XGen Studios

XGen Studios was founded by Skye Boyes in 2001. Boyes was interested in programming in his childhood, and was studying computer science at the University of Alberta.^[3] While in university in 2003, he published a browser game made with Adobe Flash called Stick RPG. This game amassed one million plays in the first month.^[4] Skye dropped out of his computer science program, incorporated the company, and began to accumulate staff.^[5] XGen Studios followed up Stick RPG by releasing another Flash game called Motherload in 2004.^[4]

An offer to acquire the company for $8 million was made to XGen in 2007, but Boyes declined the deal.^[4] That same year, XGen Studios announced that they had obtained a license to develop for Nintendo's Wii system, and intended to develop a WiiWare title.^[6] It was revealed in 2008 that Defend Your Castle would be part of Nintendo's WiiWare launch line up.^[1][5][7][8]

In 2011, XGen Studios announced that they would take Amanita Design's Machinarium to WiiWare.^[9][10] The project was eventually cancelled as of November 2011, due to the WiiWare platform's game size limit.^[11][12][13]

In 2013, Sony announced that Super Motherload would be a day one title for the PlayStation 4.^[14]

On October 12, 2015, founder and CEO Boyes died in Vancouver after experiencing cardiac arrest.^[15][16] His wife Kaelyn, who had worked on the operations side of the business, took over XGen Studios, overseeing the development of The Low Road.^[16][17] The Low Road launched on July 26, 2017, on Valve's Steam available for PC, Mac and Linux.^[18][19] The following year, The Low Road was released on the Nintendo Switch.^[20]