Microsoft Announces Dream-Build-Play Winners

See, not all multi-billion dollar corporations are heartless. Okay, so maybe they are, but at least they can be heartless and do something good for the industry while they are at it. For those of you who are “out of the loop”, Microsoft has been holding a competition for small gaming development teams using their XNA Game Studio development suite. The XNA suite is what developers use to create games for Xbox Live Arcade, among other things, and the idea behind the contest is to bring as many fresh games to the service as possible. Are you getting a little bit tired of every “retro” release being games that were developed 20 years ago? Well, Microsoft is looking to refresh the “retro” market by letting unknown developers battle it out for the chance to be on Live Arcade.

Microsoft has just announced the winner of their Dream-Build-Play contest, or, I should say winners because the first-place prize was awarded to two separate games. 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 (U.S.) each and several other prizes.

You can take a look at all the other entries on the Dream-Build-Play website. There are some really creative ideas there, and it’s exciting that Microsoft has extended the honors of being on Xbox Live Arcade to the top 4 finalists rather than just the winner. Here’s hoping they make this an annual event, so as gamers we can reap the fruits of this idea harvest seasonally.