In a bid to clear out its gaming closet of old, publisher Square Enix has made an open plea to third-party developers to come forward and take the reins of some of its long-dormant franchises.
In a post on Square Enix Collective – a tiered platform allowing prospective developers the chance to work with old IPs amongst other things – the publishing behemoth has released the first batch of properties that it will allow developers to have a crack at.
The three are the loveable gecko, Gex, Fear Effect, and Anachronox.
”In terms of the process, submissions using our IP is pretty much the same as for original IP, with a few exceptions which you should be aware of,” explains Square Enix.
”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 blog post surmises: ”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.”
From a business perspective, however, there’s something to consider:
"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," Square continues. "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."
All in all, we here at PlayStation Universe are fans of this sort of ‘open playing field’ tactic with regards to dormant IPs – there’s so many from both the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 that could work brilliantly nowadays and it’s nice to see a publisher realising it and affording others the chance of moving things forward.
What dormant IPs would you like to see brought back? Let us know in the comments section below.