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Games under Ouya's "Free the Games" fund on Kickstarter looking suspicious

Tripon

Member
The first two games from Ouya's Free the Games promotion have been funded on Kickstarter. Gridiron Thunder, a football game that uses official NFL licensing, reached its $75,000 goal with 13 days left in its campaign. The other funded game, Elementary, My Dear Holmes met its $50,000 goal with 17 days left. Developed by Vancouver-based Victory Square Games, point-and-click adventure game Elementary, My Dear Holmes has players investigating mysteries not as the famous Baker Street sleuth, but as his faithful companion John Watson.

Ouya's $1 million Free the Games campaign has the company matching funds for successfully Kickstarted projects that earn at least $50,000. Ouya will match up to $250,000 for an individual project, the trade-off being that each game must remain Ouya-exclusive for six months. The company said more than 40 games have been submitted for the program, and 11 campaigns are live, including that of Gridiron Thunder and Elementary, My Dear Holmes.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/08/27/first-two-ouya-free-the-games-projects-meet-funding-goals/


EDIT:
Gridiron Thunder is at $78,250 with 125 backers. Nothing suspicious there. I hope Ouya has some way to verify the pledges because if not, this is the easiest was to double your $50k ever.

There's definitely something happening. Checking the backers, there's a couple of duplicates, with people with the same surname having decided to back the same project. And even in the case that a person with the same name decided to back the same project, and this is their only project that they backed.

what.png

Note the URLs in the next two pics, different accounts for the 'same person.' And 'Justin Won' isn't the only dupe.



2nd Edit: Looks like Ouya's going to turn a blind eye, despite being questioned about the legitimacy of the projects.

PolTits 23 minutes ago
@SonnyOrangaTaing

OUYA is officially closing their eyes on any potential fraud or funding issue. They tell us to shut up and rejoice with them for the coming a new OUYA game (it's been a long time)

2rWnujr.png

3rd edit: Joystiq updates and gets quotes from OUYA people.

Update: We've contacted both Ouya and Kickstarter regarding Gridiron Thunder's legitimacy, as the project's $78,259 came from just 126 backers, with some suspect funding spikes as tracked by Kicktraq. We will update as we learn more.

Update #2: Ouya responded with a statement to Joystiq, saying that "based on our program's guidelines, the team behind Gridiron Thunder have successfully qualified to receive the match and we couldn't be more excited to see them bring their game along with their supportive community to Ouya."

4th Edit: Gamasutra was able to contact and interview Andrew Won, (same surname as 'Justin Won', CEO of the company making Gridiron Football. They also gave a shout out to this thread as well, thank you Gamasutra! Andrew Won response are in italics for easy reading.

Here are some longform excerpts from Won's statement to Gamasutra:

We are not trying to do something improper with Ouya's Free the Games promotion, and we are in full compliance with both KickStarter's and Ouya's rules.

[...] We have had some generous donors but so have other KickStarter campaigns. In our case, we have very deep roots in Silicon Valley and great ties to fellow tech entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. We also have friends in the professional sports world who want to see us succeed. I don't think there is anything wrong with having generous supporters, and we make no apology for this. It does not violate any KickStarter or Ouya rule.


Gamasutra did not suggest MogoTXT had violated Ouya or Kickstarter's rules. We asked for MogoTXT to respond to speculation regarding the average donation per backer and the speed at which the funding target was met.

Some people, who are not lawyers and who have no knowledge of the facts, also said that we lack the intellectual property rights to build our game. They have no idea what they are talking about.


Gamasutra did not ask about intellectual property rights. However, that's a good question.

Some of the same people who initially accused us of being scam later said, when we showed that we are working on the game, that our game is not very good. So far as we can tell, these criticisms were made by people who have not developed a game of any note. As seasoned developers know, very few games look good until they are actually complete and we took pains to try to explain this.

What is really unfortunate is that some people, while being so cynical about our motives, repeatedly choose to disregard KickStarter's standard for behavior which is set forth in its community guidelines, namely:


[...] If people do not want to support a project, they really should just move on. If they think that they can do better, they can start their own project for the Ouya which is what Ouya would want.

We have a great relationship with Ouya, and we want very much for Ouya to succeed.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...Ouyas_first_two_Free_the_Games_recipients.php

5th Edit: OUYA responds and denies there is a problem.

