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: