Razer somehow found itself stuck in the middle small outcry from indie developers after it announced the acquisition of Ouya. The micro-console maker had originally promised developers money in exchange for short term exclusitivity, a promise that was not kept. However, Razer has decided that the right thing to do would be to honour the promise and pay these developers.
Ouya had originally run its “Free the Games” campaign which would have given funds to Kickstarter campaigns provided they met certain milestones and agreed to Ouya console exclusivity for several months. These funds were not paid by the time that Ouya was bought over by Razer, and the developers involved accused the company of exploiting a “bankruptcy clause” to avoid shelling out cash.
However, Razer CEO Tan Min-Liang says that he was not aware of the agreement when the company was acquired. Despite this, the company will support the developers by having them sign a new agreement with Razer that will drop the exclusivity clause and then pay them what they are owed by Ouya. Reports put this amount at about $620,000 (about RM2.3 million), which is not a small amount at all.
Tan said, “this is purely being done out of goodwill. I think this is going to be great for the developers. I think they’re going to be able to get the games done and gamers will get access to games for free. Then those games will spread through word of mouth.”
[Source: Ars Technica]
