What kind of Core games the ouya need to get mass appeal?

[Ant]

agreed. if technically possible the ouya just needs to stay relevant by offering the same titles that are on competing systems. like for instance trials fusion just came out and everybodys talking about it, playing online, trying to beat leaderboards etc. we have a really fun clone but we're the only people talking about it and we're a small demographic. they need to make deals with those developers whenever possible and run with it. the ouya is MADE for indies and could run a lot of these current games that are out there.

unfortunately that costs money and ouya is a small platform so the money isnt there. its a vicious cycle.

[Athlor]

Loads of First Person Shooters would get mass appeal.
I'd prefer RPGs but if you want mass appeal, FPSs are the way to go.

[James Andrew Coote]

Actually, the vast majority of people who play games are considered 'casual'. For OUYA to go mass market, it has to appeal to that audience. I think it can achieve that by pitching itself as the next level up from mobile. As a device for people who want to play more substantial games than 5 minute time-fillers, but don't want to go all Call-Of-Duty at the deep end. Something like what the original Wii did.

As well, games that appeal to women, or at least aren't hyper-macho testosterone-machines. Something like Portal. This is why OUYA made a big deal of Soul Fjord, because it was designed by the same lady. Unfortunately, her team weren't able to replicate the same magic that game had.

Conversely, you've got behemoths Sony and Microsoft slugging it out for the same relatively small hardcore market. Even if OUYA had the budget for marketing and money hatting AAA developers, they would have to overcome their initial poor reception, plus the entrenched cultures of tribal loyalties (aka fanboyism), and "moar graphics = better"; a diet of which core gamers have been fed for generations.

[Schizophretard]

Actually, the vast majority of people who play games are considered 'casual'. For OUYA to go mass market, it has to appeal to that audience. I think it can achieve that by pitching itself as the next level up from mobile. As a device for people who want to play more substantial games than 5 minute time-fillers, but don't want to go all Call-Of-Duty at the deep end. Something like what the original Wii did.

I haven't played Call-Of-Duty but most of the FPS I have played seem less on the deep end than many OUYA games. They are basically a campaign that you play through and then they are done. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't modern Call-Of-Duty games focus mostly on online mutliplayer because once the campaigns are done it is the only thing to add more replay value? Anyway, from most of the games I have been playing on OUYA have been a lot more than 5 minute fillers and they even seem longer than what I think of when I think of FPS campaigns which is the main part of the game. A lot of OUYA games have a lot of upgrades, achievements, high scores to roll, etc. For most of the games I've been playing on an average it feels like it would take something like a month of actual play time to completely finish them. My cousin came over onces and played I think it was called Dues EX and finished it in around one day. I've seen him do similar with God of War games. To me that looks many steps below the time I would spend on some OUYA games. They can take forever. I can easily and have spent days on an OUYA game. I would wake up, play all day, go to sleep, and then wake up to play all day again with it still not done yet. I guess my point is that a FPS could be very "casual" or at least take an equal amount of time to finish as OUYA games.

So, if it is true that the vast majority of people who play games are considered casual then the vast majority would be playing their OUYA's rarely and would want such simple and easy to quickly beat games that they probably wouldn't be interested in the long games and/or will just stick to demos or free games. That doesn't seem like a profitable group of people to target even if they are a majority. I think it would be better to target the people who are like myself who can't seem to get away from the OUYA. I was at my nieces softball game the other day. All I could think of is that I want to come home to play my OUYA. It is people with that mindset they need to go after. To do it the other way would be like if McDonald's started marketing to people who rarely go out to eat and don't over eat.

In short, they need to just focus on console gamers because we have always been so not causal to the point that we buy dedicated gaming consoles so that we can turn them on as much as casuals just turn on their cable box because they rather watch TV.

[James Andrew Coote]

I haven't played Call-Of-Duty but most of the FPS I have played seem less on the deep end than many OUYA games. They are basically a campaign that you play through and then they are done. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't modern Call-Of-Duty games focus mostly on online mutliplayer because once the campaigns are done it is the only thing to add more replay value? Anyway, from most of the games I have been playing on OUYA have been a lot more than 5 minute fillers and they even seem longer than what I think of when I think of FPS campaigns which is the main part of the game. A lot of OUYA games have a lot of upgrades, achievements, high scores to roll, etc. For most of the games I've been playing on an average it feels like it would take something like a month of actual play time to completely finish them. My cousin came over onces and played I think it was called Dues EX and finished it in around one day. I've seen him do similar with God of War games. To me that looks many steps below the time I would spend on some OUYA games. They can take forever. I can easily and have spent days on an OUYA game. I would wake up, play all day, go to sleep, and then wake up to play all day again with it still not done yet. I guess my point is that a FPS could be very "casual" or at least take an equal amount of time to finish as OUYA games.

So, if it is true that the vast majority of people who play games are considered casual then the vast majority would be playing their OUYA's rarely and would want such simple and easy to quickly beat games that they probably wouldn't be interested in the long games and/or will just stick to demos or free games. That doesn't seem like a profitable group of people to target even if they are a majority. I think it would be better to target the people who are like myself who can't seem to get away from the OUYA. I was at my nieces softball game the other day. All I could think of is that I want to come home to play my OUYA. It is people with that mindset they need to go after. To do it the other way would be like if McDonald's started marketing to people who rarely go out to eat and don't over eat.

In short, they need to just focus on console gamers because we have always been so not causal to the point that we buy dedicated gaming consoles so that we can turn them on as much as casuals just turn on their cable box because they rather watch TV.

I think you've somewhat missed the point, which is that casual players can become more serious / dedicated gamers. But throwing them from one extreme at the Candy Crush Saga end of things, to another, in the form of CoD and Battlefield, isn't the way to do that.

