Square Enix could hand over old IP to Collective devs this month

Square Enix could start opening up its back catalogue of IP to indie game developers going through its Collective scheme by the end of the month.

The Collective is a voting platform that allows developers to pitch projects to the Square Enix community and gather feedback. Successful projects then receive marketing support form the publisher during the crowdfunding process and then the full game release.

As part of the scheme, the publisher had previously stated it would allow developers to pitch ideas based on a selection of its old IP. These currently include Gex, Fear Effect and Anachronox.

Speaking to Develop, Collective project leader Phil Elliott said he hoped to release that IP to developers by this month once distribution agreements had been drawn up.

Those that based their games on Square Enix’s intellectual property will enter into an 80/20 split in the developer’s favour on net revenue.

Elliott also said, should the program be successful, the publisher had earmarked around ten franchises that could be handed to developers.

"I really want to open that up soon. I’m hoping this month. And we won’t stop at the first three we announced so far either," he said.

“We’re not looking at any Japanese IP, so we’re only looking at the catalogue Western stuff. But there’s a lot of different things on that list. There’s probably ten, maybe 11 franchises that we have potentially earmarked to open up. We may not get to all of them.

“As with anything else, we’ll open up the first three, see how that goes, and then make a decision based on the feedback of what’s happening.”