It’s been a year since we publicly launched the Intel GameDev Boost program and we thought this would be a great chance for us to talk about how it has performed to date.

Just as a reminder, The Boost is a highly scalable marketing and sales network that is specifically designed to deliver value to Intel’s software developer partners. This collective value comes through channels that Intel and our partners (retailers, OEMs, ODMs, etc.) own or manage. The inventory for this network consists of social posts to our 1M followers, emails sent to our 1.3M subscribers, bundles through over 5000 retail locations (physical and online), sales through our affiliate partners like Green Man Gaming, and over 1B impressions. So, how did we perform this year?

We are proud to say that we delivered over $50M worth of value to our developers during 2019!

Not only are we super excited about delivering that value but we are also equally excited about how well we shared this across the industry. In total over 300 different games participated in this program during 2019! 100s of Intel GameDev partners large and small were able to take advantage of the reach, engagement, and sales The Boost drove and we promise you that we are just getting started.

Are you curious who participated in The Boost? Well, it was developers big and small from all over the world focusing on an extremely broad set of markets. The key thing to know is that ANY game can qualify. No matter where you are at in your development process, what genre you are focusing on, or how big (or small) your studio is. I’ve placed some success stories below if you are interested in specific examples.

What are the positive things we learned from The Boost?:

• Sales is obviously a big driver for anyone but another hot commodity was our worldwide reach. Whether it was a Korea-based publisher trying to break into Western Europe or a large AAA trying to get in front of consumers in India we were able to do it. Opening up new markets is definitely a strength for us that developers value.
• In business, relationships are always a key thing you can bring to the table and they are a critical component of The Boost. We facilitated dozens of intros to publishing partners and introduced 100s of retailers and OEMs to new games that they would have never found on their own. Connecting the industry is a key value we hold true.
• For many of the smaller developers the message was even more interesting. Just saying that they are working with a company like Intel helps open doors and showed that they are a serious player in what is an extremely competitive market. We helped open doors for Indies! Honestly, we don’t know how good of a tastemaker we are, but we sure do love helping out Indies!
• Most of all we learned that we are at our best when we are putting our developers front and center. So I want to send a big THANK YOU to all the developers who were a part of this first year of The Boost.

What didn’t work out so well?:

• Since The Boost program focused on applications that have passed our technical certification (link) it means our eye is on games that are fairly close to launching. While support at launch is valuable, lots of developers (especially the smaller ones) are interested in the help we can provide well before they launch – specifically help with driving Steam Wishlist and Steam Early Access or even your Kickstarter campaign.
• Social Media – “I’ll give you exposure” is the siren song of the attention economy and it was clear from developers that they feel that way. “I love social support but it’s not clear how it helps me” is a common refrain. That doesn’t mean devs don’t like getting boosted but it DOES mean we need to find ways to do more. What would you like to see us do? Feel free to send a note to gamedev@intel.com with your requests. We're even happy to hop on the phone so we can brainstorm something that works for you and your needs.
• Am I too small? – was a common question that we fielded. The good news is that the answer is simple NO. There is NO developer too small (or big) for The Boost. Look at the numbers up above for the proof. $50M in value spread out over 300 titles. We have enough inventory to help you no matter what your size.

So, what’s next? The theme for 2020 is about opening up the program so participation is easier and more developers get involved. With that in mind I want to announce today that positive testing results are no longer required to get The Boost. All we ask is that you #1 plan to ship your game on PC and #2 submit a report based on the current state of your game. Even if you aren’t passing yet (or can’t test at all) we will start promoting your game. Just go here and get as far through the process as you can.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions,
Steve Augustine
Director of Consumer Software Marketing, Intel Corporation
@Intel_Steve
Steven.augustine@intel.com

Oh, and as promised, here is a list of some interesting success stories from The Boost. We can’t wait to help put your story here!  

• https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/ghghostbustersostbusters-the-video-game-remastered-gets-a-proton-boost-with-intel
• https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/afterburner-studios-dreamscaper-gets-a-boost-from-intel
• https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/bringing-anno-1800-to-laptop-gamers-around-the-world-the-long-road-from-10-to-30-fps
• https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/elastic-games-creates-triple-a-quality-in-a-triple-i-game.