Ouya Still Owes Money to Developers

Ouya, the game console you forgot existed, recently popped back into the news due to the fact that Razer, a hardware developer, recently decided to buy it, because I guess they were allergic to money and had to get rid of some really fast. But if you think backwards, you remember the last time we saw the Ouya in the news?

If you do, congratulations: you have a hell of a memory. Two years ago, in a desperate bid to remain relevant, the Ouya hosted something called “Free the Games”: deciding to ride the coattails of the growing success of Kickstarter games, the Ouya pledged to donate up to a 250,000 dollars to a minimum of indie developers who were willing to let their game be released as an Ouya exclusive for a few months after release. It was a swell idea but was immediately plagued with controversy when the games picked by the fund showed increasingly dubious behavior, and the Ouya folks themselves were a little sketchy when it came to handing out prizes and communicating with the public.

Well, turns out, this was such a poorly constructed idea that they couldn’t even get the final promise right: as about 75% of the developers who signed up for the fund haven’t even gotten their money yet. And here’s the awkward part—now that Razer owns the company, they’re under no obligation to ever remedy that.
 

“The Free the Games initiative was put forth by the original Ouya and that program was NOT part of the acquisition by Razer (the main asset acquired by Razer was the Android store while many of the other original Ouya assets such as the hardware and other programs were not part of the acquisition)."

How much Ouya still owes people isn’t known exactly, except that it’s less than the one million they were offering. However, for the twenty or so developers still waiting for that cash, the amount they’re individually owed ranges from $5,000 to $32,000. One of the developers, Creative Game Theory, had this to say:
 

"The developers that are really hurt by the cancellation of the fund are the developers that are taking their time to create a real product for Ouya. We believed in Ouya and that it would be around for a long time to come. We wanted to support it with the best game possible. We aren't looking for quick cash, we saw this fund as an opportunity to make a much better experience than we could have otherwise and we're the ones who get thrown under the bus."

Well. Sadly, it doesn’t look as if that’s going to change anytime soon. Such is the perilous world of game development, I suppose.