Ouya lets developers ditch game demos to ask for payment upfront

Not every game on Ouya will have a free-to-try demo anymore.

Developers can now decide whether they want to offer players on the Android microconsole a free demo of their game upfront or ask them to pay before they can play.

"When we started Ouya, we originally decided against this," wrote Ouya's Bob Mills in a blog post. "Free to try seemed like an obvious choice for an open platform. We knew it appealed to gamers, but it turned out many devs had trouble meeting the requirement, didn’t want to make a demo, or weren’t sure how to monetize their game."

Mills said developers have been asking for this feature for over a year.

"Giving devs the freedom to choose gives our gamers access to the best games available," he wrote. "We’re clearing another roadblock in the pathway to publishing on the TV, and that means more great games will make it to Ouya."

Earlier this month, the company announced that it would be bringing Ouya to other devices as part of Ouya Everywhere: "Ouya is about games and game developers, not about the way you get it," said Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman.

Ouya has over 700 games in its library.