With deep regret...
Well apparently OUYA has decided to change the rules on us. With less than two days to go they have removed our #Freethegames link from the OUYA homepage and delisted us from www.Freethegamesfund.com website. The timing aligns with winning back of some devs that threatened to pull their games through conversations on twitter.
It appears we were thrown under the FTG bus. OUYA gets their fall guy and Grid Iron keeps their money. So while a bunch of ex-EA employees with rich friends can apparently receive $171,000 in match funds for a game they, allegedly, already finished. 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. If we had remained silent we very likely would have received the funds, our transparency and honesty apparently was our undoing.
There have been many articles written about us and forums debating us the past week. Many of them apparently didn't read or fully comprehend what we wrote in Update #6 or on the front of our Kickstarter page. Misinformation ran wild, climaxing not in an investigation on the part of OUYA, but in our de-listing from their fund without explanation or even the decency of a notification. Without OUYA match funds and only $4055 in donations from our crowd source backers, the cost of swag, taxes and fees would cause us to have a net loss of approximately $11,000. Further, being essentially told OUYA doesn't want us, makes us not want OUYA. Sadly, we were early adopters, we got our OUYA on launch day and had been one of its strongest supporters. We have no plans to develop for OUYA further.
So we have no choice, but to cancel our Kickstarter. Episode one will still be finished in time for PAX 2014. If you still wish to support an awesome FreetheGames fund project please check out Neverending Nightmares a very deserving game.http://kck.st/19WHHDH
Thank you all for your continued support and we are sorry to disappoint you our backers.
Sincerely,
William A. McDonald
SuckerFree Games