Xbox: Independent developers are leading where the industry is going
Christopher Dring
Head of Games B2B
Wednesday 1st June 2022
Xbox
Indie developers should think of themselves as leaders in the video games industry, says the head of ID@Xbox Chris Charla.
Speaking during GI Live: Online, the Microsoft exec says that indie games today are going toe-to-toe with the AAA giants, and that in many ways they are showing the way forward for bigger studios.
"I date that 2008 launch of [2D hack and slash game] Castle Crashers as the beginning of an indie Golden Age," he said in an interview you can watch below.
iD@Xbox head Chris Charla
"14 years in and that Golden Age hasn't stopped. We look at the games that have come out recently, games like Tunic, like Shredders. It's just amazing. We started out by seeing games like Castle Crashers, like Braid, that are sort-of like from an earlier time. We saw a lot of early indie games look like 8-bit games, in terms of look and play style, with 2D side scrolling, that sort of thing.
"As time's gone on, what we've seen is independent developers start to occupy every niche that has ever been successful in the history of game development, starting from that 8-bit era onto the 16-bit era, with slightly bigger teams, slightly more graphic fidelity. Then the 32-bit era with 3D coming into play.
"Now we're on Gen 9 with our consoles, Xbox Series X, Playstation 5, and we see small developers, making games that are super competitive. And I point to Shredders as an example to folks that haven't checked it out, as just a gorgeous game. I think about games [from independent developers] that I can't talk about right now, that I've seen behind the scenes or that I know are coming to Xbox, and there's just some mind blowing visuals coming. To me, it's amazing to see independent
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