“Microsoft Actually Cares About the Indie Market” – Replaced Developer

It’s hard not to take note of how indie-friendly Xbox has become as a platform over the years, and based on the lineup of indie-developed games coming to Xbox over the next few months and years, it’s clear that that’s something that Microsoft is going to continue to emphasize. One such promising-looking indie game coming to Xbox soon is sci-fi platformer Replaced, and with Twinfinite the game’s developers spoke about working with Microsoft.

In particular, Replaced developer Sad Cat Studio co-founder Igor Gritsay’s comments stand out in context of recent reports of how tough most indie developers have found working with Sony. Gritsay remarks that Microsoft “actually cares about the indie market”, and that from his perspective, there isn’t any downside to partnering with Microsoft where an indie developer is concerned owing to the “funding and marketing reach” they provide.

“The biggest part of the partnership for us is that Microsoft actually cares about the indie market,” Gritsay said. “Otherwise, well, there would be much fewer games on all platforms. They really give a chance to small studios to actually produce something and provide marketing awareness to people. I would say that for indie studios, I can’t even think of a con (with partnering with Microsoft) because they provide funding and marketing reach.”

Gritsay also spoke about the merits of Xbox Game Pass, talking about how launching on the service helps smaller titles with everything from accessibility to visibility to sales.

“As for Game Pass, it allows more people to learn about the game, and actually play the game,” Gritsay said. “Because there is frequently this situation for many players where they will see a game in the store and they want it, but at the same time it is $30, $60, or even more, and so you maybe Wishlist it, and then you usually forget.”

“However, with Game Pass you just press a button and install. Of course, sometimes the possible con of this is that, you know, people might be too overflowing with games and so each game gets less attention. Still, equally, it is a chance for those games to shine. In other situations they might otherwise be drowned by thousands of other games. Game Pass allows us and many other developers to actually deliver our project to people. Also, from what I heard, Game Pass also boosts sales, but we’ll see about that! To summarize, it’s a win, win situation for us.”

Replaced is set to launch some time in 2022 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC- and yes, it will be available via Xbox Game Pass via launch.