Request Make TPA an OUYA launch day title

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

Think it would be good publicity for Farsight to have The Pinball Arcade as a launch title for OUYA, hopefully wouldn't take too much extra coding as it's basically an Android home console, what do other players reckon?

francis247uk said:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

Think it would be good publicity for Farsight to have The Pinball Arcade as a launch title for OUYA, hopefully wouldn't take too much extra coding as it's basically an Android home console, what do other players reckon?

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I do not recommend FarSight look into doing business with a company that openly welcomes and encourages hacking of their platform.

Well hacking the platform does not mean, cracking the running software. As far as i know it is not sure, if you can still use bought software, when you rooted the device...

Yeah... let's wait and see whether or not this machine actually gets released on time. John Siracusa (Ars Technica / Hypercritical podcast) was doubting that it will, and while I'm not knowledgeable in the hardware business enough to have my own opinion, he usually has good points.

In any case, the OUYA could be a very cool, affordable emulation machine at the very least, but as far as Farsight is concerned, I'd rather have them concentrate on platforms that have proven to make them money. Once the OUYA is out and doing well, then a TPA port could be interesting - the Android releases are the quickest to market by far, so having a console version not having to go through Sony and especially Microsoft would be cool.

But again, it has to make sense for Farsight business-wise.

Those people thinking companies like FS should bet on Ouya should read http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...e-doesnt-match-the-hype-why-you-should-be-ske

PiN WiZ said:

I do not recommend FarSight look into doing business with a company that openly welcomes and encourages hacking of their platform.

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THHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS

What they have TPA released on is good enough

Dre2Dee2 said:

THHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS

What they have TPA released on is good enough

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I'll agree with you after the PC version is released

I don't imagine it would be tough to port over... and there are no licensing fees. I don't see why they wouldn't, provided the system isn't an utter flop.

PiN WiZ said:

I do not recommend FarSight look into doing business with a company that openly welcomes and encourages hacking of their platform.

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Why wouldn't they? You don't seriously think that OUYA encourages cracking of software protection?

I think by the same token, the whole appeal of android devices to tech savvy people is the ability to modify whatever you want on the platform as opposed to the iOS camp.

I don't see how this is that different really

So an open platform for you guys means commercially not interesting?

freezy said:

So an open platform for you guys means commercially not interesting?

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Not necessarily, but it does mean more dangerous in the sense that you don't have a known foundation underneath your code. If the underlying OS could be modified in any conceivable way, the defensive posture required to ensure your code runs the way you intended vastly increases the complexity of your software - and added complexity means more time and development costs.

Given that FarSight has already been raked over the coals several times for the existing bugs in TPA, I don't think they'll be falling all over themselves to introduce TPA to this OUYA platform...which is complete vaporware at this point in time. If the OUYA defies the odds and becomes the Next Big Thing, I'm sure FarSight will give due consideration to porting TPA for it. But there's no return on making that investment now.

Since OUYA is based on android no porting would be required. Only controls would have to be adapted.

I still don't know what I should think about this OUYA Console. They didn't manage to reply to a simple question after 2 weeks. I don't want to do business with them (yet) when they can rack up 5 million but aren't able to reply to simple questions.

But I'm getting off topic, sorry

Serenseven said:

Not necessarily, but it does mean more dangerous in the sense that you don't have a known foundation underneath your code. If the underlying OS could be modified in any conceivable way, the defensive posture required to ensure your code runs the way you intended vastly increases the complexity of your software - and added complexity means more time and development costs.

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Well the OUYA is not more or less open, than every other Android device. You can root nearly all Android devices, and can do with it whatever you like. So i think this can not be the killing argument...

Serenseven said:

Given that FarSight has already been raked over the coals several times for the existing bugs in TPA, I don't think they'll be falling all over themselves to introduce TPA to this OUYA platform...which is complete vaporware at this point in time. If the OUYA defies the odds and becomes the Next Big Thing, I'm sure FarSight will give due consideration to porting TPA for it. But there's no return on making that investment now.

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You are right. But as the OUYA is based on Android, i think, porting to OUYA is not the problem. Also as a normal OUYA is enough for developing for this platform the investment is not very high. So i think FarSight really can make this investment, and see what is up with this thing. If it is no success, the investment is about 99$ + one day of work for adapting the controller code from an hopefully existing OUYA example code...

ridcully said:

Well the OUYA is not more or less open, than every other Android device. You can root nearly all Android devices, and can do with it whatever you like. So i think this can not be the killing argument...

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Right. You can root most Android devices and accept responsibility for anything weird/unexpected/bad afterwards, but the devices do not generally come rooted. So there is a baseline expectation of what a filesystem call, a networking routine, etc. will do on a given non-rooted Android OS. This console would throw all that out the window, because it starts life in a rooted state.

