EA is looking to expand its support of small studios, this time through its Origin digital ♐distribution service, by capitalizing on the indie development wave du jour: Kickstarter. The publishing giant announced today a new initiative specifically geared toward developers working on successfully crowd-funded downloadable PC games. EA is offering to sell those games on Origin wi🌃th an attractive deal: the company will waive distribution fees for the first 90 days of release.
Brian Fargo and inXile Entertainment, whose Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2 recently collected , are already on board. In a press release from EA, he called the program a “major economic bonus for small developers.” Newly created indie studio Pinkerton Road will also be releasing its Kickstarted game, , on Origin. The company’s founder, Jane Jensen, also praised the initiative, saying, “It’s great to see a big publisher like EA acknowledging [crowd-funding] and opening up distribution opportunities for these games.”
It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Small studios get access to the Origin audience of over 12 million registered users, and EA gets a cut of the action by selling the indie developers’ crowd-funded games through their upstart platform. Plus, it’s an enticing hook that will probably provide long-term revenue for EA: it’s unlikely that developers would pull their games from Origin after the initial three-month period rather than start paying distribution fees.
Studios can visit to contact EA about the program, which is only available for games whose development fans have alrea𝓰dy funde😼d.
[Origin]
Published: May 18, 2012 12:00 pm