Xbox Game Pass has paid indie developers more than $2.5 billion in royalties

Microsoft has paid developers “more than $2.5 billion in royalties” as part of the publisher’s indie initiative, ID@Xbox.

The figure was revealed in a new blog post by Xbox’s general manager of content curation and programs, Chris Charla.

“Since the program’s inception, independent developers have earned more than $2.5 billion in royalties, and total revenue generated by ID@Xbox partners on Xbox almost doubled over the last three years,” Charla wrote.

He also revealed that Xbox has paid developers and publishers “hundreds of millions of dollars in Game Pass license fees”.

While the blog also states that the programme has seen over 1000 developers sign up to the ID@Xbox system over the past two years, Charla concedes that Xbox’s work with indie developers still has some way to go.

“One area we talk to developers and players about a lot is discoverability,” Charla explained. “Teams across Microsoft work every day to help solve discovery challenges so players can find games they love, and in turn, ensure developers find the audience for their games.”

At last week’s Game Developers Conference, Microsoft introduced a new program called ID@Azure, which is aimed at independent developers across all platforms that want to use Microsoft’s cloud gaming tech in their titles.

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Xbox has unveiled a new publishing division focused on ‘cloud-native’ games

Portal and Left 4 Dead developer Kim Swift is leading the new organisation

At the same event Xbox Game Studios Publishing also officially announced its new cloud gaming organisation. According to Microsoft, the division “works with studios to develop cloud-native titles and bring them exclusively to the Xbox ecosystem”.

The division is led by Kim Swift, who joined Xbox last year as cloud gaming director. Swift rose to prominence as the project lead and designer of Valve‘s Portal, before working as a designer and artist on Left 4 Dead and its sequel, and was more recently game design director at Stadia.