Hey guys one thing I learned from watching the app store, google play and greenlight is you need some way of screening the apps, you need look no further than greenlight where they were uploading joke games but with the $100 fee it seemed to cut down on the crap app. This will be better for the consumer and even the indie developer because the quality of apps will be slightly higher it will mean that people will be more willing to "try to discover" new games rather than only relying on the top-charts.
Or they will leave the platform for later, first releasing the game where it's cheaper to get some money. $100 is very high fee in some countries. Maybe a requirement of having a credit card would suffice (with $10 payment or sth similar).
They definitely need a filter for the crappy apps/games, but I don't think 100$ for each game is a good idea. Or even 100$ for every publisher. 25$, like Play Store, is fair enough, but anyway there are better ways to filter bad quality apps, like crowdtesting and so.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. It's basically the big unsolved problem of the mobile games market: How to filter out the crap and stop the market being swamped whilst letting through those genuine developers who don't have a budget.
A good example at how to address some of the issues can be seen on the Amazon.com website, which has some key differences to the mess that is Google Play:
Firstly, their recommendations are specific to you. They take into account your browsing history, past purchases, and take into account other customers with similar tastes. (They are also transparent about this. "Customers who bought this also bought" or "This product you bought features in these customer's favourites lists / wishlists" or "Frequently bought together with..")
Secondly, they don't always show the same recommendations. The fact each time you go to a new page, that you're seeing fresh recommendations makes it harder for you to just blank them out and let them fade into the background. It means there isn't the "Top Seller" effect where once something gets into the top 100 most downloaded, it gets downloaded even more, and so stays there for longer, locking out competitors because customers only ever get to see that top 100.
Thirdly, they have a dual review system. The more authoritative Amazon reviews subtly mark out more famous brands and higher quality products (because Amazon has actually bothered to review it), whilst still letting the crowd have an input. The crowd (customer) review system is gamified and semi-self-moderating through the "was this review helpful?" and comment system. You can see how the customer who wrote one review scored other items, and how many people thought their other reviews were good/bad
I should add, that's coming from the point of view that you have minimal checks to letting things onto the store, and that you concentrate on aiding customer's discovery within an already crowded store
The largest problem with doing user specific history based sorting is there has to be a history there. Netflix is able to do amazing recommendations because their users rate movies and they encourage users to rate movies that they have previously seen. The store, without any sort of approval process, will be awful early on :) Once a good history/spending pattern can be made, then perhaps OUYA can do targeted recommendations.
The good news is it shouldn't ever be as bad as the Android or iPhone app stores, because nobody will pay a dime for a game if they don't like it - so a ton of the crap that people shovel into the store to try and trick people into paying $1 for, won't make any money on Ouya, discouraging that practice. It also gives developers incentive to fix problems with their games before releasing them.
Crowd testing is a great idea, this is how Xbox Live Indie Games works. The thing about Xbox Live Indie Games is that even with the crowd testing and the lower fee (something like 40$) there is still a lot of crap that gets shoveled onto the console.
I think this could be prevented by allowing the community to have more control over what it deems "good enough" to get onto the platform. There are a lot of inherent issues with this idea though, first off, is it anybodies right to tell a developer that their game isn't "worthy" of a given network? And with good games could come spite, reviewers could purposely say a game isn't worthy if they feel threatend by it.
I think the review process would benefit by giving trusted and fair reviewers the ability to down vote, or say "no" to something. While allowing everyone else to only up-vote items. This could be a healthy mixture of GreenLight, where popular games get on the channel (but not to a ridiculous extent like GreenLight) and Xbox Live Indie Games where trusted reviewers have the power to say no.
I think that's a winning formula, I'd hate to see OUYA turn out like Xbox Live Indie Games (inundated with crap). But I wouldn't want a GreenLight system where there's a high fee and not many games even make it.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. It's basically the big unsolved problem of the mobile games market: How to filter out the crap and stop the market being swamped whilst letting through those genuine developers who don't have a budget.
