All games on OUYA are free to try, do you can download any you wish and check them out. The developer of each game decides at which point to ask you to buy the game, so at this point you'll know the price. On average the prices are between $5 and $10. Here are a couple examples of how free to try works:
Canabalt HD - You can play 5 times per day for free. You can buy the game right away if you want and will see the price there.
Final Fantasy III - There's about 1 hour of content you can play, but you can't progress further if you don't buy the game.
i know the system of the free games-i have seen the front page of ouya before! i was just curious about where a list for the exact pricing for each game was...
All games on OUYA are free to try, do you can download any you wish and check them out. The developer of each game decides at which point to ask you to buy the game, so at this point you'll know the price. On average the prices are between $5 and $10. Here are a couple examples of how free to try works:
Canabalt HD - You can play 5 times per day for free. You can buy the game right away if you want and will see the price there.
Final Fantasy III - There's about 1 hour of content you can play, but you can't progress further if you don't buy the game.
Hope this helps :)
maybe i had just worded my discussion title wrong! I was wondering where i might find a list for all of the paid games that explicitly stated the exact prices #OUYA IS MY NEW FAV. CONSOLE :D
By playing the games and looking. There is no list, and a list wouldn't really work because the prices can change from moment to moment, there can be multiple products in a game (multiple things the player can buy in one game), and the purchasable products are not tied to any specific game (so two games from one company could use the same products if the company wanted - buy one game get the other game free).
All purchases are made through In-App-Purchasing, and I don't think anyone has figured out a good way to list IAP prices on any system yet, outside of the game itself.
The current set up is terrible. I have to download the game first before I can find out how much it costs. If I'm lucky the game will have a menu option to buy the full version otherwise I have to play the game until I hit the pay wall before I can know what the price is.
Not happening, my wallet is staying shut until I see some up front pricing.
The current set up is terrible. I have to download the game first before I can find out how much it costs. If I'm lucky the game will have a menu option to buy the full version otherwise I have to play the game until I hit the pay wall before I can know what the price is.
Not happening, my wallet is staying shut until I see some up front pricing.
You can *play* the game, find out if you like it, before having to worry about price. I don't see why you care that much about the price of something free, especially to the point that you refuse to pay developers for the games you really enjoy. I don't work at OUYA, but I can pretty much guarantee you won't see a price list any time soon. I mean, if Apple, Sony, Google, and Microsoft can't figure out a good way to display IAP prices outside of a game, what makes you think OUYA knows a good way? Do you think they are keeping it from you out of spite?
People just expect to see a price for something up front. Think how it would be if you went to a grocery store and nothing had a price tag and you had to take items up to the cashier to see how much they cost. I dont care if they gave me a bite of everything for free. I still wouldnt shop there.
People just expect to see a price for something up front. Think how it would be if you went to a grocery store and nothing had a price tag and you had to take items up to the cashier to see how much they cost. I dont care if they gave me a bite of everything for free. I still wouldnt shop there.
This has been answered many times before. The problem is that this simply cannot be done, by the nature of how OUYA works. Games use IAP (in app purchase), basically the game sells items and can check what items a player owns. If a player owns the "full version" item, the game unlocks additional content. Or a game can sell in-game items, perhaps Armor or Weapons, etc.
The problem is this: paid games are now indistinguishable from F2P games (from a computer's point of view). You might say "well, why not display a price if there's only one item?" All well and good, until a game decides to sell DLCs. Now there's several items, and there's no way to reliably make the computer tell which one is the full version item and which ones are just DLCs. You also cannot trust developers to do this themselves, as there will always be those who cheat the system and their game won't have a price displayed. In the end, there's no good way for OUYA to display prices without overhauling the entire system.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
Ouya better figure something out, because the whole mystery app store idea isn't cute and will only lead to lackluster sales. It's not that hard for me to abstain from buying anything right now because the current line up of launch titles is pretty weak.
I have a large library of Steam and GOG.com games, most of these games were purchased during various sales and promotions. I have this problem where I can't resist buying an interesting game that's on sale. Many of my friends have also admitted that they also suffer from this condition. I don't think we'll experience this problem on the Ouya.