The other expectation is that a person who roots their Android phone or tablet usually (hopefully!) has at least some technical savvy and knows to be somewhat careful with what s/he downloads and installs onto the device. There is no such expectation with a pre-rooted console, so I think you'll see a lot of security issues with the OUYA...assuming it even sees the light of day at all.

ridcully said:

You are right. But as the OUYA is based on Android, i think, porting to OUYA is not the problem. Also as a normal OUYA is enough for developing for this platform the investment is not very high. So i think FarSight really can make this investment, and see what is up with this thing. If it is no success, the investment is about 99$ + one day of work for adapting the controller code from an hopefully existing OUYA example code...

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I'm not Ryan Routon, but I think he would disagree with your estimate of the time involved. Even if it only took a day, why does that day have to be soon? Why can't it be the day after FarSight sees that the OUYA is selling well and is a good opportunity for them?

Every PC comes with root access so therefore every PC is "rooted". We don't ususually use this term because it is how we expect our PCs to be configured. If FarSight will be putting TPA out for the PC then they are already planning on making the game available on an open system. Rooting is probably not an issue.

If I were FarSight I probably would make no plans at this point to make TPA available at launch on OUYA. Why make any development plans for a system that is not readily available yet and the success of the system is unknown. At some point in the future it will obvious if FarSight should release for that system or not. There is nothing really to be gained by getting in early. The OUYA will have a fast approval process and development will be easy since it is Android based. There's some small risk involved in delveloping early for the system but no downside to waiting. If it were me, I'd wait.

brakel said:

Every PC comes with root access so therefore every PC is "rooted". We don't ususually use this term because it is how we expect our PCs to be configured. If FarSight will be putting TPA out for the PC then they are already planning on making the game available on an open system. Rooting is probably not an issue.

If I were FarSight I probably would make no plans at this point to make TPA available at launch on OUYA. Why make any development plans for a system that is not readily available yet and the success of the system is unknown. At some point in the future it will obvious if FarSight should release for that system or not. There is nothing really to be gained by getting in early. The OUYA will have a fast approval process and development will be easy since it is Android based. There's some small risk involved in delveloping early for the system but no downside to waiting. If it were me, I'd wait.

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Good post. Agreed on all points.

brakel said:

Every PC comes with root access so therefore every PC is "rooted". We don't ususually use this term because it is how we expect our PCs to be configured. If FarSight will be putting TPA out for the PC then they are already planning on making the game available on an open system. Rooting is probably not an issue.

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No, that means every PC is root-able. Only the tiniest fraction of PC users voluntarily make changes to the Windows kernel. There's a lot of involuntary changing going on due to malware, but that's another issue.

At any rate, I no longer wish to defend the point. The argument that there is no benefit to FarSight making the investment now as opposed to later is stronger, and we seem to agree on that score.

Serenseven said:

No, that means every PC is root-able. Only the tiniest fraction of PC users voluntarily make changes to the Windows kernel. There's a lot of involuntary changing going on due to malware, but that's another issue.

At any rate, I no longer wish to defend the point. The argument that there is no benefit to FarSight making the investment now as opposed to later is stronger, and we seem to agree on that score.

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To root an android device means that the user has access to the root level. PCs are delivered that way.

People can and do make changes to their PCs that could only be done on an Android device if it is rooted. The fact is that the PC environment is completely open.

I have very little technical knowledge so I can't speak to how easy or hard developing for OUYA might be. I doubt it would take a day as was mentioned above, but it is also an Android device running with a Tegra processor, so it is at the very least somewhat similar to the Android devices already out.

Regarding the root/open device/hacking points, if you want to install software on an Android device now, it's as simple as finding an APK, downloading it, and installing it. That's it. I don't see how having a more open device could make something even easier than that. Personally, based on the fact that OUYA is said to be running a custom storefront with its own ecosystem as well the fact that it's meant to be hooked up to a TV and have little actual interaction with a computer I would think the general population would be a lot LESS likely to be causing problems that they couldn't already accomplish. Again, I may be completely wrong, that's just my thinking.

The one big advantage I see to getting and developing for OUYA as early as possible is that based on the Kickstarter numbers, they've already got something like at least 50,000 people who will have a device when it becomes available and those are customers who had the money to invest in something and wouldn't balk at the thought of downloading a game that costs more than $.99. Plus, with the whole business model of OUYA being every title is at least free to play in some way, which I take to mean most games will be demos or trials with an in-app purchase for full content, people would be much more willing to buy tables than the average customer because that's the way things work in EVERY game. Also, looking at any of the platforms Pinball Arcade is already available on whether it be iOS/Android or Xbox/PS3, it's buried in thousands of other games also looking for eyeballs and isn't something the average customer might just find. If OUYA launches with only a handful of titles available, Pinball Arcade would be much more visible. Finally, OUYA got a lot of press right out of the gate and I've personally seen stories on multiple gaming sites every time a new game or developer announced their support. If Pinball Arcade was announced prior to launch, that's more publicity for PA and Farsight on ALL platforms, especially if a table like Twilight Zone was already available or available soon.

All that said, as many others have pointed out, there are a lot of possible issues with OUYA in regards to it simply being vaporware at this point and things that could happen in the future, so who knows?