A good example at how to address some of the issues can be seen on the Amazon.com website, which has some key differences to the mess that is Google Play:
Firstly, their recommendations are specific to you. They take into account your browsing history, past purchases, and take into account other customers with similar tastes. (They are also transparent about this. "Customers who bought this also bought" or "This product you bought features in these customer's favourites lists / wishlists" or "Frequently bought together with..")
Secondly, they don't always show the same recommendations. The fact each time you go to a new page, that you're seeing fresh recommendations makes it harder for you to just blank them out and let them fade into the background. It means there isn't the "Top Seller" effect where once something gets into the top 100 most downloaded, it gets downloaded even more, and so stays there for longer, locking out competitors because customers only ever get to see that top 100.
Thirdly, they have a dual review system. The more authoritative Amazon reviews subtly mark out more famous brands and higher quality products (because Amazon has actually bothered to review it), whilst still letting the crowd have an input. The crowd (customer) review system is gamified and semi-self-moderating through the "was this review helpful?" and comment system. You can see how the customer who wrote one review scored other items, and how many people thought their other reviews were good/bad
Amazon has a decent system for this, the only thing is that most people don't want to take the time to read a review. In the mobile space everything is about instant gratification, this is especially true on the Kindle (one-click purchasing anybody?). People want to grab what they want and dive right in in as little time as possible, I don't think that will change with the OUYA (As a matter of fact I think that's a key benefit to the OUYA, instant gratification). Nobody likes, wants to, or should have to read a review before a purchase or a download.
OUYA needs a system that resembles both Xbox Live Indie Games and Steam GreenLight BEFORE a game even hits the console. That way reviewers can base their reviews on what they thought of the content of the game without basing it on poor graphics or technical issues, which is exactly the way it should be.
Well there has to be some way of discouraging people from putting up junk games, otherwise they could flood it with it alot of really bad games. That means we are back to square one of not wanting to try anything thats not already on the charts.
This has been my biggest concern with the OUYA thus far. A $100 fee may not stop the junk filtering as much, there are developers who upload a single low quality app to the app store, yet still pay the $100 fee to upload it.
I think what OUYA needs is a quality control service, if you lack this, then OUYA will end up similar to Xbox Live Indie Games, where there are a few gems, then the rest is adulterated Minecraft Clones or immature, erotic anime style games.
We're still early in the process that this can be solved before launch. We want this to be an environment where developers can craft quality, titles without being lost amongst the trash. I'm not against new developers uploading their games, but you know there will be those devs who will not put the effort into their projects, who will use ripped off Mario sprites or copyrighted images.
We can look at a few examples:
Apple / Android App Store: Very open, lacks complete quality control. Usually just checked for content (nothing against the ToS), runtime errors, exploits, etc.
Steam: Strict quality control service (for the most part), while I do prefer this model, it can make it harder for developers to get their game onto the platform and goes against OUYA's model of "development for everyone". However, Steam will straight out reject high quality games, OUYA does not need to be like that, it can just reviewed to see if a game is of low quality and can inform the developer on what needs improvement. Steam Greenlight: While the concept is good in theory, it still needs work. There are some very interesting games who do not make the approval process and some people can abuse the system to lure people into voting. Some games have "cheated" their way to approval. Xbox Live Indie Games: This system is a peer review process, however, the focus is never usually on polish or gameplay, but more on the technical, checking for crashes, etc. Again, as stated above, look at the junk that gets approved on the service. Clearly a broken system.
So how does OUYA tackle this? The need a service in which games can be "reviewed". This is their service and regardless of how "open" they want to be, this is also their reputation. Look how many developers (even consumers) avoid XBLIG for the pure sake of reputation. Low quality titles and clones plague the service, near impossible to make money on the service now (with the odd exception). This also affects us developers as well, getting the service spammed with these types of games will just decrease the chances of discoverability. I bet several devs here (including myself) have released a game to be overshadowed by the amount of junkware that got released same day.
OUYA wants their system to be taken seriously, it's not just a "porting ground" for iOS or Android apps, we don't want to see "fart app with controller support".