Ouya better figure something out, because the whole mystery app store idea isn't cute and will only lead to lackluster sales. It's not that hard for me to abstain from buying anything right now because the current line up of launch titles is pretty weak.
I have a large library of Steam and GOG.com games, most of these games were purchased during various sales and promotions. I have this problem where I can't resist buying an interesting game that's on sale. Many of my friends have also admitted that they also suffer from this condition. I don't think we'll experience this problem on the Ouya.
Unless they want to completely backpedal on the whole 'every game free to try' aspect, there's NOTHING as far as I can tell that can be done.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
maybe i should start a thread for people to get angry and have arguments on!
also i know there may not be a comprehensive price for each game and it is subject to change BUT there could be a constantly updating list implemented into the OUYA market, s i don't know how much money im paying until i have payed it!
People just expect to see a price for something up front. Think how it would be if you went to a grocery store and nothing had a price tag and you had to take items up to the cashier to see how much they cost. I dont care if they gave me a bite of everything for free. I still wouldnt shop there.
This has been answered many times before. The problem is that this simply cannot be done, by the nature of how OUYA works.
... <snip> ...
In the end, there's no good way for OUYA to display prices without overhauling the entire system.
I disagree on this. I don't think it's a question of "can Team Ouya do this", but "will Team Ouya do this". Here's how I think that prices could be displayed in a reasonable way by Team Ouya:
At the end of the day, all purchases go through Ouya. Devs MUST register with Ouya a list of every product defined for purchase in every game. So, Ouya has easy access to all pricing info for EVERY game on their store.
Sure, some games will sell the "Full version" as a product. Some may sell consumables as a product. Some may do both. It's up to the dev what each product actually is. And each game may potentially have numerous products.
That means that, no, we couldn't have what we're used to from Steam and thousands of other online storefronts - a single game with a single price. However, if Team Ouya wanted to, they could list every purchaseable product for each game.
So, imagine you went to the "More Info" page for a game. It could list the game description as it does now. Then, to the side of the description it could also list all the products defined for that game in a plain old two-column format: product name on the left, price on the right.
@Piers does this sound reasonable? Or is not displaying price an active decision on the part of Team Ouya?
This has been answered many times before.The problem is that this simply cannot be done, by the nature of how OUYA works.
Not with that attitude it can't. Do you think Ouya will reject an app if the developer put in their description "This free demo lets you play for 1 hour. It costs $5 to remove the time limit." I'll be voting with my dollars. I won't buy any app or game that doesn't make some sort of effort to show me a price up front.
People just expect to see a price for something up front. Think how it would be if you went to a grocery store and nothing had a price tag and you had to take items up to the cashier to see how much they cost. I dont care if they gave me a bite of everything for free. I still wouldnt shop there.
This has been answered many times before. The problem is that this simply cannot be done, by the nature of how OUYA works.
... <snip> ...
In the end, there's no good way for OUYA to display prices without overhauling the entire system.
I disagree on this. I don't think it's a question of "can Team Ouya do this", but "will Team Ouya do this". Here's how I think that prices could be displayed in a reasonable way by Team Ouya:
At the end of the day, all purchases go through Ouya. Devs MUST register with Ouya a list of every product defined for purchase in every game. So, Ouya has easy access to all pricing info for EVERY game on their store.
Sure, some games will sell the "Full version" as a product. Some may sell consumables as a product. Some may do both. It's up to the dev what each product actually is. And each game may potentially have numerous products.
That means that, no, we couldn't have what we're used to from Steam and thousands of other online storefronts - a single game with a single price. However, if Team Ouya wanted to, they could list every purchaseable product for each game.
So, imagine you went to the "More Info" page for a game. It could list the game description as it does now. Then, to the side of the description it could also list all the products defined for that game in a plain old two-column format: product name on the left, price on the right.
@Piers does this sound reasonable? Or is not displaying price an active decision on the part of Team Ouya?
People just expect to see a price for something up front. Think how it would be if you went to a grocery store and nothing had a price tag and you had to take items up to the cashier to see how much they cost. I dont care if they gave me a bite of everything for free. I still wouldnt shop there.
This has been answered many times before. The problem is that this simply cannot be done, by the nature of how OUYA works.
... <snip> ...
In the end, there's no good way for OUYA to display prices without overhauling the entire system.
