“GREE Loves Indies” – that’s the name of a new program GREE International has just set up. Under the initiative, the company is reaching out to US-based developers (Japan or other countries are out) to develop games for its global platform.
GREE plans to collect applications on a monthly basis, select one winner to co-create and optimize the game, and publish it on GREE’s global platform.
The company explains:
The “Indie of the Month” contest invites independent developers to submit new games to be considered for a 4-6 week launch and release support campaign. The winning title will launch on GREE Platform and receive in-depth benefits including public relations resources, game review and optimization, integration support, and post-launch support. Each game submitted will be reviewed on several criteria including creativity, user experience, and innovation. The website, which also includes official contest rules, is open for submissions today at greelovesindies.com. GREE expects to release the first game this holiday season.
Digging deeper, it looks like GREE wants games selected to use specific features of its platform, which makes sense for GREE but will surely turn a lot of devs off.
Inside Mobile Apps also points out that submissions become the property of GREE.
The GREE Loves Indies program home page can be accessed here.
The company announced partnerships with four North American indie developers just last week.
N.B.:
In the meantime, GREE is “quietly” delaying the official start of its global platform.
As a reminder, GREE first changed the launch date from May 2012 to May – September 2012 before announcing that the platform will launch “with over 60 titles and in 14 more languages by September 2012”.
It’s now October, and this obviously hasn’t happened yet.
