Opportunity #24: Dusty Cupboards

[James Andrew Coote]

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Dusty Cupboards

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Emulators are getting all the blame, but there are many more reasons why 73% of OUYA owners haven’t bought anything yet

According to OUYA CEO, Julie Uhrman, the OUYA has an attach rate of 27%. That means 73% of OUYA owners have never bought anything on the console. There are lots of reasons why OUYA owners might have yet to make a purchase, but some are receiving more attention than others:

Emulators
- The plethora of emulators on the OUYA is one of its main attractions, and means people spend their time playing old school classics for free (probably illegally), without bothering to look at the native content. However, many of the emulators on the OUYA store have IAP, and so may be positively contributing to the 27% attach rate. Plus, emulator fans will undoubtedly glance across the store from time to time, increasing the chance they will try and buy at least some of the games on the OUYA store itself

Game Selection
- Many OUYAs were sold without prior knowledge of what games would eventually be on them. A lack of games in certain genres or inflated expectations about the graphics quality and scope/depth of the games the OUYA would be able to produce in the 6 months since developers have actually had their hands on the device may have contributed to many people simply not finding any games they enjoy and want to pay for.

The setup of the store may also partly contribute to this, as people may not be willing to dig through to try and find the types of games they usually go for. Equally, it may be there are only one or two games in any one genre on the OUYA, and if they don’t offer anything different from the games those users have already on other platforms, there would be no incentive to buy (versus someone who is new to the genre)

Additionally, since many of the games have been developed by indie and small studios, those studios might not have the resources nor willpower to invest in marketing their game, meaning players are not finding out about the games they might be interested in, even though they exist on the store

Free-to-Try
- All games on the OUYA have to have a free demo, trial period or other part that allows you to play at least part of the game without paying. This being a completely new concept, many developers are not getting the balance right between how much the provide for free (erring on the side of caution and providing too much), versus how much is behind the paywall, and when and how they go about asking for payment. There is also a theory that demos can reduce sales, rather than increasing them, and this may also be contributing to an underlying sense of “well I tried it and it was OK, but not worth paying for”.

Dusty Cupboard

All these theories discussed so far suppose people are actually using their OUYAs, but there are lots of reasons why people might have an OUYA sitting in some cupboard getting dusty

Poor Customer Service
- Many who bought the OUYA in the hype and excitement have been let down by OUYA’s poor communication with regard to shipping delays. That enthusiasm has evaporated, replaced with a bitter taste that may make OUYA owners either not even bother once the package finally arrives, or find reason for the console to match the less than stellar support they have received.


Bad First Impressions
- There was (still is?) a problem where if you download lots of games in one session, it causes huge amounts of controller lag. While a simple reset solves this, the first thing most people do is download a whole bunch of games, fire a couple up and get terrible input lag. That kind of first impression will make them more likely to put it straight back in the box and/or not bother with it


This is It?
- While the OUYA is constantly improving and evolving, the fact that it might not be the finished article is something OUYA have failed to communicate. Consumers are expect a fully finished product. They assume that what they take out of the box the first time they use it, “that’s it”, and if it is underwhelming, they may not give it a second chance


No Friends
- The games that make the OUYA really shine are (IMO) the local multiplayer games. Most people will play the OUYA for the first time on their own, so not realise that. Anecdotally, I hear stories of OUYAs sitting on shelves getting dusty till one day, the owner’s friend comes round and asks to play it. Upon which they have a great time, but that is more by chance, and many more will not be sitting around in front of the TV waiting for fate to intervene.


Just a Bunch of Ports
- The games people have already heard of (FF3, Sonic, Shadowgun etc) tend to get pushed to the front of the store because people download and play the familiar. New OUYA owners fire up the store to see a bunch of stuff they can already play on their mobiles/tablets and assume the rest of the store is like that, don’t explore further and so put the OUYA to one side


Game developers understand the OUYA is new and will take time to grow the market size, and posting good conversion and attach rates will encourage them that while the volumes may be small, should they grow, the platform can be quite profitable.

