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According to his LinkedIn profile, Kevin Dent is the CEO of Tiswaz Entertainment, COO of P4RC, Inc. and Chairperson for IGDA Mobile SIG. His About.me page lists him as a “Video Game Executive” and “a 14 year veteran from the digital video games space”. He is also the Business Development Partner and Strategist for Rekoil, a run-of-the-mill, bare-bones military FPS currently in beta. Kevin was interviewed by Polygon on August 29th, 2012, in regards to getting Rekoil on Steam Greenlight (which still hasn’t happened).
Those are some interesting credentials. Enter Kevin Dent’s Twitter feed. Some say that I am trying to “attack Kevin Dent”, but I am not. I am simply reporting what was said and I will allow you to make of our conversation what you will.
I asked him to put it in writing (i.e. stake the professional reputation of himself and his sources on it by providing proof of these claims) but he ignored my request.
Perhaps Ouya did ask if Rekoil would be interested in porting to the Android-based console due for retail release this June but there’s no way to know how that conversation went. There’s no way to verify that the only reason “big boy indie” developers are speaking highly of the Ouya is because they’re being paid by Ouya to endorse the product. Apparently, all these conversations take place in secret.
Some real video game Illuminati stuff going on here, folks.
Actually, Kevin, I am a combat veteran, a husband and a father. Those are my life accomplishments. Nothing fancy, like being a video game executive. Sure, I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember – literally, my earliest memory is playing Super Street Fighter II when I was 4 or 5 years old – but I am a mere consumer.
However, I am an informed, unbiased consumer. If my opinion is shaped by something, I share that something with others. What I don’t do is attempt to personally attack those who respectfully raise legitimate thoughts on a subject that conflict with my own and I most definitely do not play the “I’m a member of a cool kids club and I can’t talk about it!” card.
I am just not buying what he’s selling.
I found Kevin Dent by searching “Ouya” on Twitter to see who was talking about it. Perhaps there was some new information I wasn’t aware of. Sometimes I search for “Final Fantasy VII” or “Legend of Legaia” or any number of cool things to see what people may have tweeted about them recently. It’s fun and you can contact people who share similar interests that way. It’s called networking.
Do console makers entice developers to support their console? All of the time. It’s the reason Microsoft has kept Gears of War exclusive to Microsoft systems for so long when Epic Games wholly owns the IP. From what I’m seeing, Kevin is saying the Ouya is a terrible device and the only reason “big boy indies” are supporting it isn’t because they believe in the console but because they are being paid to.
I have reached out to Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman via Twitter in an attempt to ascertain the truth. I imagine she is rather busy so who knows if she’ll even see the tweet. I am not a member of the press nor do I have a list of pertinent credentials to flash that would encourage video game industry brass to respond to me.
I’m just a gamer who believes that people should be held accountable for what they say.