I disagree on this. I don't think it's a question of "can Team Ouya do this", but "will Team Ouya do this". Here's how I think that prices could be displayed in a reasonable way by Team Ouya:
At the end of the day, all purchases go through Ouya. Devs MUST register with Ouya a list of every product defined for purchase in every game. So, Ouya has easy access to all pricing info for EVERY game on their store.
Sure, some games will sell the "Full version" as a product. Some may sell consumables as a product. Some may do both. It's up to the dev what each product actually is. And each game may potentially have numerous products.
That means that, no, we couldn't have what we're used to from Steam and thousands of other online storefronts - a single game with a single price. However, if Team Ouya wanted to, they could list every purchaseable product for each game.
So, imagine you went to the "More Info" page for a game. It could list the game description as it does now. Then, to the side of the description it could also list all the products defined for that game in a plain old two-column format: product name on the left, price on the right.
@Piers does this sound reasonable? Or is not displaying price an active decision on the part of Team Ouya?
@StoicHamster not bad ideas, and certainly there's probably a way to accomplish this. The model we've setup does preclude an easy fix, unfortunately (i.e. This game is $5. You can't download or try it without paying).
I don't believe there's any active decision here, it's just that thinking up the solution necessitates man-days of engineering and QA time, so it's not as simple as it sounds to put out there. That said, we certainly have an interest, both for our developers and gamers, in ensuring that the "all games are free to try" isn't lost on anyone because they see a price and then accidentally don't download the game that would have, if they understood how OUYA works, become their favorite game.
@StonicHampster ;So, imagine you went to the "More Info" page for a game. It could list the game description as it does now. Then, to the side of the description it could also list all the products defined for that game in a plain old two-column format: product name on the left, price on the right.
personally i believe this is a really great idea that would really help the community realize actually how much they are paying before they hit PAY and then give them more reason to buy or not to buy
p.s. off subject sorry but is there a online sort of thing like xbox live or ps network?
I disagree on this. I don't think it's a question of "can Team Ouya do this", but "will Team Ouya do this". Here's how I think that prices could be displayed in a reasonable way by Team Ouya:
At the end of the day, all purchases go through Ouya. Devs MUST register with Ouya a list of every product defined for purchase in every game. So, Ouya has easy access to all pricing info for EVERY game on their store.
Actually, that's where the problem lies. Games and In-App-Purchase products are not linked in any way, so the OUYA team doesn't have access to pricing info for games. They have access to pricing info for Products, and those products could be associated with any game by that developer, it's up to the game to ask for the products it needs from the entire list. And multiple games by one developer could in theory access the same product.
Also, let's say you get what you want, and go to download a game after seeing it costs $.99. Then you downloaded that game, played an hour, got to its pay wall, and the price was now $7.99 - wouldn't you feel even more betrayed than had you not been given a price in the first place? Since developers can change the price of products at any time, and the whole point of the system is that you can try the game out for a while before deciding if you want to pay for it, listing prices before the time of purchase would be asking for that kind of trouble.
@Piers, Hmm... I hadn't thought about displaying prices dissuading people from downloading. That's a fair point, but I think that can be mitigated by displaying a products window on the More Info page that might look something like this
This game is FREE to try. Additionally, you can purchase these products to enhance your gaming experience:
Full Game: $4.99 Levels 1-5: $1.99 Extra Bag of Coins: $0.99
I don't think you even need to display the prices on the "main" game page (the page with the screenshots and the buttons), only in the separate More Info page. That way, people looking for that kind of info could find it fairly easily. And others who don't ever bother with the "More Info" button would just download it as they do now and there would be no change to their user experience.
Actually, that's where the problem lies. Games and In-App-Purchase products are not linked in any way, so the OUYA team doesn't have access to pricing info for games. They have access to pricing info for Products, and those products could be associated with any game by that developer, it's up to the game to ask for the products it needs from the entire list. And multiple games by one developer could in theory access the same product.
Ahh.... there's the problem with my suggestion. I think that's a really unfortunate design decision. A "global" product that can be purchased by any game has very little benefit (or even use I would bet) over game-specific products.
Ideally, I think each product should be required to be associated with a game. If devs really demand the current functionality of "global" products then products could even be associated with multiple games.