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Published simultaneously in conjunction with Crystalline Green (You can view back issues here)

[pete]

I think a good game would change this completely. So far for myself there just isn't anything worth paying money for on ouya. I did buy season 1 of The Pinball Arcade because that is one of my current favorite games going, but that's about to come out for pc with much better graphics so the ouya version is going to be very obsolete for me soon. Actually I don't play the ouya T.P.A. version at all even though I bought it. in a moment of hopeful stupidity I thought it would be playable so I paid the 30 bucks before trying it since I already have the same game on other devices and love it. as soon as I turned it on and tried to play a game I noticed how bad the controller lags on it I just got annoyed and put it down. Another thing preventing me from buying games is how bad the wireless adapter in the ouya is, I can't seem to ever get online and I don't have a way to plug it into the router so I basically have to keep tilting and repositioning the ouya till it gets a signal, sometimes it gets a slightly better than usual signal if I rotate it in random different direction or put it on it's side. Anyway it takes me a long time to download anything on it, that last new update took over an hour to download I just let it go. My biggest gripe with the system is the lack of a media player. I was under the impression that like any android device it would have the ability to play a video file right off the console without the need of a separate computer needing to be involved. You can say "well it's got plex" but to me that doesn't count at all. It needs a player that can just play files right off a thumbdrive without the use of anything but the ouya itself. or how about the ability to play an mp3. It would be great if I could take the ouya to a friends house to watch stuff by just plugging the ouya into his tv and pressing play. I actually bought the ouya because I thought it would be a good portable video playing box to bring along with me to shows. I make independent films shows and cartoons and allot of the time I set my projector up at random events and play my stuff, I usually bring an xbox 360 to play my content off but it's too huge and heavy to bring around and I thought ouya would be a great new thing for me. anyway if they had a video player or a good game i'd buy them. here's is one of the shows ive worked on, I did the video editing on this and I play myself Pete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0dQ0LaCC0

[Hydrus]

Good points.

I think that the lack of social features is also a major factor in this situation. I personally have no one to play with. So local multiplayer games are a big no-no for me. I have yet to come across an online MP game that matches my personal interests and is polished at the same time. Those that do have online MP are half-assed and broken, like Critical Missions: SWAT for example.

The lack of a friends list/achievement system has an influence in here as well. It gets so lonely when I sign in on my OUYA. It's literally just me and the quiet store. On my Xbox 360, even if I don't have the Gold subscription (which enables the whole online MP thing), I can communicate with the other people via text/voice messages. I can still play the games and hunt for achievements. Then I can compare those with the ones my friends have, etc...

My point is, you can actually see a community with the Xbox 360. Whereas with the OUYA, it's just you and the small cube having a staring contest.

Rumors say that OUYA is working on social features, so hopefully that'll fix *part* of the problem. Hopefully....

[James Andrew Coote]

My biggest gripe with the system is the lack of a media player. I was under the impression that like any android device it would have the ability to play a video file right off the console without the need of a separate computer needing to be involved. You can say "well it's got plex" but to me that doesn't count at all. It needs a player that can just play files right off a thumbdrive without the use of anything but the ouya itself. or how about the ability to play an mp3. It would be great if I could take the ouya to a friends house to watch stuff by just plugging the ouya into his tv and pressing play. I actually bought the ouya because I thought it would be a good portable video playing box to bring along with me to shows. I make independent films shows and cartoons and allot of the time I set my projector up at random events and play my stuff, I usually bring an xbox 360 to play my content off but it's too huge and heavy to bring around and I thought ouya would be a great new thing for me. anyway if they had a video player or a good game i'd buy them. here's is one of the shows ive worked on, I did the video editing on this and I play myself Pete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0dQ0LaCC0

I'm surprised there isn't one. If there is a suitable one for android, you can probably sideload it. From a technical perspective, I could probably make one for you in under a day if you want?

