While other kids dreamed of becoming an astronaut or president, James Silva felt destined to be a video game designer. Conquering space or politics might have been easier. Besides a good idea, game developers have needed a distribution deal to get their work on consoles like the Xbox or PlayStation. Over the years, the industry has been shrinking to a handful of big players that use large teams of in-house programmers, but Silva is a one-man game maker for the Xbox 360. He’s among a growing number of independents working to distribute their games to Internet-connected consoles with the help of game box makers seeking to meet the demand for titles beyond the usual shoot-’em-ups or big-budget sequels.

This year, Silva, a former restaurant dishwasher who lives in Utica, N.Y., became something of a poster child for Microsoft’s developer tool, XNA Game Studio. After winning Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play contest last year, Silva’s game, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai will be published on the company’s Xbox Live Arcade network later this year. The action game features a dishwasher who sheds a lot of cartoon blood in a dark, zombie-filled underworld.

Source: Fox News