I think OUYA could do something like Kongregate, some sort of reviewal process where players can review a game and give it some numeric rating (perhaps the x out of 5 stars system). When browsing the store, perhaps on the front page players can choose to view games by most plays, highest ratings, or newest games (so games that aren't yet rated still get visibility), games with poor ratings will eventually drift out of sight. They'll still be there, but they'll be progressively harder to find as the better games earn higher ratings.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
Similar to what Killa_Maaki said, I'd recommend having a "new" section where all games start off and once they have received more than say 30 reviews and have a star rating of 3 stars, the game automatically gets pushed to the main games section, which is what you see when you enter the store. There would still be an issue though if a developer had a crap game but had 30 friends that would quickly 5 star review it for them.
There would still be an issue though if a developer had a crap game but had 30 friends that would quickly 5 star review it for them.
Certainly possible, but there's also the subject of why someone would do this. The way OUYA is set up (players can play for a while to decide if they want to pay), there just won't be any point to getting a crap game to have a good rating (the effort in most cases outweighs the benefits)
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.
There would still be an issue though if a developer had a crap game but had 30 friends that would quickly 5 star review it for them.
Certainly possible, but there's also the subject of why someone would do this. The way OUYA is set up (players can play for a while to decide if they want to pay), there just won't be any point to getting a crap game to have a good rating (the effort in most cases outweighs the benefits)
Anything to get that extra bit of visibility for your game. We've seen before on the app store, developers paying for people to download their app just to get it up the charts
I actually think that Facebook's App Center works pretty well. Having Trending Apps and Apps my Friends Play section helps a lot. Now if Facebook included an OUYA section, like they do for mobile, that would be awesome. I know OUYA is its own little ecosystem and has unique user names, etc. But they are a long way behind Facebook and there is probably no reason why we couldn't link to Facebook for social integration. Anyway, a bit off topic there...
Great thread... Thanks for starting. We're taking game discovery very seriously, and are working on new ways to ensure that new, quality games have their day in the sun. Though still under development (as we're not launching the store until March), the type of issues/concerns raised in threads like these are exactly what we need to fine tune our process.
I can say that much of what's discussed here is already in consideration, but please continue to post your thoughts... We are listening!
S. There would still be an issue though if a developer had a crap game but had 30 friends that would quickly 5 star review it for them.
An easy solution would be to weight ratings against play sessions. A 5 star rating could require x number of play sessions or hours of play-time before it gets accepted into the overall rating.
S. There would still be an issue though if a developer had a crap game but had 30 friends that would quickly 5 star review it for them.
An easy solution would be to weight ratings against play sessions. A 5 star rating could require x number of play sessions or hours of play-time before it gets accepted into the overall rating.
Kinda like how the Unity Asset Store requires you to actually purchase the product before you can review it to avoid spam reviews.
You didn't remember the plot of the Doctor Who movie because there was none; Just a bunch of plot holes strung together.
In my opinion, the only thing wrong with the Apple app store is the new store layout.
Similar to how the playstation store was recently "upgraded". The previous store was not good, but the new one is worse.
An example of something the playstation store does terribad which the app store does well is the purchasing experience:
Download of free app: Playstation: IIRC three different screens to confirm "purchase". Additional screen for download. Additional button press for background download.
App store: Press button on app page to "purchase". Press same button again to initiate background download.
Emil "AngryAnt" Johansen Game developer, AI specialist, Unity expert http://AngryAnt.com
Kongregate. They have been around since dinosaurs went into extinction due to eating too much mcDonald's. I don't use it, but the fact that something so full of crap can still be a leader in indie shows that their system works well regardless of what goes up there. For the record: I spend significantly more money on XBL than ANYTHING else. Probably $1000 per year. It's not as much now perhaps, but I really enjoy turning on my XBOX and having specials and the dashboard team's favourites right there in front of you. Trending yes, but the dashboard ads can't be automated; they need to be highlighted specially by a dedicated marketing team.
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@AngryAnt It's still android, so we won't have that silly problem. Click "purchase", and accept permissions. It will just appear in the "games" category of the dashboard when ready. I vaguely remember OUYA tweaking permissions a bit also? probably to streamline (possibly remove) the permissions process
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@NexusGameStudio If I wanted to make a OUYA fart app with controller support, I should be able to.
