Microsoft announces Dream-Build-Play contest winners, demonstrates XNA Game Studio

At Gamefest 2007, the annual Microsoft Game Technology Conference, Microsoft Corp. today announced the highly anticipated winners of its Dream-Build-Play game development contest, which encouraged experienced game developers and enthusiasts to create innovative and fun-to-play video games for Windows or Xbox 360 platforms using XNA Game Studio.

In a surprise announcement during the keynote address, an astounding four winners were invited to publish their games on Xbox LIVE Arcade. Tied for first place were David Flook of Ontario, Canada, and James Silva of New York with their respective games: "Blazing Birds," an action-packed, robotic sports game modeled after the game of badminton, and "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai," a highly stylized game of mayhem and revenge.

For their accomplishments, Flook and Silva were offered publishing contracts with Xbox LIVE Arcade, $10,000 each and several other prizes. Steve Olofsson of Sweden and Daniel McGuire of the United Kingdom received honours as runners-up for their games: "Gravitron Ultra" and "Yo Ho Kablammo!" respectively. Because of the amazing creativity demonstrated by these top four winners, the Xbox LIVE Arcade team also extended invitations to publish on Xbox LIVE Arcade to Olofsson and McGuire, along with $5,000 and other prizes.

A total of 16 others were recognised with third-place honours. More than 4,500 members of the gaming community from more than 100 countries had enrolled in the Dream-Build-Play challenge.

"The games we received in the Dream-Build-Play competition are truly inspiring," said Chris Satchell, general manager of the XNA organization at Microsoft. "Created in just four short months using XNA Game Studio, these games demonstrate an incredible range of innovation, fun gameplay and technical achievement."

"We uncovered some remarkable talent with this contest and are pleased to include these original creations in our diverse library of games on Xbox LIVE Arcade," said Bryan Trussel, director of content and portals for Microsoft Casual Games. "It''s aspiring, independent developers like these who are really driving our industry."

XNA Game Studio has seen a surge of momentum this past year, with more than 400,000 downloads of the tool and adoption by nearly 200 academic institutions globally since its release last December. In addition to the XNA Creators Club Online community, more than 50 new community sites in numerous languages have emerged around the world in support of XNA Game Studio, pushing the boundaries of game development further toward Microsoft''s vision of true collaboration and democratisation.