Julie Uhrman
Latest
Ouya misconceptions: Not seeking funds outside of Kickstarter, F2P with a twist
We often wonder how Kickstarter alters public perception on a project. For example, if the Ouya were backed by investors and hit the market without any crowd funding, would its audience be more receptive to the final design since they never had the opportunity to imagine what could have been, or would the mysterious corporate vibe be more off-putting?Ouya, for its part, is taking a gamble on completely open, crowd-sourced funding, and so far has raised almost $5 million in just one week. Earlier reports that Ouya would seek funding from other sources in addition to Kickstarter are completely unfounded, Julie Uhrman tells Engadget."Totally untrue," she says. "We've been approached many times in the last week, of course, and told everyone we are totally focused on getting our support from Kickstarter."Ouya has support from Digg founder Jay Adelson, Flixter's Joe Greenstein and Jawbone founder Hosain Rahman, and they all backed Ouya in its early stages, helping to get the Kickstarter set up.Another potentially confusing aspect that has arisen during Ouya's Kickstarter campaign is its "free-to-play" approach. The Kickstarter page reads "All the games on it will be free, at least to try," and many people have taken this to mean that all games will follow the standard free-to-play model. Not quite, Uhrman says:"When we say free-to-play, we'd also include free demos or early levels of a game, so we are confident that while not every game will use in-game items, every game can offer some aspect of its gameplay for free."Uhrman and the Ouya team are taking feedback from developers and players, and even direct input when applicable. "In fact, when we first brought the concept to Adam Saltsman, he made us promise to let him weigh in on the controller," Uhrman says. "And he's not the only developer excited. We've heard from Brian Fargo and others that the innovative controller design is likely to inspire new types of gameplay."Through the $99 Kickstarter reward tier, Ouya has pre-sold almost half of its initial stock of 80,000, and is expected to be sold online and at retail when it launches in March.
The Engadget Interview: OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman on taking console concept to reality
Oh, the fickle fate of a Kickstarter darling. Initial hopes and dreams culminate into a single video and a few pages of text on a website that can send your brilliant little idea careening down one of two paths. Path one is the lonely one, falling short of your goal and retreating back to the very literal drawing board to find out just why your idea didn't match everyone's ideals. But the other path has its challenges too. Look at the OUYA Android-powered videogame console. The console was announced on a Tuesday, one week ago today, went on to meet its $950,000 funding goal in roughly eight hours and went on to raise millions. While thousands of gamers pledged their funds, the pundits got to pondering the unlikely (early) success, many predicting doom for this little gaming box that still has a long way to go before its promised release next March. With the pressure building, OUYA founder and CEO Julie Uhrman is feeling no doubts. She took some time out of her incredibly busy schedule on the one week anniversary of the Kickstarter launch to refute some of the hate that's been brewing and reassure those who have pledged their $99 that it will ultimately prove to be money well spent.
Ouya passes Kickstarter goal on first day at $950K and rising
The Android-powered, crowdfunded $99 game console – Ouya – just passed its $950K Kickstarter project goal. Considering the project page went live this morning, the Ouya reached its goal in well under its first 24 hours.Designed by Yves Béhar and backed by several prominent game industry folks, the Ouya features a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 8GB of built-in storage, and a wireless gamepad. It's being crafted with an eye toward developers, and the project's page notes savvy hackers can "create their own peripherals, and connect via USB or Bluetooth."The Kickstarter remains active for another 29 days, and Ouya hopes to have the console in supporters' hands by "Q1 2013." Founder and CEO Julie Uhrman told Joystiq, "The support has been unbelievable. And that's exactly why we took it to Kickstarter ... Kickstarter has just been the most phenomenal platform – for specifically, hardware and video game companies – to bring their ideas to consumers. And if it resonates, you really get this swell of momentum and traction, and that's what we were hoping for. And it's just unbelievable, the level of support."%Gallery-160066%
