustainability model has to be addressed eventually. Unfortunately, the double edge to this is, it is a difficult thing to sell on developers later when it's far more critical unless OUYA has some serious marketshare.
The purpose of all businesses is to be profitable. Not "get by". So keep in mind that all of the other app stores charge yearly fees. I can nearly guarantee it's to assist in maintaining the costs I described above. If OUYA can be different in that way and not lose quality in the process, not only would that be great, it would be miraculous.
I understand the business logic, but it doesn't quite match with the reality, which is that the store isn't drowning in shovelware. Quite the opposite in fact: OUYA needs more developers and more games. So maybe in a year or two's time, it might make more sense
However, adding an extra fee right now, even if only a nominal amount, would have three very damaging effects for OUYA:
1). It would It would be a big u turn (flip-flopping to borrow from American politics). Starting out as being open and free, no fees, no hassle to get your game on the store to actually having to pay fees and being about "only the best" walled garden and all that
2). It would be a slap in the face to existing developers who have supported the system, only to get told "your games (collectively) are not good enough, and to solve that, we're going to add yet another cost, another barrier"
3). Fees have a big psychological effect. No matter how irrational it may seem to you who is willing to pay, some people have a moral objection and/or will refuse to develop for the platform on a point of principle. I came across one well known indie developer yesterday who refuses to put his game on the OUYA on "moral grounds" because he has a thing against free-to-play games, and a fee would I believe act in a similar fashion
Only Microsoft and Apple have yearly fee. Android stores are free from it.
As I recall, Google play has a one-time fee. $25 I think. But they subsidize in other ways. They rope users into joining Google+ to rank/comment, and sell focused advertising based on that as an example. Facebook is the same way. Development costs are a non-issue, but those games bring in membership, and all of the income that brings for focused advertising.
Contrast this to OUYA, which currently only has vectors of income in hardware/controller (with controllers more than likely being the only element with a lot of margin), and 30% royalties on IAP for games that choose to charge for their apps at all. OUYA is also a very niche sub-market of the kinds of software Google, Apple and Microsoft carry in their respective stores. All of those other stores sell movies, music, books, etc. The kinds of sales and broader audience we won't see in general on OUYA.
I understand the business logic, but it doesn't quite match with the reality, which is that the store isn't drowning in shovelware. Quite the opposite in fact: OUYA needs more developers and more games. So maybe in a year or two's time, it might make more sense
However, adding an extra fee right now, even if only a nominal amount, would have three very damaging effects for OUYA:
1). It would It would be a big u turn (flip-flopping to borrow from American politics). Starting out as being open and free, no fees, no hassle to get your game on the store to actually having to pay fees and being about "only the best" walled garden and all that
2). It would be a slap in the face to existing developers who have supported the system, only to get told "your games (collectively) are not good enough, and to solve that, we're going to add yet another cost, another barrier"
3). Fees have a big psychological effect. No matter how irrational it may seem to you who is willing to pay, some people have a moral objection and/or will refuse to develop for the platform on a point of principle. I came across one well known indie developer yesterday who refuses to put his game on the OUYA on "moral grounds" because he has a thing against free-to-play games, and a fee would I believe act in a similar fashion
Well as I said, now isn't the critical time to do this even if it were an option. You do have a good point about not enough content. Of course, once all of the backer consoles ship, that's 60K+ potential developers right there. And every retail unit after that is a potential developer. Their dev-kit model is identical to all android devices out there that allow debugging. So it's not unreasonable to think we'll see a ton more ports (some good, some bad) from the wait-and-see'ers who buy hardware at retail rather than dropping the $99+ early. We will also see "first time developers of anything's" pong and fart apps trying to find their way into the store. All of these will need review before hitting the sandbox.
All of your reasons also have perspectives in the opposite direction.
1) OUYA said they were open. Honestly, I cringe when companies try to use that word, because it is so subject to interpretation and actually isn't synonymous with "free". it means it's accessible to some degree, and that degree is ALSO subject to interpretation. Also, the reality of business dictates you have to compromise sometimes. The recent shipping debacle is an example. OUYA didn't WANT to ship their units later than intended, any more than they may WANT to start charging fees at some point. But I think everyone would agree that if the alternative was for the business to dissolve vs. having a quality app store that's doing well enough to improve, cultivate good content and provide a good experience all around, fees wouldn't be such a huge problem for developers. I do agree it'll take awhile to burn through the kickstarter funds (and whatever else they have cooking) if they budget well. So assuming that's true, the necessity of fees isn't an immediate danger.
2) I honestly don't think existing developers would mind if they really are producing good games. It ensures their games won't carry the burden of subsidizing bad games that need to be reviewed for content. If games each pay for their own overhead costs somehow, it leaves the profits of the store to go toward improvements and growth. But as it is now, the store will ultimately be dependent upon being hit-driven (or *ugh* iterative hardware driven), which if I recall, wasn't a strategy they wanted to pursue (and in the case of hardware upgrades, also isn't popular with many developers).
