History
Initial tools for the development of games on the Xbox 360 platform were bundled in the XNA Game Studio Express 1.0, released in December 2006, as a means of introducing newer programmers to the steps in game programming. Additional releases of the XNA Game Studio added further features with the core software libraries, but the created games were limited to the developer's own console unit and could not be shared with others. During the Game Developers Conference in February 2008, Microsoft announced that it would be bringing the Xbox Live Community Games service to Marketplace, allowing these games to be shared with others. According to Microsoft's David Edery, portfolio planner for Xbox Live Arcade's, the company envisioned the Community Games as a way for programmers to bring niche experimental games to wider attention without justifying the cost of a full Arcade title with only a limited audience, while still potentially earning some money for the effort. Edery also cited the Community Games as a potential differentiator from either of the PlayStation Store and WiiWare services.
A closed beta of Community Games was introduced on May 21, 2008, limited to Premium members of the XNA Creators' Club. Community Games were introduced with the New Xbox Experience on November 19, 2008. Upon the release of XNA 3.1, Microsoft changed the games to "Xbox Live Indie Games" with hopes that it will help increase the "understanding and discoverability" of user-created games. After the fourth quarter Dashboard update in 2010, the Indie Games tab on the Marketplace was moved to the "Specialty Shops" section of the dashboard, away from where regular Xbox Live Arcade titles would be shown. Independent developers that published through the Indie Game service were concerned that this move reduced the visibility of the games, leading to lower sales and fewer incentives to develop for the series. Microsoft stated that the move was designed to benefit independent game developers, highlighting such games through the Specialty Shop tab. However within a week, Microsoft quietly reverted this change, moving the Indie Games tab back to the main "Game Marketplace" section. Currently, the most successful game on XBLIG is DigitalDNA Games' CastleMiner Z, which was the first title on the service to reach one million paid downloads.
Read more about this topic: Xbox Live Indie Games
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