Gamestick introduces new indie developer Kickstarter tier (update: Kickstarter prohibits new tier)

The developers behind GameStick announced a new pledge tier on the Android-based console's Kickstarter campaign page, supporting indie developers who are developing titles for the device.

The new $249 tier will be used to reward independent developers who showed support to GameStick early on, offering them a 100 percent revenue share for their fully-developed video game for a period of six months and giving developers access to a GameStick bundle once it launches in April.

"In the few short weeks following the campaign launch, we have had hundreds of developers sign up for access to our SDK, from established games studios to smaller Indie developers," says Sameer Baroova, head of games at GameStick, "what better way to repay this incredible support and to accelerate the big screen gaming revolution than with an offer that directly rewards those who were first to support us?"

Gamestick was first announced in early January and hit its $100,000 funding goal within 30 hours of its initial Kickstarter launch. As of press time, $459,720 is pledged to the campaign between 4,266 backers. Additional stretch goals were announced this week, including an optional black controller, an optional red controller and an additional color to be decided on the GameStick Facebook page, and MicroSD support.

Update: The new tier introduced to the Gamestick Kickstarter campaign is prohibited by the crowdfunding website, a Kickstarter representative told Polygon. According to the website, the creation of revenue-sharing tiers is against the official guidelines of Kickstarter.

"The Gamestick team was not aware of the guideline at the time they added the new reward tier and as soon as we let them know they ceased offering it," said the representative.

A representative of Gamestick told Polygon this pull notice from Kickstarter came as a surprise:

"Since launch, GameStick have received hundreds of requests from developers for access to our SDK," they said. "The team thought therefore that this pledge would be a valuable demonstration to the Indie community of our commitment to helping them reach the big screen. The pull notice from Kickstarter came as a surprise and we are currently working with the team there to clarify the reasons behind it. Initially we were told that this was to do with Amazon's Acceptable Use Policy but later learnt that this was more to do with the offer falling too close to the lines of traditional business to business transactions and is therefore fundamentally outside of Kickstarter's focus, regardless of Amazon's rules on such things.

"Either way, we remain 100 percent committed to ensuring that our campaign pleases all parties and Kickstarter have been very helpful in helping us unwind the pledge and restoring the valuable links to the campaign in various highlighted areas within the Kickstarter platform. It's been a roller-coaster ride for us all but we hope to end on a high, if we can stay out of trouble long enough."