Julie Urhman might be a great fundraiser, but she’s no saleswoman. The CEO of OUYA — the Kickstarter-funded wunderkompany that raised more than $8.5 million dollars to build an independent, developer-friendly video game console — thinks her product is incredible. But if you press her for details on why you, the consumer, might actually purchase one, you’ll receive nothing more than a rapid-fire burst of optimistic, but incredibly vague talking points. Or at least, that’s how the scene played out during her panel at SXSW on Monday.
For those readers unfamiliar with the OUYA (and they can easily be forgiven for that), it runs on Android, it’s constructed using cheap and readily available components, and the system is intended to be a way for game developers to sidestep the massive budgets and sprawling development teams needed to produce a successful console game. All OUYA games will be free to try online before purchase. The final box is set to release is June and will retail for $99.
All of these are good ideas on the surface and 63,416 Kickstarter backers seem to agree. However, the fact remains that even after the OUYA is built and in stores, it has a hard road ahead of it. The history of living room gaming is littered with dead consoles that simply never caught on, all underwritten by companies with far greater resources at their disposal. Potential OUYA buyers might wonder why they should spend even $99 on a device with a nebulous future.
Uhrman’s keynote at SXSW Interactive was a massive opportunity to gain a few converts, but she did herself no favors. Interviewed by The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky, Uhrman was almost relentlessly upbeat, even if details were scarce.
“It’s about empowering creators,” she said. “You’ll never see The Sopranos or Breaking Bad on network TV,” she argued, likening the OUYA to a cable network willing to allow creative minds to take risks.
Topolsky asked Uhrman how many OUYA units had been pre-ordered through the company’s site. Uhrman was mum.
“We’re very pleased,” she said.
Would she perhaps give us a numerical range? She would not.
Was there a big immersive triple-A gaming experience in the works that would be available to hook in large audiences?
Uhrman said that, “If you want to play Call of Duty with 10,000 of your closest friends,” that would always be on Xbox, and it’s not the OUYA’s role to fill that niche.
All right, but will there be something on the production scale of a major studio game? If not a Call of Duty necessarily, some big release that generates interest in the hardware?
“We’re going to have a game that you have to play and want to play on the OUYA.”
Topolsky pressed Uhrman further for clarification and asked, “Can you tell me what that game is?”
“I have a couple ideas,” Uhrman responded. One would certainly hope she does as the CEO’s console is schedule to launch in just under three months.
The problem isn’t Uhrman’s vagueness, per se. It’s that the CEO has far more to gain by being as specific as possible and isn’t. The OUYA is an idea that can only benefit from a higher public profile, something to define it as anything other than a boutique-y object of geek curiosity. Why not line up a solid slate of launch titles? Certainly, some developer would be willing to commit to a firm release date, even though OUYA’s general relationship with developers is hands off. Why not find solid numbers to trumpet beyond the already well-documented Kickstarter success? OUYA backers and diehard fans are already converted. Hardcore gamers are certain to be the core of the console’s audience in the early going if for no other reason than they’re far more aware of its existence. And yet, Uhrman and OUYA have done little to entice those gamers not interested in the first place.
It’s a puzzling PR stance to say the least. Topolsky addressed this tactic when he mentioned that within 48 hours of the launch of the OUYA kickstarter page, PC Magazine published an article declaring the project a scam. Uhrman allowed that that may have been partially because there was no other evidence of the OUYA’s existence on the web. The company didn’t even set up an official website.
“You were working on this for a long time [before Kickstarter],” Topolsky, said, sounding incredulous. “Didn’t you think maybe you should get a webpage?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re on the internet?”
In that exchange is as perfect a summation of OUYA’s problems as you’re likely to see. Uhrman and her company seem weirdly oblivious to the fact that they haven’t yet finished making their case. Securing funding wasn’t the entire battle. OUYA deserves a chance to succeed, but it will only survive if it uses the admittedly phenomenal fundraising success as a springboard to wider appeal.
Sony can be kind of vague about the PS4, Microsoft can be kind of vague about the next Xbox, this is because those two companies have already released several proven products into the market and can be expected to realease another that may or may not succeed in the the market but at least won’t actively try to destroy the foundation they’ve already built.
This kind of vagueness is not the way for a new company to build consumer confidence and it has me feeling iffy. I preordered an Ouya through Amazon, but I have plenty of time to cancel that preorder. Come on Ouya, I want to believe in your product, step up and give me a reason to.