Square Enix Collective has made three fondly remembered Eidos IPs available for developers to pitch on - Gex, Fear Effect and Anachronox. Interested studios will be able to suggest ideas based in any one of those three universes.
“I’m excited to see what talented teams might do with any one of Gex, Fear Effect or Anachronox IPs. We’ll monitor the response carefully before deciding which IPs to release next,” said company lead Phil Elliott.
For those unfamiliar with the three IPs in question; Gex is a platforming series starring a suave, James Bond-like lizard (naturally), Fear Effect is an action/horror shooter with demons and all sorts, and Anachronox was a terrific little cyberpunk RPG developed by Ion Storm.
Anachronox is the one I’m excited about there, a smart, charming little game with bags of character that never quite connected with the public as much as it deserved to. I’m sure there’s a flurry of indie developers frantically pitching new ideas for the franchise as I type.
Square Enix Collective is a sub-division of the publisher that specifically searches for new talent to develop new and existing IP. There’s more information on this, which was sent over by Square Enix below:
Firstly, we’ll pre-approve anything internally that is published on the Feedback platform. That means that if something goes out for community voting, we need to be happy with it first. If you submit something we don’t approve, we’ll tell you why – but to be clear, this is really about making sure ideas are relevant to the franchise. It doesn’t mean that we’re looking for straight-up sequels – we’d love to see different takes on those universes. What would Gex look like in a side-scrolling adventure, or a turn-based strategy? So feel free to mash up genres, and get creative.
The Feedback process is then basically the same – we throw the idea out to our community and let them vote and feedback for 28 days. At the end of that period we’ll weigh up the response, and then decide whether or not to proceed further.
If the response is good, then it’s into crowdfunding, which no doubt begs an important question: Why ask gamers to pay for a game to be made if it’s using our IP? Well, because it will still be the responsibility of the independent developer to build the game – and the developer will still be the key beneficiary of its success.
On the business side, we’ll still take 5% of net crowdfunds raised (assuming the initial target is reached); and we will also distribute the game when it’s done – for that we take the standard distribution fee of 10% net sales revenue, but we’ll also charge a 10% license fee for the use of the IP. And, obviously, we’ll have more involvement in the direction of development – because let’s face it, we want to make sure the game that’s released is the game that’s promised.
Still, that means the developer will keep 80% of the net revenue from sales of the game – and who knows, maybe we’ll be interested in licensing a sequel as well? It’s a pretty good deal.</b>
