True story: I strongly considered backing Ouya, but withheld my money as it looked like it was ten years too late for Ouya as an idea.
Second true story: I take no joy in the above statement.
MAYBE DON’T BET YOUR BUSINESS ON A HACKER’S WET DREAM
Ouya, Ouya, Ouya. Too beautiful to live, and too infamous to die in peace.
Per TechCrunch yesterday, Razer has purchased most of Ouya’s remaining assets, and acqui-hired (love that word) CEO Julie Uhrman and other employees. They’re leaving the hardware behind and will be slowly migrating both employees and users over to Razer’s Cortex initiative, which will have trouble convincing me it’s not a Steam clone from a peripherals manufacturer, because that’s what it is.
That’s not the end of troubled waters for Ouya, though. Per Vice today, it looks like some indie developers may not receive all of the money Ouya owes them. Remember the brouhaha donnybrook boondoggle controversy over Ouya’s Free The Games Fund? When the dust settled, indie devs who signed up were set to get 50% of their money from the fund on launching a playable beta, 25% on release, and 25% at the end of their six-month exclusivity period. That contract changed earlier this year (date unspecified) to include a Bankruptcy and Insolvency clause — which, coincidentally, plays nicely with Ouya’s attempts to shop itself around earlier this year.
What does it all mean?
It means gamers should be asking how, exactly, Ouya spent $8.5 million in Kickstarter money, $33.6 million from investors, and $10 million from Alibaba — a total of $52.1 million that we know about.
It means investors may be that much more reluctant to push PCs into the living room. If Steam Machines don’t perform well, the Big Three will likely dominate the space for another ten years.
And it means watching Razer, and seeing how they respond to the indie devs still owed money. Razer has a chance to carve out some market share for Cortex as a good home for indie games — and, therefore, not just a Steam clone from a peripherals manufacturer — if they handle this well. A good reputation and a well-curated storefront could go a very, very long way.
ALSO, COME WATCH OUR FLESHY MEATBAGS TALK VIDJAMA GAMEZ
This Thursday, Orion and Pyro will enter the real world (scary!) and launch the AYBOnline Level One Scrubs podcast, live at Reset Interactive Ultralounge! Come on down for the first edition, make them feel right at home, buy them drinks (energy drinks) (wait, they’ll just get super-buzzed off the caffeine) (that’ll be bad) (and hilarious) (okay, do it), and join all of us in conversations about the latest and greatest this week in gaming.
We’ll be doing them every week at the Ultralounge, so if you can’t make it to the first one, I’ll understand. I mean, I’ll be sad, and you won’t be able to brag to all of your friends that you were there for the first one, but I’ll understand.
:( <— me understanding, this is my understanding face
Anyway! You! Us! Reset! Caffeine! Thursday at 7! Let’s do this!
Jesse Mackenzie is the Managing Editor for aybonline.com. He can be reached at jessem@aybonline.com. His opinions are his own.
