DOI 10.7603/s406-01-000-y GSTF International Journal on Computing (JoC) Vol.3 No.4, April 2014 Ouya: The Launch of a New Video Game Paradigm Jonathon Kissinger and Tony Morelli Received 18 Oct 2013 Accepted 19 Nov 2013 Abstract—Recently a new approach to console video gaming, Ouya, was released. This console is relatively inexpensive, and offers all of its games on a free to play basis. This paper compares the release of Ouya to the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the Wii U as well as investigates how games on Ouya are utilizing unique control features, including a touchpad on the controller itself. We found that when comparing the first 12 weeks after launch of the systems, Ouya had a significantly higher number of games released when compared to the other three consoles, and the ratio of games being released since launch when compared to the launch day was significantly higher than the other three consoles. We also found that only 12.5% of Ouya games made use of the touch pad. Index Terms—Entertainment Industry, User Interfaces, Human Computer Interaction, Technological Innovation Ouya retains the remaining 30% [1], which is the same revenue share as app stores from Apple [12] and Google [13]. Ouya also encourages development by offering awards to I. INTRODUCTION developers who agree to a six-month exclusivity for their game on Ouya. Ouya will match any funds raised on Kickstarter for UYA (pronounced OOO-yah [1]) was announced via a Free the Games Fund O Kickstarter project on July 10, 2012 and expected to raise the game up to $250,000 through its [3]. $950,000 [2] to bring the new console to life. When the A minimum of $10,000 must be raised which increases Kickstarter program ended on August 9, 2012, Ouya had awareness of the program. Offering this extra incentive for raised over 8.5 million dollars and was backed by over 63,000 developers is a method of attracting more developers to the people [2]. console as well as increasing console sales by having titles Ouya promised to be something different than the big name available on the system that are not available elsewhere. consoles that had come before it like the Playstation 3 and the Beyond introducing a revolutionary game console pricing Xbox 360. All games on Ouya are free to play. Developers method, Ouya also offered some attractive hardware qualities. can sell their games through in app purchases, but all games Each controller features a touch pad in addition to the standard must have some kind of trial version in order to be approved directional pad, thumbsticks, and shoulder buttons. for the Ouya store. There is no physical distribution of games, The console itself is very small when compared to the everything is download only. existing consoles. Ouya is slightly smaller than a can of soda. In addition to requiring all games to be free to the public, It runs Android as an operating system, which could make it Ouya also promised all games would be free to release for easy to port games from android phones over to this new developers. The tools to develop for the console are free, and platform. In addition to being a space saver, the console is there would be no charge to release a free game on their virtual also a wallet saver as it only costs $99 to purchase the console store. If a developer choses to charge a fee to unlock the full along with one controller (Figure 1). game, or to purchase virtual currency of some kind, the The design of Ouya followed a hybrid design of recent developer keeps 70% of the transaction and mobile technologies and existing console based systems. The console is a physical piece of hardware that is not portable much like an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. However the software distribution is very similar to the mobile phone market. Games are downloaded from the Ouya app store Manuscript received October 18, 2013. much like games are downloaded from Google Play or the Jonathon Kissinger is with Central Michigan University, Mt Pleasant, MI Apple App Store for Android and iOS based phones and 48859 USA (e-mail: kissi1j@ cmich.edu). tablets. Pricing for games is set by the developers of the Tony Morelli is with Central Michigan University, Mt Pleasant, MI 48859 USA (989-774-3005; fax: 989-774-3728; e-mail: [email protected]). games, but are expected to be more within the range of phone ©The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access by the GSTF DOI: 10.5176/2251-3043_3.4.289 48 GSTF International Journal on Computing (JoC) Vol.3 No.4, April 2014 apps (<$20) as opposed to console games (>$50). a gaming console. In comparison, when the Xbox 360 We anticipate that a significantly higher amount of titles will be available for Ouya on release based on the low barrier for developer entry. We also suspect most games will be ported from existing Android phone and tablet games and will make use of the touch pad as a direct port of the touch screen interface of existing games. The choice of Android of the operating system for Ouya combined with the new touchpad on the controller may create a scenario where many developers make use of the touch pad. We anticipate a majority of the developers will make use of the touchpad as it more closely mimics the touch interface of mobile devices making ports easier to complete. This paper analyzes the release of Ouya over the first 12 weeks of operation. We compare the amount of game titles released on Ouya to the most recently released consoles that launched in November of 2005, it had 28 game titles available have been available for more than 3 months including the at launch [6]. Further showing how large Ouya’s number of Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. We also look into the launch titles are, the Playstation 3 launch in November of 2006 unique features of Ouya’s hardware and report on how many contained 19 game titles [7]. The most recent major console games are making use of the new features on the controller and to release, the Nintendo Wii U in November of 2012, give an in depth review of how these new controls are being contained 34 game titles at launch [8]. used as the controls will be present on the Playstation 4. Although Ouya had a much higher number of games available on launch day when compared to the other three most II. 12 WEEK COMPARISON recent console launches, it is important to note that the other Ouya was made available to the general public on June 25, three consoles were all backwards compatible with their last 2013. Ouya shipped out consoles for those who preordered generation systems. That is, the Playstation 3 had its specific from their website or through the Kickstarter campaign. launch titles, plus it would play the library of Playstation 2 Consoles and controllers were also available at several brick games. However on Ouya, there is no last generation so the and mortar stores including Best Buy and GameStop. Ouya numbers used in this study are based on titles that were promised this console would be more accessible than developed specifically for a platform. The same applies to the traditional consoles to developers due to the low cost of Nintendo Wii U (backwards compatible with the Nintendo publishing games (free). Also, because this console would run Wii) and the Xbox 360 (backwards compatible with the a version of Android and the hardware would contain mainly original Xbox). parts found in upper end cell phones, the development The existing consoles were compared together without Ouya community would already be familiar with the platform and in order to see if they differed significantly from each other would simply need to add control options that utilized Ouya’s (Figure 2). This was done to see if there were any trends in controller as opposed to relying on touch based interaction. past console releases. A one-way ANOVA found no We compared the launch of Ouya to the current state of the significant difference in the number of titles released over the art consoles for the first 12 weeks after each system’s launch. first 12 weeks for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and the Wii U The release data for these consoles was obtained from (p > 0.05). Although traditional consoles may release fewer gamespot.com’s listing of games and their release dates. The titles early on in their lifecycle due to developers requiring specific data for Ouya did not exist. The official ouya.tv their time split between supporting the previous generation website contained a listing of all games, but only provided the console, as well as learning the new platform, these hurdles do last date that the game was updated. We wanted to compare not exist on Ouya. Ouya is based on Android so developers the first date the game was available not the date of the latest would have the knowledge to create the games, also there is no update patch. The information for release date was obtained previous generation of Ouya to support. This would indicate from the user maintained thread at ouyaforums.com. Due to Ouya may have more releases at launch. ine if Ouya’s launch the manual steps needed to keep this data up to date, it may not To determ availability was significantly be up to the second accurate, however our investigation was to better or worse than the current video game consoles, the break down releases by the week after launch and the forum number of titles released each week was compared (Figure 3).