when you’re a small company. The ID
team has always helped support us.”
This isn’t just a one-way street.
The ID@Xbox program is very open
to feedback from developers. The
program functions the way it does
today because of their valuable
insight. “We listen to developers all
the time; they’re always the best
folks to give us the signal on where
we should be taking the program, for
sure,” says Charla. “If you looked at
the path a game takes to get from a
developer’s brain to the marketplace
today, going through the ID@Xbox
program vs five years ago, it’s reallybest of the best, and the worst of the
worst, and getting feedback from that
kind of team is really invaluable as
you’re building your game.”Extra support
The ID team is committed to the
mes that are a part of the program,
it doesn’t wash its hands of you
ce your game’s shipped. “After the
me launched we got continued
pport,” says Krankel. “They would
ach out to us with opportunities
at we wouldn’t know about. It’s
ally nice to have someone in your
rner finding new opportunitiesdifferent. Most of those changes have
been driven by comments and ideas
from developers. It really affects what
we do and how we talk about things.”
Given the atmosphere that
Microsoft has fostered around the
program and the support it offers, it’s
no surprise that so many developers
have such nice things to say about
it. “For us ID has been great, I’ve had
a great experience with them,” says
Wilson. “Microsoft has been warm,
friendly, helpful and only encouraged
us in ways that help us do the best
we can. Not just on the business and
marketing side, but also engineering,
certification, development. Basically
anywhere that you need help, if you
say that you need something, within
reason, they will try to help.”
“It’s always been a painless process
working with the team at Microsoft,
from figuring out ways to get good
exposure, to get any of the tools
that we need to get the game up and
running,” says Krankel. “It’s also been
really cool to see the other types of
games across various genres that are
in development alongside us because
it’s always a nice kick in the pants
to be in a sense of competition with
other good indies out there.”
“We signed with Microsoft and
signed exclusive,” explains Chad
Moldenhauer. “That gave us a little bit
of a ‘one-up’ in marketing because
Microsoft can push exclusive titlesABOVE Drink your
way out of Hell
in After Party.
BOTTOM Sable
from Shedworks.
058 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
Th
ga
so
on
ga
su
rea
tha
rea
co