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When we launched on November 19th we really had no idea what was going to happen next. There were high hopes for great success, but we knew this system was a huge gamble and might not be well received. Our success lands squarely on all our shoulders. This incredible community of Creators have created some amazing games, help spread the word, been active throughout the industry, and have stood by us through the tough times. Now, here we are with 600 games and growing every day; User Ratings which empower the best of Indie Games to earn the attention they deserve, more countries online than we thought possible, and some of the most creative minds coming up with the hottest IP!

Highlights
Currently at 600 games!
User Rating launched on August 11, 2009
Top 10 games by User Rating
 

• I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1
• ezmuze+ Hamst3r edition 
• Miner Dig Deep
• Arkedo Series - 01 JUMP!
• CarneyVale Showtime 
• Groov 
• Kodu Game Lab 
• ZP2K9 
• Avatar Drop 
• Solar

The current breath of our catalogue is deep. There’s a game for almost every gamers’ interests.


Two Hugely Successful Product Launches
XNA Game Studio 3.0 brought the features that took gaming to the next level. Our submission pipeline and Playtest/Peer Review is unmatched in the industry and made Xbox LIVE Indie Games possible.
 

• Trial modes
• Friend Invites
• Visual Studio 2008 integration
• Zune support

With XNA Game Studio 3.1, there are many new features and updates, and game developers were eager to get their hands on it. This release enabled Creators to develop games such as Avatar Drop and Avatar Golf, two of the hottest selling games on the system.
 

• Avatar Support
• Xbox LIVE Party Support
• Video Playback
• Content Pipeline Enhancements
• XACT3 Support

Price Changes
We recently changed our available price points to 80, 240, and 400. Overall this has been well received by the community, and it definitely shows with our customers; more people have been interested in exploring and purchasing Indie Games!

New Countries
Since our launch, we’ve added Germany, Japan, and Singapore to our family of Creators. Below are the top games from each of those regions:

• Magnetic Mind (Germany) DBP top 20 game (coming soon!)
• ダウンタウン激凸ドッジボール！(Miracle Kidz, Japan)
• CarneyVale Showtime (gambitsg, Singapore)

Great Media Quotes –more than 650 articles in the press since November 2009! Here is just a small sample of some of the great things that are being said:

“Microsoft’s push to create the user-generated "YouTube of Games" has always been a great idea in theory — let indie programmers crank out new and innovative game ideas using the XNA development environment, then allow them unfettered (well, not very fettered) access to publish the games on Xbox 360. But while the games in the first beta release of the service were merely interesting proofs of concept, the titles that Microsoft showed at a launch party Wednesday were something more — actual, fun, awesome videogames.”
-- Chris Hohler, WIRED.com

“Despite all the attention, it remains difficult for independent developers to get noticed, get published and get compensated for their efforts. That’s what Microsoft hopes to change…”
-- Mary Jane Irwin, Forbes.com

“At long last, companies are coming up with ways to make gaming creation so easy that even a child can do it. In fact, that’s exactly what “Kodu” aims to be — a programming environment that even 9-year-olds could use to build their very own games.”
-- Winda Benedetti, MSNBC.com

“Microsoft’s Dream.Build.Play competition gives good Xbox LIVE Indie Games developers a crack at creating an Xbox LIVE Arcade title (or titles) and, at the very least, lines their pockets with mad cash. This year’s competition -- much like 2008’s -- has a prize pool of $75,000 that the winners share. The winner of the grand prize was Dust, of course.”
-- Brad Nicholson, Destructoid

“The reasons why Dust: An Elysian Tail was recently crowned the winner of the Dream-Build-Play competition (and rewarded $40,000 and the chance to get the XBLA treatment) are evident within the first few minutes of playing… To think that someone who's never toiled over game development before could craft something of this caliber using only their persistence (and a bit of XNA training) isn't just the makings of a success story -- it's a damn miracle.”
-- Griffin McElroy, Joystiq

We couldn’t have done this without you and the work by our amazing MVP’s. We’ve grown together with you, and you’ve helped in reshaping the rules and guiding the community to develop innovative and fun games for the masses. We look forward to many more years of great games, and really putting Indie Games on the map!

Thank you Creators! On to YEAR TWO!
IDN Team