3) Where will these other developers go? PC? You can get distribution on Steam or the Windows App store if you want a comparable experience. Those aren't free. Android? There's a one time fee there. Playstation Vita? $99 annual fee. Apple? Ditto. Microsoft and all of their console, tablet/mobile platforms $99 again.
If someone's game is good enough, any entry fee will find it's way to them one way or another. A $99 kickstarter will most assuredly be funded if that's the only barrier to entry.
I do agree about psychological effects. People take things in gradual amounts a lot better than being introduced to bulk fee later. Think about the cost of petrol/gasoline now vs. 10 years ago. If you could go back in time, and tell everyone back then what they will be paying for gas in 10 years, they will collectively have a heart attack. However, if one sees gas in the US for $3.00 a gallon now, it's viewed as a huge bargain.
That's why possibly exploring fees at some point, or establishing some rules around them before they're critical for business wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. There are a lot of ways of handling it... Perhaps the developer is given a few freebies to start with. Then OUYA management could decide based on some sort of income history/app popularity (good developers are generally consistent with their quality) if their next submission is free.
Again, nobody wants to pay fees. But then, who wants to subsidize shovelware when that inevitably creeps into the equation if there's not some sort of penalty for drowning the store with them? If the threat is there, it will be minimal (also a psychological effect).
all games in one way or another suit different people, one person may think the game is bad, whereas another person loves the game.
for every game in the sandbox and in general, your either going to love or hate or just enjoy games of all genres.
having ouya as an open platform to develop for will find hundreds upon hundreds of game submissions from all over the place which is fine in a way, because you may only like 2/100 new games uploaded into the sandbox but somone else might like 20 of those games.
the management system just needs to be cleaned up instead of dumped all around eachother, so you can discover a good game out of 100+ submissions
what about when submitting the game having a seperate menu for premium submissions to be displayed in there own section for a small fee, that would surely filter out the "better games" and help the more legit developer get there game out there?
I completely agree that different people enjoy different games, and while I hate the idea of Farmville, tons of people thoroughly enjoy that game. I also agree that some sort of management system would be great.
Another idea to go along with that is to be able to customize what games show up for you based on your interests perhaps using a tag system or something like that. For example, I'm more into the more hardcore RPG genre. If it were possible for me to sift through everything easily to find these games, I think it would help a ton.
I'm sure they will mimic Apple and Android app stores though and have a "New" category, a "Popular" category and stuff like that. The effectiveness just depends on how many games get approved and how quickly things get pushed through the system.
all games in one way or another suit different people, one person may think the game is bad, whereas another person loves the game.
for every game in the sandbox and in general, your either going to love or hate or just enjoy games of all genres.
having ouya as an open platform to develop for will find hundreds upon hundreds of game submissions from all over the place which is fine in a way, because you may only like 2/100 new games uploaded into the sandbox but somone else might like 20 of those games.
the management system just needs to be cleaned up instead of dumped all around eachother, so you can discover a good game out of 100+ submissions
what about when submitting the game having a seperate menu for premium submissions to be displayed in there own section for a small fee, that would surely filter out the "better games" and help the more legit developer get there game out there?
I completely agree that different people enjoy different games, and while I hate the idea of Farmville, tons of people thoroughly enjoy that game. I also agree that some sort of management system would be great.
Another idea to go along with that is to be able to customize what games show up for you based on your interests perhaps using a tag system or something like that. For example, I'm more into the more hardcore RPG genre. If it were possible for me to sift through everything easily to find these games, I think it would help a ton.
I'm sure they will mimic Apple and Android app stores though and have a "New" category, a "Popular" category and stuff like that. The effectiveness just depends on how many games get approved and how quickly things get pushed through the system.
There's well known mathematical formulas that, based on a sparse set of data, can be used to predict what kind of games you will like.
All Ouya would have to collect is data of games someone downloads and the games that person likes. With that it would only take just a few games and Ouya could suggest (with a fair margin of accuracy) what someone would like. The more games the person plays and/or likes the better the prediction would get.
Another idea to go along with that is to be able to customize what games show up for you based on your interests perhaps using a tag system or something like that. For example, I'm more into the more hardcore RPG genre. If it were possible for me to sift through everything easily to find these games, I think it would help a ton.
I'm sure they will mimic Apple and Android app stores though and have a "New" category, a "Popular" category and stuff like that. The effectiveness just depends on how many games get approved and how quickly things get pushed through the system.
OUYA already does this, you just don't really get a sense of it because there aren't actually all that many games on the store yet
I'm
sure they will mimic Apple and Android app stores though and have a
"New" category, a "Popular" category and stuff like that. The
effectiveness just depends on how many games get approved and how
quickly things get pushed through the system.
