A new chapter has been added to the ongoing string of Ouya Free the Games mishaps, as one of the developers involved claims that the Ouya team has removed his Kickstarter from the campaign without warning.
The Free the Games initiative is designed to match funds from successfully crowdfunded games in exchange for short-term exclusivity on the Ouya platform.
It's an interesting proposal, but one that has caused quite a stir, as a number of Kickstarter campaigns have been
widely accused of gaming the system.
The latest hiccup appears to involve a Kickstarter for
Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus, a game from SuckerFree Games that planned to make use of the Free the Games initiative.
After SuckerFree founder William McDonald admitted in a Kickstarter update that his father put forward most of the money pledged to the Kickstarter, essentially allowing McDonald to game the system, the Ouya team now appears to have disallowed
Dungeons from utilizing the fund.
In a new update,
McDonald explained that his game has disappeared from both the Ouya homepage and the Free the Games page, and that he had received no notification from the Ouya team at all. As a result, McDonald has chosen to cancel the Kickstarter.
"A person whose father was willing to make a large sacrifice so his son's team could qualify for the fund and actually develop their game properly is disallowed," McDonald noted. "If we had remained silent we very likely would have received the funds, our transparency and honesty apparently was our undoing."
This case is in direct contrast, of course, with the
Gridiron Thunder campaign which
has been at the heart of the discussion, with many people under the impression that the developers behind the title have gamed the system to receive funds from the Ouya team.
