Square Enix Unveils First Three Collective Candidates

[StewShearerOld]

Square Enix Unveils First Three Collective Candidates

Square Enix's Collective gives users the ability to vote on games that will earn the company's support.

Square Enix announced today that its crowdfunding initiative, Collective, is officially up and running. IndieGoGo, after which Square Enix will offer to distribute them if they reach their funding goals.

The Collective has launched with a selection of three games for users to vote on. The first is <a href=http://collective.square-enix.com/projects/5/moon-hunters>Moon Hunters which features nifty "hand-panted pixel art" and is described as "an open-world adventure for 1-4 players" who will be tasked with "solving ancient mysteries." Following up on that is <a href=http://collective.square-enix.com/projects/7/world-war-machine>World War Machine, an action RPG set during a futuremachine civil. It will supposedly include highly customizable weapons and gear for players to tinker with, as well multiplayer cooperative gameplay. Finally, <a href=http://collective.square-enix.com/projects/6/game-of-glens>Game of Glens, which is being made by Crackdown 2 developer Ruffian Games, will be a lighthearted game about Scottish highlanders competing against each other in games that involve tower construction, catapults and, apparently, flaming cows.

While this does arguably seems a tad similar to <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131366-Gabe-Newell-Our-Goal-Is-To-Make-Greenlight-Go-Away>Steam Greenlight, we will say that we're intrigued by the notion of games going through a vote before launching crowdfunding campaigns. If nothing else, perhaps Collective will be useful as a barometer of interest that participants can look at to help ready themselves for the competitive world of asking for people's money. Of course, if things go well, the end bonus of distribution support from Square Enix also couldn't hurt.

Source: <a href=http://collective.square-enix.com/news/13/square-enix-collective-launches-today>Square Enix


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[Andy Shandy]

Threw in a vote for Game Of Glens, since the Ruffian devs are based in Dundee, my home city

 

[Baresark]

It's funny. Here we have Steam which gambled with Greenlight, only for the gamer base and the company itself to label it a failure as a way of deciding what does and does not go on Steam. And now that Steam has basically stated that they can't wait to get away from Greenlight, Squenix is like, "come vote on games that you want to see supported". This should prove interesting.

 

[Falterfire]

It's funny. Here we have Steam which gambled with Greenlight, only for the gamer base and the company itself to label it a failure as a way of deciding what does and does not go on Steam. And now that Steam has basically stated that they can't wait to get away from Greenlight, Squenix is like, "come vote on games that you want to see supported". This should prove interesting.

I think there are enough differences here that a different reaction is warranted - Greenlight is accessible to pretty much everybody, which means there's a lot of slush. This seems to be a much more curated collection of a few ideas at a time with a promise of close support by a major development. Greenlight is about existing titles being placed on the store rather than prospective titles vying to funding.

 

[UltimatheChosen]

It's funny. Here we have Steam which gambled with Greenlight, only for the gamer base and the company itself to label it a failure as a way of deciding what does and does not go on Steam. And now that Steam has basically stated that they can't wait to get away from Greenlight, Squenix is like, "come vote on games that you want to see supported". This should prove interesting.

Greenlight is different in that it's mainly aimed at getting games that already exist onto Steam. (Or at least, it was originally, that's changed somewhat.)

Collective, on the other hand, seems to be about gauging interest in games so that they can be made.

 

[vagabondwillsmile]

Did Mr. Shearer intend to write "civil war"? That would be my guess.

OT - I think I like this. The distribution support is a really cool idea. And it could possibly create a more reliable pool of candidates than the ever-expanding Greenlight. Though, I believe there are some fundamental differences in function and concept between the two models. At any rate, it could be interesting to see how this approach works out.

 

[Quiotu]

Hey Square. Why are you throwing around new IPs when you're still pissing away your old classics. How about a new SaGa game, or another in the Chrono series, or a Front Mission game that doesn't suck. Do I need to go on? Gimme a modern Musashi game, or port FF Type-0 to the Vita/PS3 and finally bring it to the States, how about making a game in the Mana series that isn't a card game for iDevices?

Before you start throwing ideas to the masses and seeing what sticks, you need to prove to me you can do more other than ruin every IP you've owned. Between The Third Birthday, the FF XIII trilogy, and making a Dragon Quest MMO of all things, I don't trust you having a single good idea right now. FF14 is the last passable thing they've done recently, and that was an expensive do-over.

 

[Baresark]

It's funny. Here we have Steam which gambled with Greenlight, only for the gamer base and the company itself to label it a failure as a way of deciding what does and does not go on Steam. And now that Steam has basically stated that they can't wait to get away from Greenlight, Squenix is like, "come vote on games that you want to see supported". This should prove interesting.

I think there are enough differences here that a different reaction is warranted - Greenlight is accessible to pretty much everybody, which means there's a lot of slush. This seems to be a much more curated collection of a few ideas at a time with a promise of close support by a major development. Greenlight is about existing titles being placed on the store rather than prospective titles vying to funding.

It's funny. Here we have Steam which gambled with Greenlight, only for the gamer base and the company itself to label it a failure as a way of deciding what does and does not go on Steam. And now that Steam has basically stated that they can't wait to get away from Greenlight, Squenix is like, "come vote on games that you want to see supported". This should prove interesting.

Greenlight is different in that it's mainly aimed at getting games that already exist onto Steam. (Or at least, it was originally, that's changed somewhat.)

Collective, on the other hand, seems to be about gauging interest in games so that they can be made.

Those assessments are fair. I'm probably just a bit done by crowd sourcing this stuff. No matter what it turns into a popularity contest it seems like.

Also, I will never understand the concept of the "down vote" or "no vote". It doesn't make much sense. If you are not for a game, then you simply don't upvote the thing. Then the games with the most upvotes wins. But, meh. What can ya do.

 

[UltimatheChosen]

Also, I will never understand the concept of the "down vote" or "no vote". It doesn't make much sense. If you are not for a game, then you simply don't upvote the thing. Then the games with the most upvotes wins. But, meh. What can ya do.

Downvotes are potentially important because they can give you an idea of how polarizing a game is and how many people definitely aren't interested. Both of these can be very useful metrics when deciding which games to fund.

That's assuming, of course, that the voting process isn't exploited in some way.