Square Enix is reaching out to mid-tier “influencers” to assist in pre-release testing

The press never stops with Square Enix. After the recent announcement of release dates for The DioField Chronicle and Valkyrie Elysium by developer and publisher Square Enix, there’s been another announcement of a slightly different nature.

Square Enix recently announced the launch of Live Interactive Works Game Development Crew – a community in which users are “invited to participate in test play and discussion of games in development, and to create games together.”

Essentially, Square Enix is looking to create some sort of a meaningful connection between its player base with its development teams, allowing for players to provide feedback on development projects, as well as an extra hit of publicity – or so it says. Usually a company would pay for this kind of work, but let’s just leave that to an opinion piece for another day.

There is a requirement to join the community is in place, dictating any candidates to have at least 3,000 subscribers on their YouTube or Twitch channel. This is perhaps a bit of a cheap attempt at getting some free marketing, but nevertheless, if you are interested, the application information and further news can be found on their official LIW Twitter (@LIW_PR).

Currently, the community is playtesting and discussing Project Gluttony, an online multiplayer game in which players are split into Human and Creature teams. Yep, it’s quite different from the other titles Square Enix is used to announcing, but we can hope that this new pseudo-beta testing initiative will allow the company to successfully branch out into producing and releasing quirky and colourful party games like this! As with any company, you’ve got to take Square Enix’s motives with a big grain of salt, but if it gets people engaged and results in better, more interesting, and more varied games, that’s something at least.