Wednesday, August 1, 2012

OUYA, the Argosy of the game industry? [E]

OUYA

I'd like to mention OUYA, because it's awesome, and you have a little under a week left to donate to such an awesome cause. For those of you that don't care to follow the link, or would rather not read the description, or watch the video; Ouya is essentially the next Steam only in console form. A product that for $99 promises free-to-play titles, fully digital distribution, and endless possibilities. Not to mention they fully encourage their customers to mod and hack the crap out of their system.
I'm just going to mention my first, pre-release thoughts, you can't properly review something unless it's been out for a while. So at some point in the future I'll do that, but this is pretty big news and still respectively current, so it deserves mention.

The Ouya is built on Android, so essentially anyone that has the know how and the productivity can make anything they want for it. No transactions necessary, straight from your hard work to the customers to enjoy.


Now if new or indie developers are wondering how a game is suppose to make money on a free to play market system then no worries. First it promises that at least a demo will be free; in game content, extra features, as well as micro-transactions are expected to be a part of how this system works. With so much of the production and marketing steps cut away games on this system will (probably) mostly be judged by their merits alone, and creating a better longer last experience for gamers will be the first priority, because that should earn the payoff in this system.
I assume alot of people are envisioning this as the next Steam or even the Godsend to save console gaming, but I'm thinking it'll end up more like the Tumbler version of game systems. A little cluttered and for the most part a large niche group who are devoted users. Though overall a survival of the fittest outcome, there will be a crap ton of bad games and things that bring up entirely new problems for the media, but in the end the cream will rise to the top and we will have some amazingly ingenious and entertaining creations that we would otherwise be without or never hear of. Like Steam I think that the competitors will come up with their own slightly different versions hoping to edge their way into this market, but unless they outright change their business practices (Microsoft probably won't) they will end up being left behind.  

Overall I'm very optimistic, utilizing science and technology for the bettering of the state of the medium, there's not much of a downside to this really. The first thing that comes to mind is that this could be the Agrosy magazine of video gameing; the short pulp fiction magazine that through the depression not only started a business format that brought out some of the most well known names in fiction, but maintained sales through the worst economic time in US history. Yes there was a decline in pulp magazine sales during the WWII paper shortages, but with digital distribution and an open source operating system I don't think the Ouya has anything truly stopping it. As long as these caped crusaders keep in control of the Ouya and run it the way they are preaching they will, this is going to be something very good. If it does well or not, this is going to be a part of gamer industry history. As far as I'm concerned as a gamer it's kind of like this,


But mostly that's influenced by my views as a commentator on the industry, as a designer, and well as a customer. I feel like this will actually be a part of the solution to the ridiculous status of current triple-A title reality and the quality of those games; not to mention the Gamestop "used-game-racket" "problem".   



VIDEO EPISODE TEASE

Onto the second order of business, the entire reason I started this blog is because I have aspirations. I have views and opinions that -I believe- are unique enough ever so often that they should be mentioned, at least put somewhere so that at least one more voice is in the conversation. Hopefully someone will  think about something in a way they didn't before. That being said my first episode is going to be my direct response to a video by Bob Chipman, the Game Overthinker,  I know that's very lame because it's indirectly sort of sapping of something that's already popular by someone that's worked and earned their reputation. I'm not going to just put my response in the comments because that's even lamer, I'm no Heckler, If I have something negative to say about someones work I' want to do it in a manner where I can receive the same scrutiny that they're subjected to. 


To be completely honest though this the best way I could start out the ComplexToy show. Mostly because this specific episode was the first time I -sitting at home talking to myself- raised my hand and said, 'but wait, what about..?' That moment was one of the first times I really connected things I have read and my own views and opinions into something that has otherwise to my knowledge not been fully represented within the popular game media. And I was inspired to look deeper into that specific topic as a whole and start building a broad thesis. 
Now the topic is pretty dense, and this is my first time doing this, so I'm putting as much effort and time into this to get it right for you guys. I want to be as clear and concise to my thesis as possible while still covering a lot of angles on a topic that might as well have a few books souly written exploring it's theory. Probably in a few weeks from now I'll put up a post containing the finished product. Your hint is it's the response to an answer.  Hope I didn't make it to obvious. Thanks for reading everyone, hope you'll stop by later for more discussion on games and the like.   




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