How Square Enix learned to embrace crowdfunding

Times are changing for traditional game publishers. As crowdfunding becomes the norm rather than the exception, they’re in danger of becoming irrelevant to a growing army of self-driven developers.

But a change of management at Square Enix, the publisher behind the hugely successful Final Fantasy role-playing series and Tomb Raider action-adventure games, brought a change in thinking. New Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda expressed a desire to reconnect with the gaming community and build relationships with fledgling development teams — partly as a way to seek out new intellectual properties.