Crowdfunding superstar OUYA continues to find it’s way as it alters strategy once again. In a recent blog post, OUYA’s Bob Mills stated;
In the coming weeks, we’re going to let devs choose if they want to charge up front for their games. Now they’ll be able to choose between a free-to-try or paid model.
When we started OUYA, we originally decided against this. Free to Try seemed like an obvious choice for an open platform. We knew it appealed to gamers, but it turned out many devs had trouble meeting the requirement, didn’t want to make a demo, or weren’t sure how to monetize their game.
One of OUYA’s driving values has always been empowering devs.
Ouya’s forum saw some commenters expressing their dislike of the new approach. Recently it was reported that OUYA was suffering from a lack of demand for their game console and they were moving more in the direction of software.
OUYA famously raised over $8.5 million on Kickstarter in 2012 becoming the second largest crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform ever – trailing only the Pebble Smartwatch.
Mills emphasized the need to give game developers the freedom to choose and that devs have been requesting this option for some time now.
The game console market is a highly competitive industry with heavyweights Microsoft, Sony and others capturing the lion share of sales. OUYA as an independent, scrappy startup will probably continue to alter tactics and pivot as it finds it’s way in a challenging space.
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