Microsoft want you to know that it recognizes the importance of smaller-scale indie games. Did you know that they Microsoft Studios ploughs more than 20 million dollars into funding XBLA titles every year? Now Microsoft are pushing the boat out even further, by offering a publishing prize alongside the IGF for its winners.
The Interactive Games Festival is a high-profile and long running festival dedicated to showcasing the very best in independent game development and offers indie developers a valuble oppurtunity to network and get word out about their work.
Microsoft apparantly understand the potential of indie development (look no further than their Summer of Arcade promotion) and will be collaborating with the IGF to offer a publishing deal to the winner of the next Interactive Games Festival, Student Showcase or Main Competition. The winner will recieve guaranteed first-party publishing on Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade, Windows Phone and Windows.
The XBLA has recently been home to some fantastic little indie experiences, and in conjunction with the PSN it has served as a new avenue for developers of all sizes in the competitive, high stakes field of AAA development. This new prize can only bolster the number of quality, indie titles we see being brought to mainstream attention every month.