I do believe there needs to be better organizing metrics than total downloads and averaged stars. Has there been research on how many pages a user will scroll through 'Top Free' games.
@NexusGameStudio If I wanted to make a OUYA fart app with controller support, I should be able to.
By all means, if that's the developers choice, then they are free to create it. This is just more of a question of, does this really have a purposeful contribution to the platform? Think as well, it only takes 1 successful version for a plethora of clones to be produced then we're right back to square one of this entire conversation of quality control. This is an existing problem with app stores and unfortunately, many quality apps get overshadowed or out-ranked by them.
I think a good example was the whole "massage app" (an app that makes your controller rumble, that's it) ordeal with Xbox Live Indie Games, it literally took one successful version before the new release lists were completely soiled with copycat clones that same month. Imagine the consumer sifting through that list.
I know this can happen with any game, not just specific applications. I agree with you that there needs to a system in place that does allow the deserving titles to shine. Star ratings simply won't work as many users don't take the time to review or are filled with false ratings. I've seen many great apps with not a single star review or terrible apps with really sketchy, 5-star reviews.
Its a simple problem that requires a complex solution. It also needs to be iterated on constantly, look at how google search results are gamed by SEO companies constantly forcing google to adapt. The reason we see markets get out of hand is they pick a rating / sorting system and rest on it (imo).
I fear that the OUYA will suffer like the Nintendo Wii, everyone with published apps will port them across and release them right away without properly optimizing for the controller. Perhaps this is a discussion for a different thread though.
Aiursrage2k
Posts: 58Member
Comments
A good example at how to address some of the issues can be seen on the Amazon.com website, which has some key differences to the mess that is Google Play:
Firstly, their recommendations are specific to you. They take into account your browsing history, past purchases, and take into account other customers with similar tastes. (They are also transparent about this. "Customers who bought this also bought" or "This product you bought features in these customer's favourites lists / wishlists" or "Frequently bought together with..")
Secondly, they don't always show the same recommendations. The fact each time you go to a new page, that you're seeing fresh recommendations makes it harder for you to just blank them out and let them fade into the background. It means there isn't the "Top Seller" effect where once something gets into the top 100 most downloaded, it gets downloaded even more, and so stays there for longer, locking out competitors because customers only ever get to see that top 100.
Thirdly, they have a dual review system. The more authoritative Amazon reviews subtly mark out more famous brands and higher quality products (because Amazon has actually bothered to review it), whilst still letting the crowd have an input. The crowd (customer) review system is gamified and semi-self-moderating through the "was this review helpful?" and comment system. You can see how the customer who wrote one review scored other items, and how many people thought their other reviews were good/bad
Website
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I think this could be prevented by allowing the community to have more control over what it deems "good enough" to get onto the platform. There are a lot of inherent issues with this idea though, first off, is it anybodies right to tell a developer that their game isn't "worthy" of a given network? And with good games could come spite, reviewers could purposely say a game isn't worthy if they feel threatend by it.
I think the review process would benefit by giving trusted and fair reviewers the ability to down vote, or say "no" to something. While allowing everyone else to only up-vote items. This could be a healthy mixture of GreenLight, where popular games get on the channel (but not to a ridiculous extent like GreenLight) and Xbox Live Indie Games where trusted reviewers have the power to say no.
I think that's a winning formula, I'd hate to see OUYA turn out like Xbox Live Indie Games (inundated with crap). But I wouldn't want a GreenLight system where there's a high fee and not many games even make it.
A healthy mix sounds like the best option.
OUYA needs a system that resembles both Xbox Live Indie Games and Steam GreenLight BEFORE a game even hits the console. That way reviewers can base their reviews on what they thought of the content of the game without basing it on poor graphics or technical issues, which is exactly the way it should be.
I think what OUYA needs is a quality control service, if you lack this, then OUYA will end up similar to Xbox Live Indie Games, where there are a few gems, then the rest is adulterated Minecraft Clones or immature, erotic anime style games.
We're still early in the process that this can be solved before launch. We want this to be an environment where developers can craft quality, titles without being lost amongst the trash. I'm not against new developers uploading their games, but you know there will be those devs who will not put the effort into their projects, who will use ripped off Mario sprites or copyrighted images.