We've seen the controversy around the games and we'd love if you would let the community know a couple of things:
We've heard our community's concerns and appreciate their interest in OUYA not being scammed.
OUYA has not contributed monetarily to these two games or any other games participating in the FreeTheGames fund program.
As of now and as far as we know at this point both Gridiron Thunder and Elementary My Dear Holmes comply with our rules and regulations so we will be moving forward with funding. If that changes, we will let you know as we always do.
We really just want to support game development while bringing great content to OUYA - this was our full intention with the Free The Games fund and we hope that spirit is embraced.

6th Edit:

Kotaku does an interview with MogoTXT's Andrew Won, makers of Gridiron Thunder. Who claims on first admendent rights that they can use the NFL license. Also, they're not scamming anybody because everyone knew coming in that they're making a 'great' game!

In response to questions about how exactly such a small game with such a limited showing was able to secure its funding so quickly, Won says "We have some generous donors owing to our Silicon Valley backgrounds and relationships with the sports community." Asked whether he was aware of, or was investigating the claims of falsified backer accounts contributing to his game's campaign, he claims "To the best of our knowledge, we do not have a problem with falsified contributions. But there has been no violation of any KickStarter or Ouya rule."P

Another source of criticism of Gridiron Thunder's project page was the fact it showed screenshots containing actual NFL branding, an area that would surely raise the ire of both the league and its main gaming license-holder, Electronic Arts. "We have rights under both a number of different license agreements and also under the First Amendment to display certain images, scores, news, stats and other content within our games and other properties", Won says.P

Which seems absolutely crazy, but hey, that's a problem for the team and their lawyers to face.P

Andrew Won:
Are we scamming Ouya? No. Ouya will have an awesome football game in the Ouya store in just a few weeks. Our hope is that Gridiron Thunder will help attract a mainstream user base for the Ouya that will help grow the installed based of consoles and increase the ecosystem to benefit all Ouya-focused game developers.

Are we scamming the people who signed up for a copy of Gridiron Thunder on KickStarter? No. They are going to receive a great game that will get better and better over the course of the football season.

So who are we scamming exactly? No one. No one is being hurt in any way.

At this point, I want to see all the games come into fruition just for the absurdity of it all.
 

jack.

Banned
Gridiron Thunder is at $78,250 with 125 backers. Nothing suspicious there. I hope Ouya has some way to verify the pledges because if not, this is the easiest way to double your $50k ever.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
You don't think this looks weird? The pledges who wanted to recieve rewards on the site only amount to ~$6000-$8000 (very quick math). There is around $70000 which is not accounted for.

Yeah I counted about that too. Something very wrong is going on the page. The counter is also taking a long time to load the total funding so far and this is not the case on the other project's page.
 

nampad

Member
First time I am hearing about this program. Good for them, they should try to get some exclusive content. Hope there will be some nice games.
 

Sendou

Member
So when that campaign gets through and Ouya says we will not give you money because you cheated they will still lose 30% (?) for Kickstarter. I wonder if they have thought this through.
 

Geedorah

Member
Yeah, first I've heard of this program as well - hopefully it brings some more attention to the console, because as it stands I still haven't seen anything interesting enough for me to drop the 13.37$ credit they gave backers on.
 

Bionic

Member
Look at the backers page for these projects. Waves of backers who have never backed another KS (or backed one other since then, for legitimacy), entered in alphabetical order, not asking for rewards for their pledges, some of whom are celebrity names or other public figures, using their pictures. From a list of the fake names and avatars posted on the Comments page before it was taken down by KS:

