WordGrid: Tivo's future? Or have they forgotten?

wgary · 09-03-2006, 09:39 PM

Well, WordGrid (see http://apps.tv) continues along with its dedicated base of players. If you haven't tried it, it is a multi-player on-line game based on Boggle. Three minutes to find all the words you can before the other players do. It's very easy to set up, and there are other apps from apps.tv.

I continue to think that Tivo is shortsighted to not put more effort into this concept. True, you can play on-line games on your computer. But it is a totally different experience to sit in your living room, remote in hand, playing on your bigscreen TV than sitting by yourself in front of a TV monitor. It becomes a seamless part of your entertainment experience: Watch some show on Tivo, then flip over to WordGrid for a while until the show you want records, etc., etc.

Here are some features I think could easily be added (yeah, right) that would add a lot to WordGrid and continue this as a testbed for other applications. (Texas Hold 'Em anyone??)
1. Some sort of chat facility in between games. (Wouldn't you like to know who lies behind some of those crazy screen names?)
2. Multiple boards with different difficulty levels (Novice, Intermediate, Expert, Cheaters Only -- you know who you are!)
3. Ability to track high scores over time.

OK, this one is probably hard: How about allowing music to play in the background?

I really don't know why Tivo hasn't pushed this concept as a part of its effort to become the hub of people's entertainment. Tivo has actually achieved that for me--TV, music, games, ... But they seem to be more into increasing ad revenue than increasing and promoting usability.

Just some thoughts. Give a holler, other WordGrid freeeks!

greg_burns · 09-04-2006, 09:34 AM

What you are describing already exists and is done extremely well; Xbox Live Arcade on the 360. I know they have Texas Hold'Em, Uno, etc. Haven't seen WordGrid, but it may come. You may want to investigate that if it is your fancy.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/live...60/default.htm

I would presonally rather see Tivo work on the DVR functionality rather than spread themselves so thin.

my .02

apps-tv · 09-04-2006, 03:17 PM

apps.tv has been in something of a deep freeze for the past couple months due to my lousy internet connection here in Uganda as well as some other commitments (as well as not having a TiVo here). Luckily the apps.tv apps run pretty much without human intervention at this point and in fact has been up since May without crashing!

I'd love to improve WordGrid as well as implement some other ideas I have, though I really need to find a way to monetize it as I think I can hire a team of people here to crank out some fun games for a very reasonable cost, but can't really do it out of pocket. There are a ton of multi-player games that I think can be developed fairly quickly.

I've been debating about how to include some non-obtrusive advertising in the apps, probably between games or at startup. The biggest obsticle is that there is only about 6500 subscribers to apps.tv and that's not real appealing to advertisers, though I'm trying to do some digging to see how many "impressions" the apps make during a day.

Anyway that's just the current status of things, I just last week went as far as incorporating my company (East Africa Tech Ventures) here with the hope of finding some way of commercializing apps.tv (as well as some other projects)

We'll see. I had lots of hope that more apps would have been written by now, but unfortunately the HME world seems to have stagnated quite a bit.

megazone · 09-04-2006, 06:13 PM

Unfortunately there isn't a lot of incentive for developers to develop HME applications. They get no promotion from TiVo, so only geeks who read online forums ever learn about the apps. I tell people about Apps.tv all the time (just told someone about it a few minutes ago in a response to a post in their journal) but that kind of word of mouth doesn't generate a lot of hits.

TiVo needs to offer more support to developers - promote the applications on the TiVo boxes. Update the HME API more often, especially with DVR hooks. Add a payment structure to the API to allow developers to monetize their applications directly. People will pay a reasonable fee to use good services.

HME seems to have turned into an interface used mainly by TiVo themselves for promotional applications, KidZone, etc.

wgary · 09-08-2006, 03:53 PM

To Greg_Burns: I hear what you're saying. However, I'm not a major gamer, don't want to buy an X-Box and its $50 games. I do enjoy WordGrid and its networked play. On the other hand, I think MS is positioning the X-Box to become the center of the living room entertainment experience by using it as a front end to a Home Media PC. So, I think, compete on as many fronts to create value-added... or face extinction.

To apps-tv: I guess I didn't realize that this is a semi-commercial venture. It would be great if you could do some more development, but will Tivo put up with ads if they aren't getting the $$? That seems to be their major focus right now...

To megazone: I think it is a shame that they aren't opening up Tivo functionality through developers. I guess if you have kids, want to watch more commercials or infomercials, ... then Tivo has you covered. Otherwise, their lack of attention to increasing functionality (e.g., adding value) to the Tivo experience is sadly shortsighted. Fandango ain't bad, and MovieFlix or something like that would be awesome. But look at the potential for all the things that COULD be done by innovative developers, even for smallish niche markets, if they could make a buck or two... But meanwhile a lot of the innovative developers seem to be moving on from Tivo.

Done ranting... Best wishes to you!

greg_burns · 09-08-2006, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wgary

To Greg_Burns: I hear what you're saying. However, I'm not a major gamer, don't want to buy an X-Box and its $50 games. I do enjoy WordGrid and its networked play. On the other hand, I think MS is positioning the X-Box to become the center of the living room entertainment experience by using it as a front end to a Home Media PC. So, I think, compete on as many fronts to create value-added... or face extinction.

Just to add...

I know the Xbox 360 is by no means inexpensive. But the games in Xbox Live Arcade are. They are not the $50-$60 variety. More like $6. Of course there is the cost of Xbox Live to begin with. It all adds up I suppose.