Xbox's mission to uplift indies in emerging markets

gamesindustry.biz:

At Gamescom Asia last month, Xbox gave a talk about how it empowers creators across the continent, supporting indies so they can make it to the global stage.

These efforts are led, among others, by Agnes Kim, director of strategic markets at Xbox, and Jun Shen Chia, global expansion lead for Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, both of whom we met at the show.

As the lead of Xbox's Strategic Markets team, Kim's remit covers China, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, and Africa.

"It's a lot," she smiles. "Our rule is to bring awesome games to our ecosystem, have partnerships, sometimes beyond content, but mainly focused on bringing those games to the platform. And I have team members in the regions, like Jun Shen who leads the Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan region.

"So we're all about games [and] partnerships really, we're all about the ecosystem, just wanting to see these regions thrive, and for us to help, support, collaborate. We honestly have the best jobs; we go to shows a lot so that we can meet more developers, see more games, and it really helps to be in the scene, to feel it."

Chia adds: "The short and long of it is that a lot of the developers in this region have global ambitions. And we, as Xbox, are here to help facilitate that and bring their games to a global audience."

We ask him whether developers across Southeast Asia have met difficulties akin to what studios have experienced in the west, with waves of layoffs and closures. It's worth noting that 'Southeast Asia' is not one unified market, but a tapestry of fragmented markets with different tastes, as Gamescom Asia project director Daria La Valle told us earlier this year.

"I don't want to give a blanket, generalised [view] but, for sure, the Southeast Asian markets all are facing a lot of the similar challenges than the rest of the world are facing," says Chia, who is also vice chair of the Singapore Games Association. "But when we speak about the independent developer scene, which is most of the developer