It would be nice if they added a royalty bonus for exclusivity like Web portals do. Right now the benefit is only there if you're making a console type of game and virtual joysticks just aren't cutting it. There is also an only on OUYA category in Discover.
Sony will allow self-publishing on PS4, and Nintendo recently loosened their guidelines for indie developers in a big way. After my current game, my next project is probably going to use Unity (it's something I have yet to learn), which can be easily compiled for all the major platforms that allow self publishing or have an indie-friendly process, this includes seemingly-inaccessible platforms like PlayStation 4 and Wii U.
OUYA/Android exclusivity will a good choice for some, and Google Play is still one of the better portals for indies to get games out there with minimal hassle and lowest cost, but there are other options for indies, too. Sometimes it's simply a matter of whether or not it's affordable to port your game to multiple platforms. It's not something that needs an ideological component.
Sony JUST started allowing indies to develop games on PS4. They used to be hardcore against anything Indie at all. In fact, had the Geohotz incident never happened, nobody would care too much about having indie and "hackable" consoles. Mainly people were angry at Sony and they are one of the main causes of this indie movement. Sony was extremely arrogant about PS3 and what they wanted on it. Remember, Sony in and of itself is the RIAA, ESA, and MPAA all combined. They full on supported bills like SOPA and PIPA. So embracing games they couldn't make a lot of money on, wasn't their thing till they got heavily criticized. Believe me they wouldn't give any fans any power to develop if they didn't have to.
There was however, the Wii Homebrew channel as far as Nintendo was concerned. The only thing was that it was it didn't do anything to bring Indie gaming out in the open.
Your games will benefit quite a lot, you can push the hardware capabilities of the ouya and not have to worry about thousands of other (low end) platforms which would require you to greatly reduce detail from the game just to run on those.
You can push the hardware capabilities of the ouya and not have to worry about thousands of other (low end) platforms which would require you to greatly reduce detail from the game just to run on those.
That's a good point, except that based on some benchmarking, the current (first-generation) OUYA seems about on par with a Samsung Galaxy S3. That's not necessarily bad, but it's something to think about.
Thanks, this is the first real, solid answer to my question.
What are the costs and benefits of going multiplatform?
Costs: - Technical / time and money to port - Publishing Flexibility (are there any licenses or extra bureaucracy costs) - Reputational. A bad port might damage your game or company reputation (e.g. if the game's control scheme is designed for a controller, but doesn't translate well to touch screen) - Increased Competition
Benefits: - Lots more customers
For myself, I have an OUYA exclusive at the moment. My game is written in Android/java, so there is a big cost involved in porting it to anything other than Android/Google Play and other Android consoles. My game is also only really designed for use on a console, so realistically, the only other option is PS4
Sony have made a lot of noises about being indie friendly recently, but from having talked to indies actually working with Sony, it sounds like you still need to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops (signing NDA's, loan equipment agreements for the PS4 devkit etc). I may yet put them to the test to see just how indie friendly they really are.
pietaster said: Believe me they wouldn't give any fans any power to develop if they didn't have to.
Dude, cool it with your Reddit attitude. Game companies aren't public utilities, they don't *have* to do anything they don't want to. Besides, haven't you returned your OUYA to the store already? Your exact words were: "I believe in indie gaming, just not in Ouya," so what are you still doing here on the developer forums?
- Performance/Graphics optimisation (no other platforms to think about). - Game designed with controller in mind. - Potential marketing advantages (not just another port).
They would be a few. Do they outweigh benefits of multi-platform? Probably not for most people, yes for a few people.
Sony have made a lot of noises about being indie friendly recently, but from having talked to indies actually working with Sony, it sounds like you still need to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops (signing NDA's, loan equipment agreements for the PS4 devkit etc). I may yet put them to the test to see just how indie friendly they really are.
Yeah but now lets see Sony commit to that. Last time they gave people Other OS and winded up taking it back. So yeah you're right, lets see how easy it actually is for to get through the process to get a game up in PSN. We won't know anything till the PS4 actually comes out and an indie dev can tell others how difficult it was to put their game out there. Which actually is an advantage of Ouya. People know how easy it is to take their game to market.