Then, a pricing list like I suggested would still be possible. Unfortunately, it's not as trivial of a change as I had originally thought due to that global product design decision. Oh well. Maybe it can still happen eventually.
Also, let's say you get what you want, and go to download a game after seeing it costs $.99. Then you downloaded that game, played an hour, got to its pay wall, and the price was now $7.99 - wouldn't you feel even more betrayed than had you not been given a price in the first place? Since developers can change the price of products at any time, and the whole point of the system is that you can try the game out for a while before deciding if you want to pay for it, listing prices before the time of purchase would be asking for that kind of trouble.
As for the price changing thing... I don't think that's a good reason to
not list prices. Since the prices can change any time, there's always a
chance for something like this to happen and confuse or anger the consumer. Imagine a scenario where a consumer clicks Buy Full Game and it says it's $4.99. Then he presses Cancel and goes to check his bank account balance. Then he comes back, clicks Buy Full Game again and now it's $9.99. There's just no avoiding this situation... and realistically it will be such a rare occurrence that I don't even think it's worth considering as a problem.
Unless, of course, some dev out there consciously decides to constantly change their product pricing. But in that case I think that dev should expect upset customers and probably deserves them.
As for the price changing thing... I don't think that's a good reason to
not list prices. Since the prices can change any time, there's always a
chance for something like this to happen and confuse or anger the consumer. Imagine a scenario where a consumer clicks Buy Full Game and it says it's $4.99. Then he presses Cancel and goes to check his bank account balance. Then he comes back, clicks Buy Full Game again and now it's $9.99. There's just no avoiding this situation... and realistically it will be such a rare occurrence that I don't even think it's worth considering as a problem.
Unless, of course, some dev out there consciously decides to constantly change their product pricing. But in that case I think that dev should expect upset customers and probably deserves them.
What about special events, or holiday sales? Are you saying if I do a holiday 50% off sale I deserve upset customers? And is that such a rare occurrence as to not be a problem?
Post edited by Killa_Maaki on
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
Unless, of course, some dev out there consciously decides to constantly change their product pricing. But in that case I think that dev should expect upset customers and probably deserves them.
What about special events, or holiday sales? Are you saying if I do a holiday 50% off sale I deserve upset customers? And is that such a rare occurrence as to not be a problem?
I didn't mean occasional sales when I said "constantly changing pricing". I think that's a perfectly valid business practice.
My point is simply that customers seeing price changes is unavoidable. What makes customers upset is when the time elapsed between price changes is very small. And I don't believe listing prices up front significantly contributes to that problem. Ultimately the time window between launch and pay wall will be minutes or hours. And the chance that customers are hit with a price change during those minutes/hours is very low. The best way to avoid it is to minimize how often you change your pricing.
I'm sorry, I just don't see the price change thing as a valid argument against price listing at all. In my opinion, the benefits of price listing are guaranteed and far outweigh the rare problem of customers actually seeing price changes in a single play session.
I'm sorry, I just don't see the price change thing as a valid argument against price listing at all. In my opinion, the benefits of price listing are guaranteed and far outweigh the rare problem of customers actually seeing price changes in a single play session.
I do, and it has to do with what I said before. If I want to change the price of my game and display the price in the description, it means I have to submit an update for my game with a new description (AFAIK). So every time I want to do a sale, I have to use up OUYA team's valuable time just to update my game's description. This isn't good for me, because I can't predict when a sale actually starts (it depends on when the OUYA team gets around to reviewing my "update"), and it's bad for OUYA because they have to approve updates every time a sale starts or ends.
Post edited by Killa_Maaki on
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
I'm sorry, I just don't see the price change thing as a valid argument against price listing at all. In my opinion, the benefits of price listing are guaranteed and far outweigh the rare problem of customers actually seeing price changes in a single play session.
I do, and it has to do with what I said before. If I want to change the price of my game and display the price in the description, it means I have to submit an update for my game with a new description (AFAIK). So every time I want to do a sale, I have to use up OUYA team's valuable time just to update my game's description. This isn't good for me, because I can't predict when a sale actually starts (it depends on when the OUYA team gets around to reviewing my "update"), and it's bad for OUYA because they have to approve updates every time a sale starts or ends.
