Online services for Razer’s Ouya and Forge TV services will shut down at the end of June, Razer announced today. The shutdown brings to an end the ambitious, turbulent, and mostly unsuccessful travails of the crowdfunded console for Android video games.
Ouya as a device was discontinued back in 2015, when Razer bought the startup company and merged its content library into Razer’s Forge microconsole ecosystem. While Ouya hung on as a brand name and publisher for Android games, Razer was supporting the online storefront with its Forge TV hardware. Now both are gone.
While the Ouya platform will still be able to play and discover games through the online service until June 25, 2019, after then is more uncertain. Downloaded games may still function after that date if they don’t require an online check-in at launch. “Contact the game developer for confirmation,” Razer says.
Ouya began life in 2012 and rode the early enthusiasm for Kickstarter video gaming projects to $8.5 million in crowdfunding, still the ninth-most all time for the decade-old funding platform. The console launched to the public on June 25, 2013 at a price of $99 and sold poorly.
Ouya was supplemented with $25 million in venture capital from 2013 to 2015, and the company’s sale was mainly so those investors could get something back for their money. Razer bought Ouya in June 2015, but it did not acquire the company’s hardware assets. The company later said it would pay about $600,000 that Ouya had left unpaid from its troubled “Free the Games” initiative, an effort to spur exclusive games development for the console which had a number of unintended consequences.
The hardware itself was discontinued at that time although Razer elected to keep the game store on life support until now.
As for previously purchased games, Razer has the following to say:
You will be able to play games via the OUYA platform until June 25, 2019. Once it has been shut down, access to the Discover section will no longer be available. Games downloaded that appear in Play, may still function if they do not require a purchase validation upon launch. Contact the game developer for confirmation.