Portal is a puzzle game, just like CandyCrush Saga. It's also a first person shooter, like Battlefield. See what I'm getting at?

[Jeffry84]

That there are a lot of "middleweight" players. And Ouya should appeal them (as should Nintendo do). Unfortunately is not the market, but the so called "gamers" who hinder the market with their "CoD gamer/casual lamer" dichotomy.

[elend]

Imho it's impossible for Ouya to really go mainstream. And it really shouldn't. Ouya has kind of a niche market and should cater exactly that. Which means, Emulation and XBMC users (the vast majority, as far as I can see) and people who enjoy the occassional indie game / obscure title (but also have a PC or even a PS3/4/Xbox, etc.) As much as I would love the Ouya to succeed some more years and maybe even grow into something much bigger, I think it almost came a little bit too late (Steam already became what Ouya wanted to) with a little bit too little effort.

So, no matter which titles you throw around here, I don't see how it will ever help the Ouya.

[Schizophretard]

I think you've somewhat missed the point, which is that casual players can become more serious / dedicated gamers. But throwing them from one extreme at the Candy Crush Saga end of things, to another, in the form of CoD and Battlefield, isn't the way to do that.

Portal is a puzzle game, just like CandyCrush Saga. It's also a first person shooter, like Battlefield. See what I'm getting at?

Kind of but I would assume that games like CoD and Battlefield would take less dedicated gaming or at least around the same amount as games already on the OUYA that have characters to fully upgrade, a list of achievements, a score of 999,999 to reach to roll it, etc. There are some games like Rose and Time that don't take much dedication to beat and lose replay value quickly but there are already games at the level of dedication that CoD and Battlefield would require. They are just different genres. My point is that genre has no affect on the level of dedication that a game requires to beat. Also, beating a game isn't even required and with games that can save people could play at their own pace instead of having to dedicate hours in one play through. I'm just struggling to see how my whole life the casual gamers and hardcore gamers could play the same games but with different levels of dedication to them but for some reason today they can be separated based on rather they prefer puzzle games or FPS. Tetris is a puzzle game but not a FPS. Was the uncountable hours played on it and my addiction to it casual gaming? The way casual and hardcore gaming are used today with the types of games associated with them seems like some kind of myth because if more FPS were added to the OUYA the only difference I would see is that they would be from a different genre than I prefer and the FPS I would be playing more casually than games I'm already playing on the OUYA that you would probably categorize as casual games. The only thing that makes games like Candy Crush Saga look more casual to me than games like CoD is that CoD is on a dedicated gaming console. But that appearance could be false because there could be people sitting at home playing Candy Crush Saga all day on their phones like I was with Tetris on my Game Boy or who own CoD but don't play it as often as those people sitting at home playing Candy Crush Saga all day. So those people probably would buy the OUYA if Candy Crush Saga was on it but not because they are casual gamers. The casual Candy Crush Saga gamers would be only playing it while waiting at the dentist's office or something like that and they won't buy an OUYA because it won't be at the dentist's office when they need it. That level of casual gamers didn't even buy consoles before cell phones. They bought electronic games that they would leave on their toilet but all the casual gamers a little more hardcore than that bought consoles and genres had nothing to do with it. People just prefer different genres and their level of dedication to them is relative to how much they prefer them. Therefore, it doesn't matter if the OUYA gets Candy Crush Saga, Portal, CoD, Battlefield, or whatever. What matters is if it gets enough variety to appeal to as many gamers as possible except dentist office and toilet bowl gamers.

[arcticdog]

Imho it's impossible for Ouya to really go mainstream. And it really shouldn't. Ouya has kind of a niche market and should cater exactly that. Which means, Emulation and XBMC users (the vast majority, as far as I can see) and people who enjoy the occassional indie game / obscure title (but also have a PC or even a PS3/4/Xbox, etc.) As much as I would love the Ouya to succeed some more years and maybe even grow into something much bigger, I think it almost came a little bit too late (Steam already became what Ouya wanted to) with a little bit too little effort.

So, no matter which titles you throw around here, I don't see how it will ever help the Ouya.

The problem is.. OUYA will not survive on the Emulation/XBMC user who buys the occasional indie game. The margins on the hardware are too thin and the design is too common. It's a commodity product as proven by the feasibility of OUYA Everywhere. They can only compete on price here, which is nearly impossible for a company their size.

XBMC makes them zero money, and emulation doesn't provide much in terms of profit either.

Now.. if they could find a means of legally building a "virtual console" kind of emulation into the firmware like Nintendo has done, that opens up a lot of opportunity of legally selling ROMs in the store (i.e. home brew).

But this is why Discover and the storefront see a majority of the visible budget at OUYA. You invest where the profitability is. Margins are high on software sales, even at $2 a game. But at $2 a game, you need to sell a lot of them especially with the evaluation process eating up payroll. So growth beyond a niche is pretty important... or at the very least, it needs to get out of the bubble of needing this device to get the games (which is what they're doing with OUYA Everywhere)

[Warzard]

What OUYA needs to do is to contact any 3rd party makers of Vita and 3DS try to get them to make OUYA/Android ports. A majority of them are Japanese developers and since there are few outlets for their games some would be tempted. There is the problem of native/foreign relations, but hopefully the potential for a new customer base would be enough. Also, OUYA can't let the "Big Dogs" of Android keep sitting on the sideline of the OUYA ecosystem. Even if they have to resort to this:


To get Gameloft, Glu, EA, Ubisoft, Bing, Capcom, whoever at this point that is what is needed to help OUYA get traction in year 2.