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Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus kicked from Free the Games initiative by Ouya, developer responds 

Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus has been removed from the Free the Games find by Ouya, with SuckerFree Games founder William McDonald updating the team's Kickstarter page to state the entire crowdfunding initiative has now been canceled.

According to the update, the Golden Axe-inspired fighter raised the majority of its $10,000 Kickstarter funding goal from 180 backers. The total raised was $54,067 which averaged out to around $300 per person. McDonald said his father used some of his retirement saved over the last three years to help with development.

This didn't go over well with Ouya, apparently, as the firm removed the game from its $1 million Ouya fund.

"Apparently OUYA has decided to change the rules on us," wrote McDonald. "With less than two days to go they have removed our Freethegames link from the OUYA homepage and delisted us from the website. The timing aligns with winning back of some devs that threatened to pull their games through conversations on Twitter.

"It appears we were thrown under the FTG bus. OUYA gets their fall guy and Grid Iron keeps their money. So while a bunch of ex-EA employees with rich friends can apparently receive $171,000 in match funds for a game they, allegedly, already finished - a person whose father was willing to make a large sacrifice so his son's team could qualify for the fund and actually develop their game properly is disallowed.

"If we had remained silent we very likely would have received the funds, our transparency and honesty apparently was our undoing."

McDonald said many articles and forums debates discussing his team's Kickstarter caused Ouya to kick the project from the fund without an investigation, which he chalked up to people not reading or "fully comprehending" the Update 6 on the Kickstarter page.

"Misinformation ran wild, climaxing not in an investigation on the part of Ouya, but in our de-listing from their fund without explanation or even the decency of a notification," he said.

"Without Ouya match funds and only $4,055 in donations from our crowd source backers, the cost of swag, taxes and fees would cause us to have a net loss of approximately $11,000. Further, being essentially told Ouya doesn't want us, makes us not want Ouya.

"Sadly, we were early adopters, we got our Ouya on launch day and had been one of its strongest supporters. We have no plans to develop for Ouya further."

McDonald said he had "no choice" but to cancel the Kickstarter, nut that episode one of Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus will still be finished in time for PAX 2014.

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Stephany Nunneley-Jackson

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Stephany is VG247’s News Editor, with 22 years experience (with 15 of them at VG247). With a brain that lacks adhesive ducks, the ill-tempered, chaotic neutral fembot does her best to bring you the most interesting gaming news. She is also unofficially the site’s Lord of the Rings/Elder Scrolls Editor.

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