We can look at a few examples:
Apple / Android App Store: Very open, lacks complete quality control. Usually just checked for content (nothing against the ToS), runtime errors, exploits, etc.
Steam: Strict quality control service (for the most part), while I do prefer this model, it can make it harder for developers to get their game onto the platform and goes against OUYA's model of "development for everyone". However, Steam will straight out reject high quality games, OUYA does not need to be like that, it can just reviewed to see if a game is of low quality and can inform the developer on what needs improvement.
Steam Greenlight: While the concept is good in theory, it still needs work. There are some very interesting games who do not make the approval process and some people can abuse the system to lure people into voting. Some games have "cheated" their way to approval.
Xbox Live Indie Games: This system is a peer review process, however, the focus is never usually on polish or gameplay, but more on the technical, checking for crashes, etc. Again, as stated above, look at the junk that gets approved on the service. Clearly a broken system.
So how does OUYA tackle this? The need a service in which games can be "reviewed". This is their service and regardless of how "open" they want to be, this is also their reputation. Look how many developers (even consumers) avoid XBLIG for the pure sake of reputation. Low quality titles and clones plague the service, near impossible to make money on the service now (with the odd exception). This also affects us developers as well, getting the service spammed with these types of games will just decrease the chances of discoverability. I bet several devs here (including myself) have released a game to be overshadowed by the amount of junkware that got released same day.
OUYA wants their system to be taken seriously, it's not just a "porting ground" for iOS or Android apps, we don't want to see "fart app with controller support".
Just my 2 cents.
Nexus Game Studio | @ NexusGameStudio
CEO, Rocket Bunny Games
Website
CEO, Rocket Bunny Games
I can say that much of what's discussed here is already in consideration, but please continue to post your thoughts... We are listening!
-raf
OUYA, Inc.
Perhaps you could give us more information on what OUYA had planned for the store and we could then help fine tune that with our thoughts.
No point rehashing stuff if it is already on the todo list.
Cheers,
-Rob.
CEO, Rocket Bunny Games
Similar to how the playstation store was recently "upgraded". The previous store was not good, but the new one is worse.
An example of something the playstation store does terribad which the app store does well is the purchasing experience:
Download of free app:
Playstation:
IIRC three different screens to confirm "purchase".
Additional screen for download.
Additional button press for background download.
App store:
Press button on app page to "purchase".
Press same button again to initiate background download.
Game developer, AI specialist, Unity expert
http://AngryAnt.com
For the record: I spend significantly more money on XBL than ANYTHING else. Probably $1000 per year. It's not as much now perhaps, but I really enjoy turning on my XBOX and having specials and the dashboard team's favourites right there in front of you. Trending yes, but the dashboard ads can't be automated; they need to be highlighted specially by a dedicated marketing team.
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It's still android, so we won't have that silly problem. Click "purchase", and accept permissions. It will just appear in the "games" category of the dashboard when ready.
I vaguely remember OUYA tweaking permissions a bit also? probably to streamline (possibly remove) the permissions process
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I seriously doubt that OUYA will stick with a standard android interface for its store.
Game developer, AI specialist, Unity expert
http://AngryAnt.com
If I wanted to make a OUYA fart app with controller support, I should be able to.
I do believe there needs to be better organizing metrics than total downloads and averaged stars. Has there been research on how many pages a user will scroll through 'Top Free' games.
I think a good example was the whole "massage app" (an app that makes your controller rumble, that's it) ordeal with Xbox Live Indie Games, it literally took one successful version before the new release lists were completely soiled with copycat clones that same month. Imagine the consumer sifting through that list.
I know this can happen with any game, not just specific applications. I agree with you that there needs to a system in place that does allow the deserving titles to shine. Star ratings simply won't work as many users don't take the time to review or are filled with false ratings. I've seen many great apps with not a single star review or terrible apps with really sketchy, 5-star reviews.
Nexus Game Studio | @ NexusGameStudio
I fear that the OUYA will suffer like the Nintendo Wii, everyone with published apps will port them across and release them right away without properly optimizing for the controller. Perhaps this is a discussion for a different thread though.