Square Enix has shared an update on their crowdfunding program, Square Enix Collective. According to Phil Elliott, the Project Lead, by following developers’ feedback they have decided to add Kickstarter as another crowdfunding option, alongside their previous partner, Indiegogo. They hope that this new update will be giving more freedom and flexibility for the developers. Please, read the full message below:

The past few months have been super-busy as Collective went fully live and we (Square Enix Collective) are now posting new projects every week. So far we’ve featured 19 projects from 13 different countries on Collective and it’s awesome to see some of the great ideas coming through submissions and onto the platform, and then handing over to gamers to showing support through votes and comments.

Of course, we know some projects will prove more popular with the community than others, but we hope the feedback the teams get can be constructive – as James Cope from Ruffian Games stated following the unsuccessful Game of Glens pilot campaign: “We’d encourage other developers to give it a go… Being part of the Collective pilot was a really constructive exercise and we learned a lot from it.”

So – onto the main purpose for this update. Until now we’ve partnered exclusively with Indiegogo, but following feedback from the development community, and in-line with our desire to give developers as much freedom and flexibility throughout the process as possible, we’re updating our terms and conditions to add in Kickstarter as an option as well.

Therefore, in the next week or so,  as long as a team is able to run the funding campaign, they’ll be able to choose from either Indiegogo or Kickstarter as a funding platform, according to their preference. To be clear, Kickstarter will only be an option for teams based in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands as the platform doesn’t operate outside of those territories – that’s their rules, not ours!

Phil Elliott (Project Lead, Collective)