A little under a year and half ago, Square Enix announced the launching of the Square-Enix Collective – a crowdfunding platform run by the company. The Collective serves both as intermediary between the gaming community and the development team working on a game idea and as a consultant to the development team. Square Enix revealed in a recent press release their plans to allow independent developers to make pitches through the Collective to work on three Eidos Interactive IPs: Gex, Fear Effect, and Anachronox. Gex was a platformer franchise with an emphasis on humor, Fear Effect was a graphically-unique action franchise, and Anachronox was a 3D sci-fi turn-based RPG. However, new projects featuring these franchises don’t necessarily have to retain the same genre that they were known for.
This news comes off of French developer Sushee’s success in breaking their initial $30,000 Kickstarter goal for their in-development point-and-click adventure game Goetia, the efforts of which the Collective has publicly supported. In the same press release, Square Enix names other development teams Black the Fall and Moon Hunters as Collective success stories. They also write that development teams representing 17 different countries have contributed 36 original game pitches to the Collective.
Pleased with the activity and work accomplished through the Collective, Square Enix is reopening themselves to submissions from independent game development teams. More detailed information on the collaborative process with these Eidos Interactive IPs can be found at this Square Enix Collective blog entry. It answers essential questions – among them: “‘Why ask gamers to pay for a game to be made if it’s using our IP?'” The company notes that the development team will still be responsible for creating the game and will also be the primary beneficiary of its success.
SOURCE: Press Release
