Xbox is taking steps to give more indie games high visibility in the Microsoft Store, offering players a wider selection of games and giving indie developers a better chance to reach them. The Xbox brand has been working for years to build a strong relationship with the indie developer community, and this change to its digital storefront is meant to ensure fairer practices for showcasing games to potential customers.
Microsoft's commitment to indie developers took a big hit before the release of the Xbox One in 2014. While promoting the console, Xbox announced that it would launch and sponsor an indie developer program, providing tools, development kits and information to game developers looking to enter the console market. This culminated in the ID@Xbox program, which allows independent developers to self-publish games created for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC, bringing thousands of games to the console market.
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Xbox is now making changes to the Microsoft Store that should help developers and especially those in the indie scene reach more players. Coming at the end of the GDC Festival of Gaming, a new message for fans and developers alike announces that upcoming policy changes will soon be enacted when it comes to the digital store algorithm, and in particular the New Releases section. One immediate change that is being made in response to developer complaints is that publishers will not be able to rig the system to showcase their game more often by publishing the same game pack multiple times in the storefront. “Our developer code of conduct is clear: people can't try to push other games out, and it's important to us to run a store where every game is treated fairly!” says the official report.
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This is only the first change that Xbox has planned for changes to the store's algorithm policies. It states that more changes are coming soon, although there is no indication of what they will mean. The report seems to focus particularly on indie developers, referencing them several times and praising the indie community for their ingenuity. Indie games will hit hundreds of millions of dollars in Microsoft Store sales in 2025, and Xbox executives attribute this financial success to “fantastic developers who make games.”
Despite the expanding horizons of Xbox's sphere of influence, including the expansion of cloud gaming and stronger connectivity between console and PC gaming, it seems that Microsoft still has big plans for the ID@Xbox program. In an interview with GameRant about a year ago, program director Guy Richards expressed a desire to help indie developers reach cross-platform audiences, a trend that Xbox itself has followed in recent years. Xbox has also increased the number of information sessions it offers to developers in the independent market, including those in its Developer Acceleration program. By early 2025, Xbox had paid out more than $5 billion in royalties to independent developers who published games through the ID@Xbox program, making it a lucrative incentive for both parties.
In addition to Xbox promoting smaller developers through these outreach and development assistance programs, Xbox Game Pass features hundreds of indie games that have been selected through the ID@Xbox program, giving those selected a direct link to an estimated 35-37 million players worldwide. Indie hits on Xbox Game Pass in recent years include Kenny Sun's Ball x PitLocalThunk's Balatroand Aggro Crab's Another crab treasureand while a new report from Xbox says that not every indie game will see that level of success, the platform provides plenty of opportunities for indie developers to reach gamers.
Source: XboxWire
