The ID@Xbox team have been celebrating ten years of the program as part of GDC 2023 today, revealing some interesting statistics about the history of ID@Xbox since it launched in 2013, as well as where it's going in the future.
For those who aren't quite aware, ID@Xbox is the term for Xbox's indie program, which was preceded by Xbox Live Arcade in the Xbox 360 days, before ID@Xbox was eventually announced in August of 2013.
Since then, ID@Xbox has paid out over $4 billion to independent developers and released over 3000 games in partnership with developers and publishers. As of today, there are now over 5000 developers across 100 countries taking part in the ID@Xbox program, and over 3000 more games are currently in active development. Phew!
"We’ve enabled more than 3,000 games to ship on Xbox from independent developers (more than the total number of games that released on the original Xbox and Xbox 360 combined), onboarded more than 5,000 developers into the program, and paid developers more than four billion dollars. Four billion dollars is really a lot of money!"
"It’s such a testament not only to the power of videogames as an entertainment medium, but the power of independent development, our fans and players, and proof that when you listen and work to empower developers, good things happen."
Some extremely popular games have been released under the ID@Xbox program over the years, including Stardew Valley, Among Us, Sniper Elite 5, Dead By Daylight, Gang Beasts, No Man's Sky and many, many more. In other words, it's a very important part of Xbox as it exists today!
Looking to the future, ID@Xbox is introducing a few new schemes, including the ability for developers to make physical versions of their games with a "low minimal order quantity" of units from Xbox, a new template for developers that will help ensure they get "equal access to decision makers at Xbox", and a new ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program that will attempt to "empower underrepresented creators".
"Today, we are publicly announcing the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program. The program’s mission is to empower underrepresented creators with the resources and information needed to bring their creativity, innovation, and originality to Xbox."
All of this sounds great, and don't forget that ID@Xbox is hosting a special demo event as part of GDC 2023 where you can try out twelve games for free over the next week - we've rounded that up elsewhere on Pure Xbox:
What are your thoughts on ID@Xbox after ten years? Let us know down in the comments below.
[source news.xbox.com]
Comments 11
ID@Xbox is brilliant. Chris Charla and the team should be proud of the work they have put in to bring smaller indies into the fold.
👏👏👏
Maybe I misunderstood the quote (English is not my first language), but it seems to me that 3000 is the number of games that ID@Xbox has enabled to ship on Xbox platforms in the last 10 years, not the number of games in active development right now...
All I want is quake 2 to come to Xbox and I'll be a happy bunny 🙂
3000 more games to my backlog.
Sam_TSM wrote:
Yes you are partially right but it’s multi-layered. Here are a few things that changed
1) indies got more high profile through successful games like Bastion, Braid, Limbo, etc. this was also happening on PS3 and other consoles at the time with games like Journey, Hotline Miami, Shovel Knight etc.
2) on Xbox 360 there used to be a limit on the size of the indie games, it was initially pretty small, 150MB I think, then this was increased to 500MB and I think at the end of the gen it might have been increased again for State of Decay. For Xbox One there was no limit they were treated as normal games.
3) On X360 indies were treated differently there was a max gamer score of 200gs compared to 1000gs for AAA/AAA. On XBox One it was 1000gs same as every other game
4) both Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo created programs like ID@Xbox to help indies get on their platform more easily. Previously it was cost prohibitive to put an indie game on console, but this made it both much easier and more affordable, but also meant they were being helped and encouraged directly by platform holders.
All these things, and more, meant there was a bit of an indie revolution. It’s been amazing! Like @Kaloudz some of my favourite gaming experiments in the last 10+ years have been indies
Yes, yes and yes! Long this approach may continue ( for as long as gaming is a thing👏). Without the Indie developers on console my gaming will not be even half as rich and diverse as it is - especially, especially on Gamepass 😀.
@Magabro It's actually both, the quote doesn't mention it but there's a graphic on the Xbox website that says over 3000 ID@Xbox games are in active development right now as well.
@FraserG That's amazing! Double whoop!
@Kaloudz Yes Stardew Valley was the same for me, as were Terraria, Minecraft, Hollow Knight, Celeste and many many more.
Brilliant gaming and the perfect counterpoint to AAA. I still think there is more GAMEPLAY innovation happening at indie level than AA/AAA where the huge costs understandably mean there are less risks taken. It's great to have both.
@kaloudz
I loved Neverending Nightmares
@Kaloudz yeah an Indie on PS
Don't know, but it should considering its something that would feel at home on Xbox and Phil hyping it up
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