Squenix Starter

I hope they call it that ^.

Remember back in May when Squenix was talking about wanting a piece of the crowd funding action? Of course you do. Well it seems that they’re making announcements now that are somehow tied to that marketplace.

It’s a little slim on details at the moment, but it sounds like they’re offering to curate and help mentor projects through the pitch phase, into crowd funding, and production phase. There’s no terms of service available at this point in time so it’s difficult to tell what exactly the trade-off will be. If I had to guess, they’re going to want a cut of the end product… whether that ends up being part of the initial funding or ongoing royalties is beyond me to devine. But my guess is, if they have a deal worked out with Indiegogo it’s likely taking their share directly from what Indiegogo would normally take. Having a big name like Square helping to promote the Indiegogo brand is probably in their best interests considering how hungry everyone is for Kickstarter.

I’m sure that having some sort of Squenix seal of approval on a pitch wouldn’t be entirely bad for the enterprising individuals who take them up on this process either.

Given that I consider Square-Enix to be more of a publisher these days, this seems like it could be a way for them to cash in on publishing indie games. They also do a lot of toy production too… so maybe they’ll want some merchandising rights. Low risk, cost effective way for them to get into the indie scene. I’m very curious to see how this pans out.

Kotaku adds some thoughts on the matter as well.