First project from Square Enix’s collective platform earns support through to the crowdfunding stage
Square Enix Collective and Tuque Games have announced that World War Machine, the post-human action-RPG (Role Playing Game), has now entered the crowdfunding stage via the Collective partnership with Indiegogo. Collective is a curated platform that enables creators to post ideas, and gamers to judge whether those ideas should become reality or not.
Every idea that’s successful with the community is evaluated by Square Enix as part of a Team Assessment to confirm that the scope of the pitch and budget is in line with the team’s ability and ambition to create the game they’re aiming to make. Through a partnership with the world’s leading crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, projects with enough support from the community are then chosen by Collective to be supported through the crowdfunding stage, enabling gamers to back the ideas they love the most.
World War Machine was one of three projects to be involved in Collective’s pilot phase. It garnered an enthusiastic response, with over 90% of voters indicating that they would back the game through crowdfunding. The time to make the game a reality has arrived with a target of $50,000 over a 40-day period in order to finish the game and release on PC. Gamers can fund the project on Indiegogo.
“Since we first announced Collective last October, we’ve been working steadily towards this moment – the first funding campaign,” said Collective project lead Phil Elliott. “We’re really excited to reach this point, and humbled by the support shown from developers and gamers all over the world with what is a new concept. World War Machine certainly captured the attention of the community, and we were delighted to see people indicate support for the project – now they’ve got the chance to follow-up on that and help make something awesome.”
“Collective voters have overwhelmingly shown their interest in World War Machine with a 90% ‘yes’ vote. Now we get to prove the fans are right. Our prototype is already playable and fun, with backers able to get their hands on it if the campaign concludes successfully,” said Jeff Hattem, founder at Tuque Games. “We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far and hopefully fans of World War Machine will take this ride with us and help fully realize our vision.”
Before the funding campaign, Tuque Games underwent a Team Assessment from Collective, a process to assess the developer’s skills, experience and plans for use of funds. This was led by an experienced development director at Square Enix. While this is not a guarantee on the part of Square Enix that the developer will accomplish every goal they’ve set, it’s an indication that we believe they have the capability to deliver a finished product according to their stated aims.
New pitches are uploaded to the pre-funding feedback platform on Mondays, and since the full launch of Collective in April, ten new projects from teams in eight different countries have been published for the community to evaluate. Square Enix Collective was recently nominated in the Innovation in Business category at the inaugural GamesIndustry Innovation Awards.
