The OUYA “Free the Games” fund was announced to entice game developers to get to work. The program was unveiled back in mid-July and has OUYA putting up one million dollars. While a million dollar payday would sound good for any developer, the money is actually begin spread out. In fact, the folks at OUYA have put a cap of $250,000.
Perhaps more important for today — OUYA has officially launched the “Free the Games” fund. With the doors officially being opened for business, developers now have until August 10, 2014 to create and launch their project. For those who may have missed the original announcement, the folks at OUYA have said Kickstarter gave them their beginning and in turn — they are looking to encourage game developers to get their start, also using Kickstarter.
If a developer chooses to participate they will need to create the Kickstarter project and then raise at least $50,000. Assuming that goal amount is made and your project successfully funds OUYA will match dollar-for-dollar. Well, that is where the cap comes in as they will only match up to $250,000. Of course, while the offer sounds good up front, we would encourage developers to read all the fine print before committing.
One example of the fine print comes in with your game release. According to the details that game will need to be an OUYA exclusive for 6-months. Otherwise, in addition to the fund matching, OUYA has also pledged another $100,000 to the project that is able to raise the most money (for the entire Free the Games period).
With that, the OUYA Free the Games Fund website now has a detailed FAQ that looks like it will be able to answer most questions. There is also a short application for those folks wishing to get started. The one thing missing from the website at the moment is projects, which is still sitting with a coming soon teaser.
Otherwise, those looking for a bit more about the OUYA system may benefit from reading our earlier published review.