Maybe there's some misunderstanding with what I was suggesting.
I wasn't suggesting that the developers be responsible for listing prices in their description. I'm talking about a zero-effort solution. On the "More Info" page, I imagine that half of the page would be the description as it works now. The other half of the page would be a list of products associated with that game and prices dynamically generated from whatever products/prices are currently in Ouya's database at that moment.
Then, if any product prices are changed, the "More Info" page is automatically updated with no intervention because those products/prices are pulled from the database every time the More Info page is requested. No new APK needs to be uploaded or anything.
The only catch, as I learned earlier in this thread, is that products are currently not associated with games. So, my idea would require a modification to the products database.
I'm sorry, I just don't see the price change thing as a valid argument against price listing at all. In my opinion, the benefits of price listing are guaranteed and far outweigh the rare problem of customers actually seeing price changes in a single play session.
I do, and it has to do with what I said before. If I want to change the price of my game and display the price in the description, it means I have to submit an update for my game with a new description (AFAIK). So every time I want to do a sale, I have to use up OUYA team's valuable time just to update my game's description. This isn't good for me, because I can't predict when a sale actually starts (it depends on when the OUYA team gets around to reviewing my "update"), and it's bad for OUYA because they have to approve updates every time a sale starts or ends.
Maybe there's some misunderstanding with what I was suggesting.
I wasn't suggesting that the developers be responsible for listing prices in their description. I'm talking about a zero-effort solution. On the "More Info" page, I imagine that half of the page would be the description as it works now. The other half of the page would be a list of products associated with that game and prices dynamically generated from whatever products/prices are currently in Ouya's database at that moment.
Then, if any product prices are changed, the "More Info" page is automatically updated with no intervention because those products/prices are pulled from the database every time the More Info page is requested. No new APK needs to be uploaded or anything.
The only catch, as I learned earlier in this thread, is that products are currently not associated with games. So, my idea would require a modification to the products database.
Aaaaah. OK. Basically, from the main game page (same area you view Thumbs Up, screenshots, More Info, Download/Play/Update, etc), you might have a Product List button. Clicking that pulls up a list of all products the game currently has to offer, along with price. Now THAT is reasonable. I think an item could have perhaps an area where you can add a list of games that use the item. Left empty (the default), it means the item is associated with ALL of your games. Otherwise, you can specify essentially a whitelist of games that use the item.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
davejavu123
Posts: 43Member
Comments
Canabalt HD - You can play 5 times per day for free. You can buy the game right away if you want and will see the price there.
Final Fantasy III - There's about 1 hour of content you can play, but you can't progress further if you don't buy the game.
Hope this helps :)
By playing the games and looking. There is no list, and a list wouldn't really work because the prices can change from moment to moment, there can be multiple products in a game (multiple things the player can buy in one game), and the purchasable products are not tied to any specific game (so two games from one company could use the same products if the company wanted - buy one game get the other game free).
All purchases are made through In-App-Purchasing, and I don't think anyone has figured out a good way to list IAP prices on any system yet, outside of the game itself.
Not happening, my wallet is staying shut until I see some up front pricing.
The problem is that this simply cannot be done, by the nature of how OUYA works. Games use IAP (in app purchase), basically the game sells items and can check what items a player owns. If a player owns the "full version" item, the game unlocks additional content. Or a game can sell in-game items, perhaps Armor or Weapons, etc.
The problem is this: paid games are now indistinguishable from F2P games (from a computer's point of view). You might say "well, why not display a price if there's only one item?"
All well and good, until a game decides to sell DLCs. Now there's several items, and there's no way to reliably make the computer tell which one is the full version item and which ones are just DLCs.
You also cannot trust developers to do this themselves, as there will always be those who cheat the system and their game won't have a price displayed.
In the end, there's no good way for OUYA to display prices without overhauling the entire system.
I have a large library of Steam and GOG.com games, most of these games were purchased during various sales and promotions. I have this problem where I can't resist buying an interesting game that's on sale. Many of my friends have also admitted that they also suffer from this condition. I don't think we'll experience this problem on the Ouya.
At the end of the day, all purchases go through Ouya. Devs MUST register with Ouya a list of every product defined for purchase in every game. So, Ouya has easy access to all pricing info for EVERY game on their store.
