FROM selling video games to mobile applications, Singapore's growing influence as a digital media hub is opening more doors for local developers to showcase their creations to a global audience on a shoestring budget.
The world stage is typically beyond the reach of budget-constrained developers such as students or niche IT outfits as they lack the deep pockets needed to strike global reseller agreements.
In recent years however, tech companies are increasingly embracing Internet distribution by launching their own Web-based store fronts, resulting in the dawn of a new platform for the 'Davids' of the developer world to stand on an equal footing with software goliaths.
The latest boon in this area comes in the form of a new Microsoft initiative designed specifically to take video games made by smaller developers global without hefty capital outlays.
Microsoft's freshly minted Xbox Live Community Games channel will allow anyone with an interest in games development to create and retail their titles through its online marketplace, a perk that was previously extended to established studios such as Electronic Arts (EA), Sega and Ubisoft.
For an annual fee of US$99, aspiring local developers will get a free software toolkit to design games for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, as well as the ability to upload and eventually retail their creations online via a revenue-sharing model.
The Xbox Live service currently has more than 14 million members and it generated nearly US$2 billion in sales in the last three years, according to Alan Chou, Microsoft's regional marketing manager for Xbox 360.
Besides allowing consumers to link up with other players, the X Box Live service gives them the option of buying game titles and other frills such as map packs and trailers through the Internet.
The launch of Xbox Live Community Games is expected to spur the development of 'casual' games, Mr Chou said.
Unlike multi-million productions such as EA's Fifa 09 or Gears of War 2 by Epic Games, titles that are offered on the new channel are far less complex and provide instant entertainment through quick and simple game play.
Developers will get to keep 70 per cent of the takings from the channel with the remainder going to Microsoft, he added.
This initiative was first launched in the United States and parts of Europe three weeks ago and it has since been populated with over 70 game titles that go for as little as $4 each, Mr Chou revealed.
'Singapore is one of the 10 countries in the world that this (Xbox Live Community Games) is being made available,' added Michelle Lui, deputy director of business development at the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA).
To give local developers a further leg up, MDA is offering grants of up to $50,000 per game to defray the cost of developing new Xbox titles for the new Microsoft channel. Applications for the subsidy will close in February next year.
The MDA and Microsoft will also join hands to organise a series of games development workshops next year under their partnership, Ms Lui added.
Besides Microsoft, gadget giant Apple is also welcoming local mobile developers into its online applications store.
First launched in July, the local iTunes store now boasts over 30 locally made consumer tools for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. These include MRT and bus guides, and there is even an application to allow users to tap into feeds from traffic cameras at major traffic bottlenecks around the island.
On the enterprise front, Web-based business software provider Salesforce.com has introduced a similar programme that is open to local developers.
Called AppExchange, it serves as a marketplace for users to buy add-on applications that can accompany Salesforce.com's core range of customer relationship management tools.
This article was first published in The Business Times on December 18, 2008.
