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The Ouya development team has raised four million dollars on Kickstarter, shattering the record for the most funds raised for a gaming project on a crowdfunding site.
The Ouya is an Android based console about the size of a rubix cube, and seeks to attract developers back to the console market by promising an open development environment at a low price point.
"The console market is pushing developers away," reads the project page.
"We’ve seen a brain drain: some of the best, most creative gamemakers are focused on mobile and social games because those platforms are more developer-friendly."
The console isn’t just competing with the growing mobile trend by targeting developers; priced at $99 dollars, the Ouya costs less than most smartphones.
This $99 fee covers the developer kit as well, which comes with the console.
The developers do place one restriction, that the game must include one free element, whether it be a free trial, or a free-to-play business model.
The popularity of this idea was immediately apparent. In eight hours the Ouya had raised over a million dollars- the fastest a project has ever reached seven figures.
The project currently stands at $4.2 million.
Only the Double Fine Kickstarter adventure game project that started the crowdfunding craze comes close to this record, having raised a million dollars in under 24 hours, to close a month later at $3.3 million.
Though the all-time highest funded Kickstarter project is still the Pebble, an e-paper watch which raised over ten million dollars, the Ouya is far and away the largest amount of money raised in the shortest amount of time for a gaming project, and with 27 days remaining, stands a fine chance of breaking the Pebble’s record.
