4 ms·

My take-away from this article was that if every OUYA shipped with a $10-$25 gift card or starting account balance, people would get into it a lot easier, and n

by dpcan 12y ago

My take-away from this article was that if every OUYA shipped with a $10-$25 gift card or starting account balance, people would get into it a lot easier, and not box it up after a week. Most consoles ship with full games. If the OUYA is only shipping with free trials, they aren't really competing. Side-note, the home page of their website, what are they thinking? It looks like a stop sign. Or a "come back later". I literally went to their site earlier this year and thought it wasn't live yet, didn't bother going any further - until today. Shoot, it might as be one of those giant red circles with a line through it saying "go away!"

damon_c 12y ago
"the home page of their website, what are they thinking?" You're right... this should be put in the 'bad ideas' portfolio for web design instructors to use in future lessons. Even after you know that it is not a "come back later", it still feels wrong and awkward having to ignore your natural instincts to leave, as you look past the big red circles and explore the site!
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  You mean the http://ouya.tv http://ouya.tv website? Didn't think it was quite that bad - a red tinted smiley face. What I did see $99 - made me assume that it was only available in USA. Turns out you can get it in UK/CA. UK price is ~$170.
Pxtl 12y ago
Point. At launch, the Nexus 7 included $25 of Play money.
sp332 12y ago
Just a note, every game in the Ouya store has a free trial or some kind of free mode. You can download every game & start playing it right away, then choose to pay to unlock the rest of it later. Of course some games are completely free, but they're generally not very polished.
- kevingadd 12y ago
  This may have been true at launch, but it is false now: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_problematic_freetotry_requirement.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_prob... Just another ill-fated and ill-considered promise from the Ouya staffers. Unfortunate; I liked it on principle.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Oh :( I didn't think it was that ill-considered. Since the rest of the platform was designed to be very developer-friendly, it was nice to have a few pieces that were friendly to players.
    - kevingadd 12y ago
      The core problem is that it appears player-friendly, but in practice it is not, because it wounds developers. If you're an indie with limited resources, being forced to build a demo means you end up having to ship a bad demo (actually reducing your sales in many cases) or not ship on the platform at all. In an ideal world, 'all games have free trials' is good. The realities of game development mean that even for games where it's possible to build an excellent trial, it may not happen. Budget cuts happen, resources you thought you had go away, your schedule slips or deadlines draw closer - in those scenarios, it would be unreasonable to make the core game suffer in order to have a demo ready by the deadline. Most developers would instead focus on the most important part - the core game, the thing people are paying for. There are also games for which it is near-impossible to build a free trial. A recent example is The Stanley Parable; the nature of the experience made it impossible to have a 'free trial' version of the game, so they had to instead build an entirely separate game that they then gave away for free, and tried to use to convince people to buy the actual game. That solution worked great for them, but it took time and resources. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to tell every developer they had to do that just to be on my store. Note that demos and trials are great when they work: They help convert slight interest into sales. However, many successful games sell entirely on the strength of good reviews, word of mouth, and press coverage. This is part of why sometimes the wisest choice is not to have a demo.
donw 12y ago
It's pretty much an example of everything to not do on a landing page.

by dpcan 12y ago

damon_c 12y ago

"the home page of their website, what are they thinking?" You're right... this should be put in the 'bad ideas' portfolio for web design instructors to use in future lessons. Even after you know that it is not a "come back later", it still feels wrong and awkward having to ignore your natural instincts to leave, as you look past the big red circles and explore the site!

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
You mean the http://ouya.tv http://ouya.tv website? Didn't think it was quite that bad - a red tinted smiley face. What I did see $99 - made me assume that it was only available in USA. Turns out you can get it in UK/CA. UK price is ~$170.

Pxtl 12y ago

Point. At launch, the Nexus 7 included $25 of Play money.

sp332 12y ago

Just a note, every game in the Ouya store has a free trial or some kind of free mode. You can download every game & start playing it right away, then choose to pay to unlock the rest of it later. Of course some games are completely free, but they're generally not very polished.

kevingadd 12y ago
This may have been true at launch, but it is false now: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_problematic_freetotry_requirement.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213775/Ouya_ditching_prob... Just another ill-fated and ill-considered promise from the Ouya staffers. Unfortunate; I liked it on principle.
- sp332 12y ago
  Oh :( I didn't think it was that ill-considered. Since the rest of the platform was designed to be very developer-friendly, it was nice to have a few pieces that were friendly to players.
  - kevingadd 12y ago
    The core problem is that it appears player-friendly, but in practice it is not, because it wounds developers. If you're an indie with limited resources, being forced to build a demo means you end up having to ship a bad demo (actually reducing your sales in many cases) or not ship on the platform at all. In an ideal world, 'all games have free trials' is good. The realities of game development mean that even for games where it's possible to build an excellent trial, it may not happen. Budget cuts happen, resources you thought you had go away, your schedule slips or deadlines draw closer - in those scenarios, it would be unreasonable to make the core game suffer in order to have a demo ready by the deadline. Most developers would instead focus on the most important part - the core game, the thing people are paying for. There are also games for which it is near-impossible to build a free trial. A recent example is The Stanley Parable; the nature of the experience made it impossible to have a 'free trial' version of the game, so they had to instead build an entirely separate game that they then gave away for free, and tried to use to convince people to buy the actual game. That solution worked great for them, but it took time and resources. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to tell every developer they had to do that just to be on my store. Note that demos and trials are great when they work: They help convert slight interest into sales. However, many successful games sell entirely on the strength of good reviews, word of mouth, and press coverage. This is part of why sometimes the wisest choice is not to have a demo.

donw 12y ago

It's pretty much an example of everything to not do on a landing page.