Update: Ouya Game Meets Kickstarter Goal, Controversy Remains

roseofbattle

News Room Contributor
Apr 18, 2011
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Update: Ouya Game Meets Kickstarter Goal, Controversy Remains

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Of two games under Ouya's Free the Games Fund, one was suspended and the other successfully ended its project campaign yesterday.

Gridiron Thunder and Elementary, My Dear Holmes! were two independent games participating in Ouya's Free the Games Fund, in which Ouya would match campaign donations if the game met its goal on Kickstarter of at least $50,000. Both games received donations from many new accounts, some of which donated large amounts of money. With questions of legitimacy raised, Victory Square Games, developer for Elementary, My Dear Holmes!, began to investigate the source of donations. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127336-Developers-Ask-Kickstarter-to-Investigate-Campaign-Funding ] Kickstarter suspsended the project on Friday. Sam Chandola, creator of the game, said they "wanted to get on top of this and did not want anything to do with any of what was happening as it was an extremely negative campaign for us." However, one game remains.

Gridiron Thunder is a pro football game and is set to release on Sept. 15, according to the project's Kickstarter page. With an initial goal of $75,000, the game raised $171,000 in a month. Most surprising is that the game had only 183 backers, meaning the average amount donated per person was $934.48. Some of the funders donated $10,000. For comparison, of 84 projects over the past three months, the average donation per person was $50.59, "making Gridiron Thunder a statistical anomaly," according to Joystiq. On the last day of the campaign, the game received $45,522 from 12 backers, according to Kicktraq. [http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1997247042/gridiron-thunder-awesome-indie-football-game-for-o/#chart-daily]

Before suspension, Elementary, My Dear Holmes! received $58,770 and had a total of 861 backers. Chandola told Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/06/ouya-free-the-games-fund-project-suspended-by-kickstarter/] he has received mail from a few people interested in the game, so the game will likely see the day, but not as a part of Ouya's Free the Games.

Source: Joystiq [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997247042/gridiron-thunder-awesome-indie-football-game-for-o?ref=card]

Update: Chandola published an address [http://victorysquaregames.com/elementary-my-dear-holmes] to all of the backers of Elementary, My Dear Holmes! concerning the news of their game's suspension after he reported it to Kickstarter. He said no one will be charged for their Kickstarter pledges to the project. The project will continue and will not be exclusive to any one platform or publisher. In addition, he addressed allegations of his involvement in the suspicious donations: "Not me, nor anyone at Victory Square Games did anything to astroturf our project. We did not do it ourselves, we did not pay anyone to do it, we did not ask anyone to do it. If we had, I would not have reported my own project...We went to Kickstarter because we did not have the money to build this game... things shall still proceed even if we have to work out from an alley."

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Abomination

New member
Dec 17, 2012
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This is why we can't have nice things.

Try to give people a leg-up and they'll take it as a hand-out.

Then again I can't see the benefit of the Ouya in the frist place. Just comes off as a pretentious hipster console.
 

Baldr

The Noble
Jan 6, 2010
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Kickstarter has the "No self donation rule" for 2 reasons. They don't want people paying into a project that didn't properly raise the required money. Lets say I had a project and raised 50% of the money but am not going to make it, so I donate the other 50% knowing I going to get that money back so I'm not left with nothing.

The other legal and tax reasons that create problems on the back end. Kickstarter has a decent legal team, they are not going to take or release a dime from donors and creators unless everything is legit.

You can create multiple accounts, but your only going to have one Amazon account, so Kickstarter will always find out.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Splitzi said:
Another sketchy thing coming from the Ouya...why am I not surprised?
It is not from them, it's third party developers trying to get their money through shady deals.
Not to mention the entirety of Gridiron Thunder looks like a stolen chunk out of an existing game called Blizt, hell I wouldn't be surprised if that "preview" footage is from Blizt itself.

And kickstarter really needs to enforce some rules and accountability soon because with their success scam artist won't be far behind.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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I don't know about Gridiron Thunder, but I think Chandola is telling the truth.

Question... if some of these pledges don't turn up/get dropped (it happens), was Ouya going to match them anyways?
 

viranimus

Thread killer
Nov 20, 2009
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Im still waiting on a clarification on the Gridiron Thunder game as its developers were seemingly pretty matter of factually about utilizing NFL assets with little or no concern for EA'S Opinion on the matter.