Microsoft celebrates three years of ID@Xbox indie game excellence

Indie games are a huge part of the gaming industry, now more than ever. Since Kickstarter came knocking on our doors a few years ago, the interests of core gamers became much more relevant, and the wishes of independent developers suddenly became feasible financially. The Oculus Rift, which started the VR craze that Steam and Sony jumped on to, never would have happened without ambitious independents who had a dream and the drive to realize it.

3 years ago during Gamescom, Microsoft announced the ID@Xbox program, which was made to help indie developers get their games out onto Microsoft platforms. Chris Charla, Director of the ID@Xbox program, put out a post to celebrate the anniversary and talk about the success that the program has had so far. It’s a victory lap that’s long overdue, and it gives much-needed recognition to a team that’s made success possible for tons of titles.

Ark: Survival Evolved, Three Fourths Home, Lifeless Planet, SMITE, #IDARB, Far, INSIDE, and Cuphead were all cited as successes or soon-to-be-successes from the project, and that’s a pretty good list to be touting. Bigger games like SMITE and Ark deserve a spot on that list, INSIDE has proven to be an instant classic, and Cuphead is undoubtedly an indie darling in the making, having gotten tons of attention over the past few years we’ve collectively had our eyes on it.

The post was wrapped up by the announcement that Everspace, an upcoming ID@Xbox title, is going to be making its way onto Windows 10 as the first Game Preview on the Windows 10 store. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Game Preview, it’s a system that lets you pick up a game before it comes out, playing it as the game is developed and offering your feedback to help shape what it ends up becoming. Many PC gamers will be familiar with this system as a parallel to Steam’s Early Access, and should certainly get a kick out of the games headed their way on Windows 10.