9 Video Game Failures That Made A Mockery Of Kickstarter
4. Ouya
What it is: The affordable micro-console hailed by its creators as the definitive platform for indie developers.
Racking up a cool $8.5 million in funds from a 'modest' $950,000 goal by the end of its Kickstarter campaign, the dream of a well-made, open platform where owners were free to mod the console however they saw fit seemed too good to be true. It was.
Why it failed: As the Ouya started rolling out at retail and to the all-important early backers - many of which never received what they paid for, by the way - reports of a flimsily made product paired with tacky, borderline broken peripherals started doing the rounds.
Support for the platform - which was swiftly smothered with A-grade shovelware unworthy of anyone's attention, rather than promised heavy hitters like Minecraft - petered out and the company promptly found itself in hot financial water.
That less-than-stellar start, coupled with Microsoft and Sony's renewed focus on supporting indie devs around the same time, left Ouya with no choice but to sell up. Julie Uhrman, the company's founder and CEO, departed shortly after the sale without so much as an apology or explanation for the ham-fisted handling of the campaign.