Sure, some games will sell the "Full version" as a product. Some may sell consumables as a product. Some may do both. It's up to the dev what each product actually is. And each game may potentially have numerous products.
That means that, no, we couldn't have what we're used to from Steam and thousands of other online storefronts - a single game with a single price. However, if Team Ouya wanted to, they could list every purchaseable product for each game.
So, imagine you went to the "More Info" page for a game. It could list the game description as it does now. Then, to the side of the description it could also list all the products defined for that game in a plain old two-column format: product name on the left, price on the right.
@Piers does this sound reasonable? Or is not displaying price an active decision on the part of Team Ouya?
Take some time and learn Designer-Friendly Programming 101.
I don't believe there's any active decision here, it's just that thinking up the solution necessitates man-days of engineering and QA time, so it's not as simple as it sounds to put out there. That said, we certainly have an interest, both for our developers and gamers, in ensuring that the "all games are free to try" isn't lost on anyone because they see a price and then accidentally don't download the game that would have, if they understood how OUYA works, become their favorite game.
Also, let's say you get what you want, and go to download a game after seeing it costs $.99. Then you downloaded that game, played an hour, got to its pay wall, and the price was now $7.99 - wouldn't you feel even more betrayed than had you not been given a price in the first place? Since developers can change the price of products at any time, and the whole point of the system is that you can try the game out for a while before deciding if you want to pay for it, listing prices before the time of purchase would be asking for that kind of trouble.
I don't think you even need to display the prices on the "main" game page (the page with the screenshots and the buttons), only in the separate More Info page. That way, people looking for that kind of info could find it fairly easily. And others who don't ever bother with the "More Info" button would just download it as they do now and there would be no change to their user experience.
Take some time and learn Designer-Friendly Programming 101.
Ideally, I think each product should be required to be associated with a game. If devs really demand the current functionality of "global" products then products could even be associated with multiple games.
Then, a pricing list like I suggested would still be possible. Unfortunately, it's not as trivial of a change as I had originally thought due to that global product design decision. Oh well. Maybe it can still happen eventually.
Unless, of course, some dev out there consciously decides to constantly change their product pricing. But in that case I think that dev should expect upset customers and probably deserves them.
Take some time and learn Designer-Friendly Programming 101.
My point is simply that customers seeing price changes is unavoidable. What makes customers upset is when the time elapsed between price changes is very small. And I don't believe listing prices up front significantly contributes to that problem. Ultimately the time window between launch and pay wall will be minutes or hours. And the chance that customers are hit with a price change during those minutes/hours is very low. The best way to avoid it is to minimize how often you change your pricing.
I'm sorry, I just don't see the price change thing as a valid argument against price listing at all. In my opinion, the benefits of price listing are guaranteed and far outweigh the rare problem of customers actually seeing price changes in a single play session.
Take some time and learn Designer-Friendly Programming 101.
I do, and it has to do with what I said before.
If I want to change the price of my game and display the price in the description, it means I have to submit an update for my game with a new description (AFAIK). So every time I want to do a sale, I have to use up OUYA team's valuable time just to update my game's description. This isn't good for me, because I can't predict when a sale actually starts (it depends on when the OUYA team gets around to reviewing my "update"), and it's bad for OUYA because they have to approve updates every time a sale starts or ends.
Maybe there's some misunderstanding with what I was suggesting.
I wasn't suggesting that the developers be responsible for listing prices in their description. I'm talking about a zero-effort solution. On the "More Info" page, I imagine that half of the page would be the description as it works now. The other half of the page would be a list of products associated with that game and prices dynamically generated from whatever products/prices are currently in Ouya's database at that moment.
Then, if any product prices are changed, the "More Info" page is automatically updated with no intervention because those products/prices are pulled from the database every time the More Info page is requested. No new APK needs to be uploaded or anything.
The only catch, as I learned earlier in this thread, is that products are currently not associated with games. So, my idea would require a modification to the products database.
Take some time and learn Designer-Friendly Programming 101.
Now THAT is reasonable. I think an item could have perhaps an area where you can add a list of games that use the item. Left empty (the default), it means the item is associated with ALL of your games. Otherwise, you can specify essentially a whitelist of games that use the item.