I’m a skeptic, so I’m not going to come right out and say I love something that doesn’t even exist yet. But man, I love Ouya. I really do. At least, I love the promise of Ouya. I love Ouya’s potential. Because I love indie games. I love Steam and the Playstation Store. I love Braid, Super Meat Boy, Ms. Splosion Man, Amnesia, Space Chem, Bastion, and just about every indie game I’ve ever played. I love diversity.
The idea of Ouya — inexpensive, developer-driven, gameplay-focused, open-source indie gaming for the masses — is something I predicted would explode a while ago, but I didn’t foresee such massive support happening so quickly. I guess game developers are as fed up with the current ecosystem as the gamers themselves. As Jeremy Hibnick, associate producer for Naked Sky Entertainment, said, “Supporting Ouya is supporting television gaming as a platform for indie developers, and will hopefully bring innovation back to the living room. As a game developer who has experienced the difficulty and extreme cost of delivering a title to console, I think there is nothing but promise in a low-cost, indie-fueled, low barrier of entry console that delivers the television experience I love.” I couldn’t agree more.
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With this level of support, Ouya could very well become a new kind of in-home “indie movie house” where gaming’s new creative auteurs begin their career by showcasing their game-creating skills, while becoming successful and famous because of their brains. Doesn’t that notion make you giddy? Not only that, but Ouya wants to distill the experience. Ouya is about games the same way SNES was about games. There’s no mention of Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Video. Ouya doesn’t want to be your “all-in-one media center.” The focus is on open-source gaming software and hardware.
In fact, the Ouya team encourages open-source hardware and software modding through Bluetooth, USB ports, or simply cracking the damn thing open and playing with its guts (Ouya’s case uses regular screws, not those weird starburst rivety things). The console even ships with a developer kit and debug console, which is huge! But for me, that’s beside the point. I’m a gamer, not a developer, and I care about soul, brother. Ouya has already garnered $4 million of support (well over the $950K requested), which shows that I’m not alone in wanting inexpensive indie games with more innovative concepts. We all want a faster gaming evolution and the lumbering $60 dinosaurs will soon fall prey to the smaller, faster $10 indie mammals.
Then again, perhaps I’m being too optimistic. We all know the dangers of free or cheap games. “Games” that in reality are ad-machines that pretend to be free-to-play, but the “gameplay” basically consists of users compulsively logging in every hour or two to “harvest” some imaginary thing they could get a lot faster if they would only spend some real money. To me, this isn’t just shovelware — it’s scamware. And true free-to-play games like League of Legends and Team Fortress 2 will be few and far between. Luckily, Ouya could and should be extremely community-driven. I’m sure user reviews and discussions will separate the gems from the garbage, as they do already on Amazon and Steam.
Talented people aren’t always rich people. That’s why we need an environment with low-risk, low-budget games based on good ideas. With this kind of marketplace, talent will be rewarded. Intelligence will be rewarded. Even if Ouya itself isn’t the Holy Grail, the important takeaway is that $4 million communal dollars sends a very clear message: “we want an indie console and we want it now.”
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