The (email protected) team today celebrated ten years of the program as part of GDC 2023, revealing some interesting stats about the history of (email protected) since its launch in 2013, as well as its future.
For those who don’t quite know, (email protected) is the term for Xbox’s indie program, which was preceded by Xbox Live Arcade in the days of Xbox 360, before (protected by e-mail) was finally announced in August 2013.
Since then (email protected) has paid more $4 billion to independent developers and has released more 3000 games in collaboration with developers and publishers. To date, there are now more 5000 developers to the other side of 100 countries participate in the program (email protected), and more 3000 more games are currently in active development. Phew!
“We’ve enabled over 3,000 games to ship to Xbox from independent developers (more than the total number of games released on Original Xbox and Xbox 360 combined), engaged over 5,000 developers to the program and paid the developers more than four billion dollars.. Four billion dollars is really a lot of money!
“It’s a great testament to not only the power of gaming as an entertainment medium, but also the power of independent development, our fans and our players, and proof that when you listen and work to empower developers, good things are happening.”
Some hugely popular games have been released under the (email-protected) program over the years, including star of the valley, Between us, sniper sniper 5, dead by daylight, gang beasts, nobody’s sky and many others. In other words, it’s a very important part of Xbox as it exists today!
(email protected) has an important program for Xbox. Creators push us to improve, ask us “what if” questions, players find innovative new games from awesome teams, and more. Congratulations to the team for 10 years and thank you to all the creators and players who supported it. Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) March 21, 2023
Looking ahead, (Email Protected) unveils new schemes, including the ability for developers to create physical versions of their games with a “low minimum order quantity” of Xbox units, a new model for developers that will help them ensure they get “a fair amount of access to makers on Xbox” and a new Developer Accelerator Program (email protected) that will try to “empower creators under represented”.
“Today, we are publicly announcing the Developer Acceleration Program (email protected). The mission of the program is to give underrepresented creators the resources and information needed to contribute their creativity, innovation and originality to Xbox.”
This all sounds great, and don’t forget that (email protected) is having 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 it up elsewhere on Pure Xbox:
What do you think of (email protected) after ten years? Let us know in the comments below.
(sourcenews.xbox.com)
Fraser has an unhealthy obsession with all things Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead series and has extensive knowledge of Xbox sports games. He also supports Walsall FC, that West Midlands team you’ve never heard of.