Essentially the OP's question about the benefits of making an exclusive all comes down to how time consuming it is to get their game out there. Devs may feel they can create exclusives faster for Ouya than porting and going through hell trying to put games out on other platforms due to the rules, regulations and costs it would take to get their game out there. So say you create blah game on Ouya. You could spend time working on blah game 2 for Ouya and making the series exclusive rather than arguing with Sony to get blah game 1 onto PSN.
One last thing would be a benefit of going strictly Ouya over Ouya and Android. This being you would not have to spend work converting a system of touchpad controls for your game so it could work for both. You could just spend time making your game to work with the controller without changing anything since you are only releasing it on Ouya.
So to answer the OPs question about the benefit of releasing Ouya exclusive games I would say a main one is that a dev would be able to save a good amount of time just pumping out game after game for Ouya rather than going through all the motions of porting it across other platforms.
It’s also important to bear in mind that a huge speed-up is available when developing games for a fixed platform with known performance/latency characteristics.
ashes999
Posts: 15Member
Comments
Microsoft has shut the door for indie developers.
Nintendo .... unless you have a lot of money upfront ... you won't be developing for Nintendo.
Sony Playsation is doing the something microsoft is doing.
Android Market and OUYA is the way to go.
https://www.udemy.com/nocode2dgames/
OUYA/Android exclusivity will a good choice for some, and Google Play is still one of the better portals for indies to get games out there with minimal hassle and lowest cost, but there are other options for indies, too. Sometimes it's simply a matter of whether or not it's affordable to port your game to multiple platforms. It's not something that needs an ideological component.
There was however, the Wii Homebrew channel as far as Nintendo was concerned. The only thing was that it was it didn't do anything to bring Indie gaming out in the open.
What are the costs and benefits of going multiplatform?
Costs:
- Technical / time and money to port
- Publishing Flexibility (are there any licenses or extra bureaucracy costs)
- Reputational. A bad port might damage your game or company reputation (e.g. if the game's control scheme is designed for a controller, but doesn't translate well to touch screen)
- Increased Competition
Benefits:
- Lots more customers
For myself, I have an OUYA exclusive at the moment. My game is written in Android/java, so there is a big cost involved in porting it to anything other than Android/Google Play and other Android consoles. My game is also only really designed for use on a console, so realistically, the only other option is PS4
Sony have made a lot of noises about being indie friendly recently, but from having talked to indies actually working with Sony, it sounds like you still need to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops (signing NDA's, loan equipment agreements for the PS4 devkit etc). I may yet put them to the test to see just how indie friendly they really are.
Website
- Performance/Graphics optimisation (no other platforms to think about).
- Game designed with controller in mind.
- Potential marketing advantages (not just another port).
They would be a few. Do they outweigh benefits of multi-platform? Probably not for most people, yes for a few people.
Yeah but now lets see Sony commit to that. Last time they gave people Other OS and winded up taking it back. So yeah you're right, lets see how easy it actually is for to get through the process to get a game up in PSN. We won't know anything till the PS4 actually comes out and an indie dev can tell others how difficult it was to put their game out there. Which actually is an advantage of Ouya. People know how easy it is to take their game to market.
Essentially the OP's question about the benefits of making an exclusive all comes down to how time consuming it is to get their game out there. Devs may feel they can create exclusives faster for Ouya than porting and going through hell trying to put games out on other platforms due to the rules, regulations and costs it would take to get their game out there. So say you create blah game on Ouya. You could spend time working on blah game 2 for Ouya and making the series exclusive rather than arguing with Sony to get blah game 1 onto PSN.
One last thing would be a benefit of going strictly Ouya over Ouya and Android. This being you would not have to spend work converting a system of touchpad controls for your game so it could work for both. You could just spend time making your game to work with the controller without changing anything since you are only releasing it on Ouya.
So to answer the OPs question about the benefit of releasing Ouya exclusive games I would say a main one is that a dev would be able to save a good amount of time just pumping out game after game for Ouya rather than going through all the motions of porting it across other platforms.