huge! This listening tour determined
that what developers wanted was
ease of access to the platform and
the ability to self-publish.”
Microsoft’s vision for the Xbox One
was to give players access to the
broadest variety of games possible
and knew the best way to achieve this
was to have independent develope
on the platform. Figuring out how to
get developers to self-publish on th
system was essential. This became
part of what Chris Charla often refer
to as the ‘North Star’ of ID@Xbox: to
make it as easy as humanly possibl
to have independent developers
get their games onto Xbox, which is
something that hasn’t changed
throughout the program’s life.
According to Charla, the only
things that have changed are
the mechanics behind making this
happen. Initially this involved ensuring
Microsoft’s back-end tools and
technologies were easy for devs to
use, but as time passed this focus
shifted. “Now it goes a lot towards
promotion and marketing and more of
us using our resources as Microsoft in
order to understand what’s going on
with the market,” says Charla. “Then
we’d share that with developers so
they can make smart decisions, not
about what games to develop but
when to launch and the best way to
market their game.”The origins of the ID@Xbox program
go back years before the launch of
the Xbox One, to the height of the
Xbox 360’s popularity. Microsoft
pioneered digital distribution of
console games with the Xbox 360,
through Xbox Live Arcade, and
independent developers saw this as
a fantastic opportunity to get their
games on a console with the same
level of awareness that a triple-A
game might enjoy with Xbox players.
This ushered in a wave of
creativity and the release of some
groundbreaking and innovative
games. The first Summer of Arcade
back in 2008 is seen by many as a
great example of this, with the launch
of original titles like Castle Crashers^
and Braid. This was the moment that
independent games burst into the
mainstream. It continued to grow and
evolve at such a pace that it was clear
to Microsoft that for its next console it
would need to change how it worked
with indies.
Enter ID@Xbox. Back in 2012, Chris
Charla and his team travelled around
the globe visiting developers to find
out what they wanted for indie games
on Xbox. “We did a huge listening
tour,” explains Charla. “Well I say huge,
it felt huge at the time. It was little
more than 50 developers, and today
with more than 3,000 developers in
the program it doesn’t seem that
The reception given to the ID@
Xbox program was hugely positive.
“When we started we didn’t know
how many folks were going to apply
and how many developers we were
going to be working with, and I would
say we dramatically underestimated
it,” says Charla. “I sort of anticipated
at in the first two or three years we
ould maybe have a thousand folks
apply. I think we had more than a
thousand developers signed up
within the first year.”Easy access
ining the ID@Xbox program is a
eeze: all that’s required is that you
gister on the ID@Xbox website
d submit an application. Then,
ce you’re ready to talk about yourABOVE Hollow
Knight was one
of OXM’s Games
of the Year 2018.
BELOW Void
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on054 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE