Something similarly suspicious is going on with the campaign for Gridiron Thunder, another game competing for matching funds from the OUYA Free The Games fund[1]. So far it has raised $115k (of a $75k goal) with only 167 backers and the donation patterns for the project are extremely unusual compared to the average Kickstarter[2]. The game in the article actually looks much more like a typical Kickstarter project, except for a single spike on the ninth day[3].

[1]http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997247042/gridiron-thun...

[2]http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1997247042/gridiron-thunder...

[3]http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1375982935/elementary-my-de...

Even more controversy:

http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2013/09/21919-drama-continue...

"If there wasn't that stupid pledge limit, we would have even have donated more!"

So, obviously $10k is the limit on Kickstarter, and more backers than usual are reaching it. This is raising red flags with Kickstarter. The whole OUYA campaign rules are flawed.

Ouya itself is a cautionary tail about Kickstarter in and of itself. Personally, I wouldn't have backed them had I known that the OOBE experience would demand me to enter a credit card number before I even get to a welcome screen.

I'm unshocked that someone gamed a system that was gameable, in this case. You can't blame Kickstarter for Ouya dangling a carrot in front of hungry indie devs that the less honest amongst them might take advantage.

Maybe the devs should have announced they were eschewing Ouya funding, then funded their own game...or something.

To summarize: Ouya had promised developers that projects on Kickstarter raising over a certain amount would receive matching funding from Ouya. In the case of the game in question, "Elementary, My Dear Holmes!" raised a rather large amount of funds from a suspiciously small group, raising flags that these developers are funding themselves to get the matching funding.

What doesn't make sense to me is why KS is the one that is policing them, when Ouya is the one being ripped off.

Because they do not want their service to be dragged into such scams.

Looks like a case for Sherlock Holmes to solve ;)

OUYA's whole idea is very bad. Say you have a wealthy friend with $100.000 and just agree with him to back the project. Kickstarter gets their share, but you get almost all the money back AND another $100.000 from OUYA - without any guarantee that you have to finish the game. It's a clear call to scam the system.

I understand what OUYA was trying to accomplish, but they did not think it through. The main reason to use Kickstarter would be to attract as many PLAYERS to OUYA, and developers are insignificant here. For this to work, they should have required a minimum amount of backers per buck. For example, you would need to have at least 1000 backers, and on average not more than $50 per backer, or something like that.

Edit. Here's a nice explanation what "suspicious account" means:

"Both games, however, appear to have been backed by mysteriously fresh new Kickstarter users, which thanks to some celebrity profile icons and accompanying names look a lot like fake accounts."

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/08/kickstarter-games-accused-o...

That title here on HN is a little misleading.

So, what is the "uproar against Elementary, My Dear Holmes" that is mentioned here? It sounds like we're missing half of the story.

Ah, after reading through the comments on the Kickstarter, it sounds like the controversy is because Ouya promised some kind of matching funds for successful Kickstarter campaigns, and so there are accusations that the Elementary, My Dear Holmes developers funded their own project to help get it over the line, in order to be able to qualify for the matching funds.

This seems like something the original article should have said. Instead, it just made vague references to "suspicious accounts;" I'm not sure if they were expecting anyone reading the article to already know the backstory, or if they were just being unhelpful.

I wouldn't be surprised if they funded themselves to get over the line of Ouya was going to match funds.

If you were only a few thousand off, and Ouya was going to match you would be very tempted.

From the allegations, it doesn't sound like it was a matter of being a few thousand off at the end of the campaign; it sounds like at the beginning of the campaign, before it had even gotten any publicity, a bunch of new Kickstarter accounts that had never funded anything else were created, and those accounts then wound up funding most of it. Then when the allegations came out, several of those accounts changed their names, and backed a bunch of other projects (presumably at a $1 donation level).

As in, if the allegations are true, this doesn't sound like it's a matter of pushing it over a little at the end, it sounds like they planned this from the beginning and self-funded most of the project just to be able to qualify for the matching funds.

Probably Kickstarter figured they were going to scam Ouya (ie: pay themselves good part of the funding, and then get Ouya double money thing)

If I were kickstarter, I'd be pissed at Ouya - they put KS in a terrible position.

Why? Every project has inherent incentive to use Kickstarter to hype themselves and other projects have had matching-fund promises too.