Absolom = UK actor Joe Absolom
Acklerley = David Acklerly
Alexa Smith = Businesswoman Alexa Von Tobel
Vaibhav Rastogi = Indian actor Vaibhav Reddy
Gabriel Boucher = US gymnast Gabriel Douglas
Adelaide = a picture of Adelaide, Australia
Alexis Langlois = Alexis Bledel
Nicolas Fournier = Nicolas Cage
Emily Morris = Emily Deschanel
Kaitlyn Roy = nutritionist Kait Fortunato
Agatha = Agatha Christie
Alisha = Taiwanese model Alicia Liu
Omari = actor Omari Hardwick
Omarion = professor Justin Omarion
Paxton = Bill Paxton
Peter = Peter Dinklage
Philip = Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Pierre = physicist Pierre Gaspard
Dexter Harris = Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan
Abel Allen = Professor Abel Folsch
Adam Lee - Professor Adam Wierman
Aditya Adams - Professor Aditya Prakash
Michaela Brown - cheerleader Michaela Stalder
Mikayla Phillips - UFL staffer Mikayla Ivers
Molly Hall - Etix employee Molly Bendall
Natalie Roberts - Natalie Portman
Montana Gonzalez - picture of a Chevrolet Montana
Nayeli Lopez - amateur actress Nayli Russo
Noelia Hall - Noel Gallagher
Noemi Martinez - City of Mission, TX staffer Noemi Munguia
Olivia Brown - Winona State University student Olivia Wulf
Julie Wright - Professor Julie Nelson, Ph.D.
Juliet Thompson - Claire Danes as Juliet
Alex Adams - Swiss professor Alexandre Pouget
Jay Lewis - Jay Jay the Jet Plane
Jefferson Taylor - Thomas Jefferson
Jerry Walker - Jerry (of Tom and Jerry)
Karla Johnson - blogger Karley Robey
Karly Martinez - UFL professor Karly Jacobsen
Claudia Rodriguez - University of Notre Dame professor Claudia Polini
Collene Thompson - Colleen L. Mcguire
Cora Jones - Cat Cora from Iron Chef
Corinne Lopez - FederatedMedia.net staffer Corinne Kasman
Cakota Lewis - Dakota Fanning
Dasia Allen - a random image from DASIA 2013 (http://eurospace.org/dasia-2013.aspx)
Destinee Thompson - Destinne Quinn (Miss Arizona USA)
Devin Lee - musician Devin Townshend
Dorothy Hill - Judy Garland (as Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz')
Patience Williams - Patience street sign
Payton Robinson - Footballer Walter Payton
Peyton Walker - Footballer Peyton manning
Phoebe Lewis - Lisa Kudrow (as Phoebe from 'Friends')
Princess Garcia - Princess clip art
Raquel Davis - Raquel Welch
Reese Garcia - Reese Garcia
Sophie Lavoie - Sophie Marceau
Charlotte Begeron - Charlotte Church
Mia Ouellet - M.I.A.
Maya Fournier - Image search for "Plain woman"
Leah Nadeau - City of Albany councillor Leah Golby
Matthew Jackson - Matthew C H Tong
Cameron Poulin - David Cameron
Hudson Michaud - picture of a vintage Hudson Motor Car
Sesbatian Couture - Christopher Sebastian
Riya Robinson - Riya Sen
Bertie Williams - Irish politician Bertie Ahern
Zack Hall - Twitter employee Zach N. Hofer-Shall
Zakai King - Yaron Zakai-Or
Zazu Scott - painter/sculptor Scott Myers
Ruben Campbell - Ruben R Puentendura
Sagiv Evans - professor Jacob Sagiv
Sam Collins - journalist Sam Pizzigati
Sampson Stewart - dancer George Sampson
Saul Sanchez - Knoxville News Sentinel photographer Saul Young
Sebastian Morris - economist Sebastian Leitner
Shamir Morgan - Shamir Tandon
Sivan Bailey - Sivan Aldor-Noiman
Patrick Ramirez - Patrick from Spongebob
Paul James - Paul Dyer (Australian Brandenburg Orchestra)
Philip Brooks - Statue of Phillip II of Macedon, 382BC
Raanan Kelley - Rannan Bar-Cohen
Nick Simmons - Nick Jonas
Noah Alexander - Russel Crow (playing Noah)
Oran Graham - image of Oran, Algeria
Joseph Sullivan - Joseph Yu
Josh Wallace - Michael B Jordan (playing Wallace in 'The Wire')
Jud Owens - German film poster for Jud Süß
Kabos Gibson - Professor Kabos Sandor
Julie Bedard - IATP associate Julia Olmstead
Anna Desjardins - Anna Kournikova
Catherina Richard - USC professor Richard Taylor
Levi Gagne - Levi van Veluw
Harrison Lefebvre - Harrison Ford
Justin Martel - Justin Bieber
Callum Lecierc - Callum Hart
Matthew Parent - Matthew Farrelly, Ph.D
Piper Fortin - Piper Kerman, author or Orange is the NEw Black
Jared Henry - Jared Leto
Hans Nichols - Alan Rickman (portraying Hans Gruber in Die Hard)
Ichabod Dunn - Johnny Depp (portraying Ichabod Dunn in Sleepy Hollow)
Zahavah Payne - Billy Zane
Isaiah Spencer - Isaiah Washington
Zaza Wagner - @ZazaTMO
Vidette Riloey - Vidette Bullock Mixon, GBPHB corporate relations
Yael Lawrence = French-Israeli singer Yael Naim
Shira Carr - Shirra Harington @ Purposeful Hire, Inc.
Shoshana Chapman - fashion designer Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss
Stacy Richards - NYU student Stacy Alicea
Stella Williamson - Princess Stella cartoon (Winx Club)
Susannah Banks - Susannah Llewellyn (MEC Global)
Suzanna Meyer - Suzanne Roshan
Nitzana Little - Stuart Little
Odera Jacobs - Aramando Albarran (fugitive)
Pazia Romero - C. Pazia Mannella
Rachael Burke - author Rachel Rennee Russell
Maria Mendoza - Maria Carolina Herrera-Hernandez, Ph.D
Alice Blais - American McGee's Alice
Brooke Richard - Brooke Burke
Reese Lavoie - Reeses chocolate bar
Paige Hebert - Paige Johnson staffer UNCW
Parker Lachance - Jason Statham as "Parker"
Pankaj Jumar - Pankaj Barman
Alivia Das - Missing woman Alivia Kail
Lawl Curtis - American University professor Curtis Burrill
Libby O Brien - Dr. Wendy B Libby (Stetson Uni)
Linda Sutton - OneJustice director Linda Kim
Lisa Gregory - Mona Lisa
Malcom Haman - Malcolm McDowell
Wesley Kukowski - Dutch footballer Wesley Sneijder

