Given the lack of material provided by Ouya concerning the Sandbox, it seems that they don't really know what it's for at this point. It will probably be altered significantly in the future, but in the meantime I have some thoughts I wanted to share.
Right now the Sandbox seems to be a place where new games get vetted by the community before they're sprung into the proper category listings. If games are buggy, they can be pulled and updated. This very thing happened to Bennett Foddy's Get on Top!—It was pulled from the Sandbox because of a bug, according to Foddy's Twitter account.
That makes perfect sense to me, but I think there are some issues with the Sandbox that need to be addressed. Already, it is acting as a sort of purgatory for games which are technically sound, but aesthetically problematic. We've all probably noticed that Donut Get! and Hexicheckers have been stuck in the Sandbox for a while now, and it's easy to speculate why: the Donut Get! guy didn't bother to make his phone game widescreen for his quick-and-easy Ouya port, and Hexicheckers has noticeably unpolished box art and questionable typography.
So, the question is: is the Sandbox only supposed to keep out broken games, or is it also supposed to keep out rough-around-the-edges games? As an XBLIG developer, I saw plenty of rough-around-the-edges games get easily passed through peer review while highly-polished games got held up for weeks because of one simple sound or controller bug.
I'm interested to hear a developed philosophy concerning the Sandbox from the Ouya team so we can know whether they're taking a similar approach with the Sandbox. Right now it's just not clear enough. Personally, I think Ouya's metrics-driven ranking systems already serve to float polished and carefully-designed games to the top, which means that the Sandbox doesn't need to do the same.
It's always been very clear to me, the point is to make sure the store doesn't fill with crappy games that people don't like. Games have to reach a certain level of popularity to make it out of the sandbox and into the main game list, so crap that someone spent 5 minutes on will never be on any of the main lists. The metrics-driven ranking system is how games get out of the sandbox, so if a game is good enough that people actually play it, it will make its way out into the real lists.
The Sandbox is actually beneficial to good games: imagine a world without the Sandbox. New games would show up towards the back of any category they show up in, with each category holding dozens of games. All the games in the back would (in theory) be crap, new games would appear in front of the crap but behind all the good games. How do gamers know which games are new so they can try them out, and which are the crap that's been there for a while? They won't, so nobody will play the new games, and they'll languish pretty deep in their categories. But here we have the Sandbox, where it's easy to keep track of games you haven't seen before suddenly being in there, and you know most of the games towards the front of the list will be new enough not to have made it out yet.
Games have to reach a certain level of popularity to make it out of the sandbox and into the main game list, so crap that someone spent 5 minutes on will never be on any of the main lists.
Yeah, but so are some games going to stay in there forever, or will they eventually (inevitably?) be let out? The Sandbox will quickly become clogged unless all games make it out eventually.
Games have to reach a certain level of popularity to make it out of the sandbox and into the main game list, so crap that someone spent 5 minutes on will never be on any of the main lists.
Yeah, but so are some games going to stay in there forever, or will they eventually (inevitably?) be let out? The Sandbox will quickly become clogged unless all games make it out eventually.
Well, "clogged" just meaning it's going to have lots of bad games in the back of the list where nobody will go, I don't see the problem with that. This is probably one of the reasons there used to be four Sandbox lists.
Games have to reach a certain level of popularity to make it out of the sandbox and into the main game list, so crap that someone spent 5 minutes on will never be on any of the main lists.
Yeah, but so are some games going to stay in there forever, or will they eventually (inevitably?) be let out? The Sandbox will quickly become clogged unless all games make it out eventually.
Well, "clogged" just meaning it's going to have lots of bad games in the back of the list where nobody will go, I don't see the problem with that. This is probably one of the reasons there used to be four Sandbox lists.
But what about when it gets so clogged that it's ready to burst and then like BOOM and bad games are just flying everywhere and you've got them all over your face.
Some might disagree with this, but I think the best for the system would be to remove the lowest o-ranked games after a given time.
Yes, would suck for the respective developer, but he could republish the game later after adding some polish/removing bugs or whatever for a second chance.
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm! evgiz.net
The game wouldnt be deleted from the players console. The game wont even have to be removed entirely from the store, just moved to "archive" or something along those lines.
Cant devs pull their games off the store whenever they like, anyway?
EDIT: And if a game is purchased alot, it might be considered good enough to stay in the shop.
Post edited by Evgiz on
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm! evgiz.net
i'd see it like skinning a 3d model : it's often not recommended to remove influence from joints, but rather to add influence from other joints instead : what is needed is to bring more great games, not removing bad games
one of the joys of the Ouya is to allow Everybody to be published on tv
so, if a 14 yo kid makes a game with unity/java , and uploads it, it's great if he can have it in the sandbox, as it's very rewarding and encouraging
so, no offense, but i'm fully disagreeing with this: i'd say thatfor an unknown reason, it's every developer earning some money ( basically not concerned by the sandbox) that wants a take a shot at less popular games...
Im afraid the sandbox will be flooded with shovelware, but theres no way to know how that will turn out just yet. If it happens, the sandbox will become a place people stay away from, preventing the jewels from getting out of there, and giving customers a bad experience.
I agree that everyone should be able to upload games. Im just not sure how we should treat the bad games. Another category for these games (archive) could be a solution. Im not sure if it would even work, its just an idea im throwing out there.
