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Rose and Time returns to Ouya following funding program changes
Indie puzzler Rose and Time returned to Ouya after the game was pulled from the store in September by its developer, Sophie Houlden. The "time-travel stealth" game was initially removed from Ouya's store during the height of the controversy surrounding the console manufacturer's Free the Games Fund, a program designed to match funds donated by crowdfunders for timed-exclusive Ouya games on Kickstarter. In her latest blog, Houlden wrote that "at the time a lot of developers besides myself were upset at how the free the games fund was going and said so." Games like Gridiron Thunder, which received $171,009 on Kickstarter thanks to a handful of suspicious backers, and the Ouya-suspended Elementary, My Dear Holmes were the center of attention for the funding program's detractors. Ouya's response to the criticism at the time was to assert that the the Free the Games Fund would not be changed, prior to being overhauled a week later. Addressing that decision, among other decisive missteps during a recent talk at the XOXO Festival in Portland, Oregon, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman said the company "did not think about all the different ways people could take advantage of that kind of program," She later added that the Ouya team "didn't have enough rules around the program and people took advantage of it out the gate. So having the best intentions isn't always best. But you have to be quick to hear the feedback no matter how painful it is and iterate and change as you go." As for Houlden's decision to bring Rose and Time back to the Ouya store, she wrote that "The Free the Games Fund was changed, none of the scam games received a single cent of the fund, the company admitted its mistakes, and was asking for yet more feedback to further improve things," concluding that she is "confident at this point that I can no longer justify keeping the game off the console."
Developers react to Ouya's defense of Free the Games Fund
Yesterday, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman voiced her support for the company's Free the Games Fund, noting that nothing about the program would be altered. Since then, indie developers have expressed their displeasure over Uhrman's statements. Sophie Houlden, who launched Rose and Time on Ouya in July, announced that she will be pulling the game from the Ouya store. Houlden said that after reading Uhrman's response, "it became very apparent to me that the company does not support indie developers who need the support most, and that they are incapable of ever correcting their mistakes. I'm simply no longer comfortable supporting the company." Free the Games Fund was first announced in July with the intention of encouraging Ouya development by rewarding successful Kickstarter project creators with extra funding in exchange for at least six months of Ouya exclusivity. Two eligible games came under scrutiny as they met their funding goals in late August: Elementary, My Dear Holmes and Gridiron Thunder. While Elementary was recently suspended due to suspicions over Kickstarter accounts that backed the game, Gridiron Thunder was successfully funded, bringing in $171,009 from only 183 total backers. Houlden isn't the only developer backing away from the platform. Kairo developer Richard Perrin noted via Twitter that he "had an Ouya on my desk since launch. Nearly finished porting Kairo to it. Gonna pack that away until a time when they become credible again." In the comments of Uhrman's response to the growing concerns over the program, 100 Rogues Ouya developer Wes Paugh said that "the campaigns that aren't setting off red flags are failing tragically, and that is a real shame, because some of those ideas are ones gaming would greatly benefit from." Thomas Was Alone developer Mike Bithell also criticized Ouya's response in the post's comments, saying it "isn't an acceptance of criticism, or an explanation of how clearly dodgy as hell schemes are being supported by [Ouya] publicly," but that it "reads like a press release from a console company locked into a foolish policy and using aspirational language to shift the blame, weirdly, onto its critics."