It's really funny to see the lengths to which OUYA/these KS creators have gone to in order to either prop up the Free the Games fund or swindle people into backing games whose only success is in creating fake KS accounts. OUYA would have been so much smarter to just cancel Free the Games and say "we want to provide direct funding to games developing with OUYA as a lead platform" rather than apparently losing money in KS fees in order to fraudulently claim people want OUYA-exclusive games enough to back them without asking for rewards.
 

belushy

Banned
I could be mistaken, but EA has the NFLPA license on lock as well, which allows for players.

I believe that EA's license doesn't have a hold over "mobile" games which I'm guessing Ouya is considered a "mobile" console. The people who made Backbreaker made a mobile-only NFL game called NFL Rivals for iOS.
 
Look at the backers page for these projects. Waves of backers who have never backed another KS (or backed one other since then, for legitimacy), entered in alphabetical order, not asking for rewards for their pledges, some of whom are celebrity names or other public figures, using their pictures. From a list of the fake names and avatars posted on the Comments page before it was taken down by KS:

LIST OF NAMES

It's really funny to see the lengths to which OUYA/these KS creators have gone to in order to either prop up the Free the Games fund or swindle people into backing games whose only success is in creating fake KS accounts. OUYA would have been so much smarter to just cancel Free the Games and say "we want to provide direct funding to games developing with OUYA as a lead platform" rather than apparently losing money in KS fees in order to fraudulently claim people want OUYA-exclusive games enough to back them without asking for rewards.
Wait, I don't understand. Where is this from? I don't see those names on the list of backers for either project.
 

Jopie

Member
come on guys, why would the devs have to pull a scam. According to their video, they are a very talented team!
 
I believe that EA's license doesn't have a hold over "mobile" games which I'm guessing Ouya is considered a "mobile" console. The people who made Backbreaker made a mobile-only NFL game called NFL Rivals for iOS.
Weird that they can get around it that way. If it was for iOS and Android that would be one thing, but specifically making it Ouya exclusive means it's technically a console game. Craziness.
 

Bionic

Member
Wait, I don't understand. Where is this from? I don't see those names on the list of backers for either project.
When you scroll down to the bottom of the page, it loads more. Did you load all 708 backers for Elementary? I see these names there.
 
Can someone give me the basic gist of what's going on?

If you say you'll be Ouya exclusive for six months, they will give you as much money as your Kickstarter earns on top of the pledges you got.

So imagine you start a Kickstarter, pledge all the money yourself, and have Ouya match it. You've doubled your money, then just release a shitty game.

You probably don't even have to do the shitty game part.
 
Weird that they can get around it that way. If it was for iOS and Android that would be one thing, but specifically making it Ouya exclusive means it's technically a console game. Craziness.

Where does it actually state NFL license (besides in this NeoGaf thread)? On their kickstart page they mention working with NFL players but that's it. That doesn't mean actual NFL players are in the game.
 
Can someone give me the basic gist of what's going on?

If I'm understanding this whole thing correctly,

Ouya has said that if these certain developers reach a certain goal on Kickstarter, Ouya will basically double the funds. In plainer terms, if the Kickstarter's reach their goal -- they'll end up with twice as much money.

Now from what it looks like, many of the backers for these two campaigns are fake, sock puppet accounts trying to get to the goal so the dev's can get the bonus money from Ouya.
 

