Multiple indie developers who have remained anonymous are reporting that Ouya have told them that they won't be recieving thousands of dollars owed to them as part of Ouya's 'Free the Games' fund, following the Razer acquisition of the company.
Talking to Vice's Motherboard, the developers report that while the 'Free the Games' fund itself has gone through various iterations to tighten loopholes and ensure legitimacy of claims, the final installments of money are not going to be received by those legimitate claims. The fund itself was put in place to secure indie exclusives for the Ouya console, offering to match a developer's Kickstarter amount if they agree to stay exclusive to Ouya for at least six months.
After some iteration, Ouya adopted a position where they would pay out $100,000 to developers over three installments, half being paid after display of a playable, beta version of the game, a quarter when the game launched, and the last quarter after the exlusivity period. As developers began to release beta builds this year, they were asked to sign a contract that included a clause stating that the contact would be terminated upon bankruptcy or insolvency.
In Skype calls to the developers, Ouya notified them that the acquisition by Razer earlier this week falls under this clause, nullifying the contracts and resulting in no further payments. Motherboard reports that Ouya representatives informed the developers that Ouya would no longer exist after this acquisition, despite Razer heavily featuring the Ouya name in the press release regarding the acquisition.
The result of this is that multiple independent developers are having a large amount of money (reported between $5,000 and $30,000 individually) taken out of their future, putting the development of their projects in jeopardy.
Razer's acquisition, notably, is for the software, technical team and developer relations personnel of Ouya, leaving behind the console and controller, and as such they would have no use for the exlusivity of these developers. They have stated that the acquisition is to utilise the Ouya expertise on their own microconsole, the Forge TV, and it's software Cortex TV.
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