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm! evgiz.net
Yeah, I agree 100% with Floppy. The entire philosophy of OUYA is inclusion, and we have to accept that philosophy means everyone, even crappy developers with awful design sense, or 10-year-olds making a tic-tac-toe game from a tutorial.
The rankings and sandbox are designed to protect the store from being overwhelmed by unpolished garbage and shovelware, but there is going to be a lot of unpolished garbage and shovelware. We can't, and *shouldn't* be complaining about that fact, because the same thing that lets those crappy games into the store allows experienced and talented devs like us to self-publish our innovative, optimized masterpieces.
And hey, if that means that the store gets a bit of a reputation for having a lot of junk at the bottom, then so be it. Those are the consequences, deal with it. I have no problem saying that even in the worst case, the good consequences will outweigh the bad ones.
The thing just launched, let's not start talking about gatekeeping, or where to draw the line. And let's not think about forming an elite class of indie devs (oh, the irony!), or start worrying about how the amateurs will bring us down with them. I mean, it's easy to say "let's just delete the unpopular stuff from the store" when you're talking about the worst of the worst, and you're sure you won't fall through the cracks, but whose to say you won't? For all you know, your game might not catch on, or it might even be seen (unfairly, surely) as unpolished garbage and dismissed.
I'm riled up about this because just thinking about it is completely ridiculous and counter-productive. It's like a person who finally gets into the hot new club and *immediately* starts freaking out that they might start letting in a bunch of losers, which would totally ruin it for all the cool kids.
at some point, there will be enough good games in the non-sandbox categories, so that many people won't feel the need to dig through a thousand times more games in the sandbox.
that's the problem. on the other hand, i don't think there's a solution. as far as i remember, james once had a suggestion but i don't remember that right now.
It's always been very clear to me, the point is to make sure the store doesn't fill with crappy games that people don't like. Games have to reach a certain level of popularity to make it out of the sandbox and into the main game list, so crap that someone spent 5 minutes on will never be on any of the main lists. The metrics-driven ranking system is how games get out of the sandbox, so if a game is good enough that people actually play it, it will make its way out into the real lists.
The Sandbox is actually beneficial to good games: imagine a world without the Sandbox. New games would show up towards the back of any category they show up in, with each category holding dozens of games. All the games in the back would (in theory) be crap, new games would appear in front of the crap but behind all the good games. How do gamers know which games are new so they can try them out, and which are the crap that's been there for a while? They won't, so nobody will play the new games, and they'll languish pretty deep in their categories. But here we have the Sandbox, where it's easy to keep track of games you haven't seen before suddenly being in there, and you know most of the games towards the front of the list will be new enough not to have made it out yet.
Problem is, whether a game is "crap" is subjective. Most people would consider XBLIG's "Swashbuckel Ur Seatbelts" crap, I thought it was kind of genius. The sandbox works, but it's not necessarily the best solution.
Baconation
Posts: 18Member
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It's always been very clear to me, the point is to make sure the store doesn't fill with crappy games that people don't like. Games have to reach a certain level of popularity to make it out of the sandbox and into the main game list, so crap that someone spent 5 minutes on will never be on any of the main lists. The metrics-driven ranking system is how games get out of the sandbox, so if a game is good enough that people actually play it, it will make its way out into the real lists.
The Sandbox is actually beneficial to good games: imagine a world without the Sandbox. New games would show up towards the back of any category they show up in, with each category holding dozens of games. All the games in the back would (in theory) be crap, new games would appear in front of the crap but behind all the good games. How do gamers know which games are new so they can try them out, and which are the crap that's been there for a while? They won't, so nobody will play the new games, and they'll languish pretty deep in their categories. But here we have the Sandbox, where it's easy to keep track of games you haven't seen before suddenly being in there, and you know most of the games towards the front of the list will be new enough not to have made it out yet.
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
> Anti piracy measures are needed and it doesn't haves to interfer with the concept of open console
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
The rankings and sandbox are designed to protect the store from being overwhelmed by unpolished garbage and shovelware, but there is going to be a lot of unpolished garbage and shovelware. We can't, and *shouldn't* be complaining about that fact, because the same thing that lets those crappy games into the store allows experienced and talented devs like us to self-publish our innovative, optimized masterpieces.
And hey, if that means that the store gets a bit of a reputation for having a lot of junk at the bottom, then so be it. Those are the consequences, deal with it. I have no problem saying that even in the worst case, the good consequences will outweigh the bad ones.
The thing just launched, let's not start talking about gatekeeping, or where to draw the line. And let's not think about forming an elite class of indie devs (oh, the irony!), or start worrying about how the amateurs will bring us down with them. I mean, it's easy to say "let's just delete the unpopular stuff from the store" when you're talking about the worst of the worst, and you're sure you won't fall through the cracks, but whose to say you won't? For all you know, your game might not catch on, or it might even be seen (unfairly, surely) as unpolished garbage and dismissed.
I'm riled up about this because just thinking about it is completely ridiculous and counter-productive. It's like a person who finally gets into the hot new club and *immediately* starts freaking out that they might start letting in a bunch of losers, which would totally ruin it for all the cool kids.
I made the OUYA exclusive games Cube and Creature and Hellworm!
evgiz.net
at some point, there will be enough good games in the non-sandbox categories, so that many people won't feel the need to dig through a thousand times more games in the sandbox.
that's the problem. on the other hand, i don't think there's a solution. as far as i remember, james once had a suggestion but i don't remember that right now.