SuperSah

Banned
If you say you'll be Ouya exclusive for six months, they will give you as much money as your Kickstarter earns on top of the pledges you got.

So imagine you start a Kickstarter, pledge all the money yourself, and have Ouya match it. You've doubled your money, then just release a shitty game.

You probably don't even have to do the shitty game part.

So you're basically scamming the fuck out of them?

Hm.. I might be doubling some moniez tonight...
 
KS won't cancel that kickstarter anyway because it's money to them too, it's the ouya people i feel sorry for matching that fund which is extremely scam like.
 

LordCanti

Member
Seeding pledges to a kickstarter seems to be the new thing. Once legitimate pledges start coming in, you just slowly back out of the illegitimate ones until they're all gone.

Edit: Oh this is people trying to double their money through Ouya matching? Wowwwww.
 
Now that would be a twist! I really doubt that though. More likely someone is trying to pull a fast one on Ouya.

Could be either at this point. OUYA could be doing this to make their promotion look like a success. Wouldn't rule that out completely.
 

Bionic

Member
So you're basically scamming the fuck out of them?
It's unclear right now. There are two things that might be happening, and we don't know which one is the case:

1. It's the KS creators creating all the sockpuppets to almost double their money, minus the 10% cut that KS takes.

2. It's OUYA creating the sockpuppets to make otherwise failing kickstarters succeed, thus making Free the Games seem successful. In this case, OUYA is spending double what they're claiming to provide to the projects.

#1 is only bad because it might be used to scam the non-fake backers. If that's the case, those kickstarters should be shut down. #2 is really crappy, because it means that instead of OUYA realizing that $50000 minimum goal for Free the Games was way too high and changing the promotion to give more money to smaller devs, they are potentially defrauding their investors by pumping their own money into games that they are going to then match funds to.

Either way, OUYA should not be promoting kickstarters for OUYA games, because here's the most idiotic part: They don't actually get any money for any of the copies sold through kickstarter. Those devs are giving out free codes to people who gave them money directly. OUYA doesn't get a dime. OUYA are literally running a promotion that makes 100% sure that they lose out on tens of thousands of dollars per kickstarted game. OUYA is the dumbest company at what they try to do. Not the worst, but definitely the dumbest.
 
Where does it actually state NFL license (besides in this NeoGaf thread)? On their kickstart page they mention working with NFL players but that's it. That doesn't mean actual NFL players are in the game.
I was going by this statement in the OP which is from the article linked:

The first two games from Ouya's Free the Games promotion have been funded on Kickstarter. Gridiron Thunder, a football game that uses official NFL licensing, reached its $75,000 goal with 13 days left in its campaign.

But your're sort of right. Reading the Kickstarter page, it doesn't necessarily say they have the NFL license, but it does say you can play with real players:

We want Gridiron Thunder to be the most immersive football experience out there and that's a tall order. One of the features that we are adding in is fantasy football. This won't be the regular fantasy football that you play with your friends and co-workers. Gridiron Thunder fantasy will allow you to actually play the game with your fantasy roster.

aXEqJMc.png

So maybe they just have the NFLPA license. But I think EA has exclusive rights to that as well. This article is from March of this year which does state that both licenses end this year though they'll likely re-up. It doesn't say whether or not the NFLPA one is exclusive though.
 
I was going by this statement in the OP which is from the article linked:



But your're sort of right. Reading the Kickstarter page, it doesn't necessarily say they have the NFL license, but it does say you can play with real players:



So maybe they just have the NFLPA license. But I think EA has exclusive rights to that as well. This article is from March of this year which does state that both licenses end this year though they'll likely re-up. It doesn't say whether or not the NFLPA one is exclusive though.

I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe they'd have any sort of NFL license or players license. EA I bet paid millions for that, $100k certainly won't cut it. If anything, they'll have likenesses of real players, similar names or just numbers like people do for NCAA games. I'm guessing that first article got this wrong or it's just an outlandish claim.
 
I find it INCREDIBLY hard to believe they'd have any sort of NFL license or players license. EA I bet paid millions for that, $100k certainly won't cut it. If anything, they'll have likenesses of real players, similar names or just numbers like people do for NCAA games. I'm guessing that first article got this wrong or it's just an outlandish claim.

I don't think you can do either of those without the NFLPA license (I'm specifically talking about the Player's license). That picture I posted from their Kickstarter would suggest they can do both. Either that or they're misleading people.
 
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