Earlier in the week, the developers of upcoming Ouya exclusive Gridiron Thunder faced allegations that their Kickstarter was a scam, something they tell Kotaku is simply not true.
Looking to discuss accusations that their game was little more than a ruse geared towards securing funding from Ouya under a new exclusivity funding scheme, I spoke with MogoTXT’s Andrew Won, who told me that “our game development is going very well”, and that “We are not scamming anybody and we are not going anywhere”.
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.”
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 licence-holder, Electronic Arts. “We have rights under both a number of different licence 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.
Which seems absolutely crazy, but hey, that’s a problem for the team and their lawyers to face.
As for the general accusations that the game is a scam simply out for Ouya’s money, Won emphatically refutes them, promising that not only will the game be completed, but that it’ll be completed within a matter of weeks.
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.
None of this of course settles the issue of where exactly all those fishy backer accounts came from, but if Won is promising that his team will have the game ready in “just a few weeks”, we won’t have long to find out just how serious a Kickstarter campaign this has been.
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