Square Enix have teamed up with Indiegogo to create something called the Collective. It’s a cross between Valve’s Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter. Indie’s propose game ideas which are then vetted by the community and Square Enix before starting an Indiegogo campaign.
The main plus of it is developers can propose game ideas using Square Enix’s IPs.
On the face of it, the Collective sounds like a layer of unnecessary bureaucracy on top of a crowdfunding platform. Instead of submitting your game pitch straight to Indiegogo and raising money immediately you have to go through a community approval process first.
Pitches have 28 days on the Collective’s forums where members can discuss the game and say whether they’d buy it or not. If it receives enough attention then Square Enix will get in touch and vet the developer to see whether they’re capable of making the game they’re proposing. Square will also say how much they think the developer will need to get the game made. At that point the fundraising campaign begins.
However, there is nothing to stop developers going straight to Indiegogo or Kickstarter if they want to. The Collective simply works as a means of having your pitch vetted before fundraising. It could be a great way to garner interest or develop a game proposal before the all-important funding campaign.
Also, the opportunity to work with Square Enix’s IPs isn’t something to be sniffed at. For one thing, it adds instant recognisability to a game which offers developers a higher chance of making sales but it could lead to some excellent spin-offs to franchises that have become stale.
Square Enix will be releasing the full details of the project at GDC Next, which runs between 5 – 7 November.