[Amadeus]

I'm surprised there isn't one. If there is a suitable one for android, you can probably sideload it. From a technical perspective, I could probably make one for you in under a day if you want?

VLC has already been ported.

[XanXic]

I think a big thing cutting into sales is the huge amount of free content available. I've been playing my ouya whenever I can and almost all of that time is spent in demos. Yeah I play the occasional emulated game but not a lot. I can bounce around from free game to free game and not really feel obligated to buy a game to fill my time when there's so many other game I can still demo or have yet to try. I think sales will go up the longer the console is out when people have burned through all the games on the store already and the games coming out gets a bit slower. But initially the console has so much to offer you right out the gate it's hard to spend money on a game when there's so many you haven't tried that could be better.

[Moonlight]

I think a good game would change this completely. So far for myself there just isn't anything worth paying money for on ouya. I did buy season 1 of The Pinball Arcade because that is one of my current favorite games going, but that's about to come out for pc with much better graphics so the ouya version is going to be very obsolete for me soon. Actually I don't play the ouya T.P.A. version at all even though I bought it. in a moment of hopeful stupidity I thought it would be playable so I paid the 30 bucks before trying it since I already have the same game on other devices and love it. as soon as I turned it on and tried to play a game I noticed how bad the controller lags on it I just got annoyed and put it down. Another thing preventing me from buying games is how bad the wireless adapter in the ouya is, I can't seem to ever get online and I don't have a way to plug it into the router so I basically have to keep tilting and repositioning the ouya till it gets a signal, sometimes it gets a slightly better than usual signal if I rotate it in random different direction or put it on it's side. Anyway it takes me a long time to download anything on it, that last new update took over an hour to download I just let it go. My biggest gripe with the system is the lack of a media player. I was under the impression that like any android device it would have the ability to play a video file right off the console without the need of a separate computer needing to be involved. You can say "well it's got plex" but to me that doesn't count at all. It needs a player that can just play files right off a thumbdrive without the use of anything but the ouya itself. or how about the ability to play an mp3. It would be great if I could take the ouya to a friends house to watch stuff by just plugging the ouya into his tv and pressing play. I actually bought the ouya because I thought it would be a good portable video playing box to bring along with me to shows. I make independent films shows and cartoons and allot of the time I set my projector up at random events and play my stuff, I usually bring an xbox 360 to play my content off but it's too huge and heavy to bring around and I thought ouya would be a great new thing for me. anyway if they had a video player or a good game i'd buy them. here's is one of the shows ive worked on, I did the video editing on this and I play myself Pete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0dQ0LaCC0

As Amadeus said, we recently ported the popular VLC media player.
Go check it out on the store now! Supports USB and HDD.

[Fluckysan]

It's pretty funny there is a thread about that since I just posted a reply in another thread which fit great in there

So here is my reply about a guy who is disappointed about the graphics Ouya's games :

I'm agreeing a little with this point of view (but I don't have so much angryness within me Grrrrr Manaurys ) : I'm a little disappointed by the graphics quality of the Ouya games at the moment, because we all know the potential of the Ouya (look at Shadowgun or Ravensword)
But I also keep in mind most of the games are from indie, not big companies, so this is also great to have so many games at a start and so many enthousiatics developpers

The scary point is the Ouya may not be able to convince the "common" people, which aren't on the Android or retro gaming

Also, since I don't have many friends who come by to play at home (pub FTW !), I find myself lonely when it comes of multiplayer games, I miss online gaming here !

[Eclipse]

If analysts have found that Free-to-Try doesn't necessarily increase game sales, I'm sure they're correct; in my case, it's definitely slowing down my purchases.

When I set up my OUYA, I also downloaded many demos. Weeks later, I still haven't properly tried all of them. A few are very similar to one another so I do want to try before I buy one of them.

As new games are released, I've added to my demo collection because didn't want to forget about them. What's my alternative? Keep a list? So I now have more demos to try. I realize others have made the same point about still playing new demos. I'm falling into that category.

[sofiabrown]

Thanks for sharing, i found it very interesting!