Hell no! That stuff is part of the problem and what makes discovering stuff on the Apple and Android stores really hard. It makes the whole thing just a competition to get into those few coveted spots and when you have the biggest marketing budget, you're probably going to just buy your way there. That has no relation to the quality of the games, what is more fun to play etc
Hell no! That stuff is part of the problem and what makes discovering stuff on the Apple and Android stores really hard. It makes the whole thing just a competition to get into those few coveted spots and when you have the biggest marketing budget, you're probably going to just buy your way there. That has no relation to the quality of the games, what is more fun to play etc
Or, more importantly, what you yourself think is fun to play and is high quality.
You should be able to sort by launch date in addition to genres tho, so that you are able to find the new RPG/Arcade/Platformer etc games you havent seen yet.
I really hope the store will feature a great search function at launch. (Genres, O-rank, developer, date etc)
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm! evgiz.net
Only Microsoft and Apple have yearly fee. Android stores are free from it.
Google Play has a $25 one time fee. But the main reason Android gets junk is that they have no review process, just upload an APK and a few hours later it is available worldwide.
But even still I don't think Ouya should charge anything...at least not yet. At this point $20 from every developer isn't going to hire a new person - so tools are not going to improve any faster. Right now they want to encourage as many developers to join and right now it is really hard to tell if sales will be good enough to support building games specifically for the ouya.
But either way there are so many other end-user usability issues they should deal with before making things cushy for the developers.
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Actually there are a number of online stores for various things that take 30%. It's fairly common.
I'm selling a couple of developer plugins on the Unity Asset Store, which also takes a 30% cut. It's not really that bad, imho.
Also if OUYA is already taking 30% of my games' revenues, it hardly seems fair to charge me again on the pretext of server costs
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I think of it as a tax, because it serves essentially the same purpose. In the real world, the government taxes people and then (ideally) uses those funds to do important things, like maintain bridges and build roads.
OUYA "taxes" it's developers and will be using those "taxes" to do important things for everybody like maintaining servers.
I think they also probably chose that 30% number to take into account that a lot of games on OUYA will by their nature tend to be way cheaper than other platforms. I mean, a 5% cut would work a lot better on a bunch of AAA $60 games, but obviously wouldn't work very well at all on a selection of relatively unknown $5 indie games.
In response to @SpoonThumb, Server costs are just one thing. Hosting is actually an on-going cost (albiet an inexpensive one generally). But the bigger ones are the overhead costs not directly related to maintaining the technology. Go check an average salary of a systems developer (easily 6-figure), software developers (high 5 to low 6 figures), web designers (mid 5 figures), marketing/evangelists(high 5 to low 6), support personnel (lower to mid 5 figure). I won't even get into the salaries commanded by C-level executives/top-level employees, compensation to investors, warehousing and fulfillment costs (Easily $10K+ a month to maintain an inventory not constantly plagued by backorder for a company the size of OUYA)
Also figure that OUYA is based in CA, so those salaries are going to be leaning toward the high side of my estimates for cost of living reasons alone.
It takes a lot of nickle and diming of software at 30% to maintain all of those things and maintain quality results in the long term.
However, adding an extra fee right now, even if only a nominal amount, would have three very damaging effects for OUYA:
1). It would It would be a big u turn (flip-flopping to borrow from American politics). Starting out as being open and free, no fees, no hassle to get your game on the store to actually having to pay fees and being about "only the best" walled garden and all that
2). It would be a slap in the face to existing developers who have supported the system, only to get told "your games (collectively) are not good enough, and to solve that, we're going to add yet another cost, another barrier"
3). Fees have a big psychological effect. No matter how irrational it may seem to you who is willing to pay, some people have a moral objection and/or will refuse to develop for the platform on a point of principle. I came across one well known indie developer yesterday who refuses to put his game on the OUYA on "moral grounds" because he has a thing against free-to-play games, and a fee would I believe act in a similar fashion
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Well as I said, now isn't the critical time to do this even if it were an option. You do have a good point about not enough content. Of course, once all of the backer consoles ship, that's 60K+ potential developers right there. And every retail unit after that is a potential developer. Their dev-kit model is identical to all android devices out there that allow debugging. So it's not unreasonable to think we'll see a ton more ports (some good, some bad) from the wait-and-see'ers who buy hardware at retail rather than dropping the $99+ early. We will also see "first time developers of anything's" pong and fart apps trying to find their way into the store. All of these will need review before hitting the sandbox.
There's well known mathematical formulas that, based on a sparse set of data, can be used to predict what kind of games you will like.
Hell no! That stuff is part of the problem and what makes discovering stuff on the Apple and Android stores really hard. It makes the whole thing just a competition to get into those few coveted spots and when you have the biggest marketing budget, you're probably going to just buy your way there. That has no relation to the quality of the games, what is more fun to play etc
Website
I really hope the store will feature a great search function at launch. (Genres, O-rank, developer, date etc)
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net