Office Hours Recap - ID@Xbox

Game dev can be hard. There’s a lot to learn, social networks to build, and always new problems to solve. Microsoft wants as many game developers to succeed as possible, and we want to help you on your journey. That’s why, every Friday morning at 11:00 AM Pacific, we invite the game development community to join us on our official Discord for Office Hours.

By creating an open and welcoming community space, one where you can make connections with real industry professionals and ask questions about the issues that are most important to you, we’re making more resources accessible to developers of all sizes from across the globe.

Each week, we invite an experienced game developer to join us, tell their story, and answer any questions you might have about their work. If you’d like to keep up with who will be joining us and what topic we’ll be covering, join our Discord server and keep an eye on the #announcements channel for calendar updates!

On September 12, 2025, we welcomed Guy Richards and Mike Siebert to talk all about the ID@Xbox program.  

Guy Richards is the Director of ID@Xbox. With a career spanning digital publishing, platform partnerships, and business development, he has been part of Team Xbox for the past 9 years. Guy leads the Partnerships for ID@Xbox, where his team empowers creators of all sizes from around the globe to achieve greater success and reach more players across all Xbox devices.

Michael Siebert is a Lead Developer Partner Manager on the Xbox Developer Relations team. Michael has been with Team Xbox for over 17 years, with previous stints in Microsoft Game Studios and Xbox Live before joining Dev Rel. He and the Dev Rel team support developers in the ID@Xbox program as they bring their games to Xbox consoles, PC and Cloud streaming.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about working at Xbox?
A: [Michael] One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Xbox is that, in the time I’ve spent here, there’s always been an interest in really trying to expand the boundaries of gaming. It started with the first project I worked on, a game on 360 called One Vs. 100 which is a multiplayer trivia game. At the time, we were kind of breaking new ground in that there really wasn’t anything like that in the industry, much less here at Microsoft. So, a lot of what we were building in that game we were doing for the first time. We weren’t just continuing a franchise or building off something that existed before. We had to ask how we could change the paradigm and bring something like episodic television to gaming.

I’ve had a long career here at Xbox, and we’re always asking those kinds of questions, right up to now with the ROG Xbox Ally. We have to be constantly looking at where we’re at in gaming and asking, “what’s next?”

[Guy] I completely agree. What was in my head was around just being at the forefront of so many different things. If I look back at my nine years here, there’s been new generations of console launches, streaming, Game Pass, subscription, and now handheld. We’re always pushing and looking to do cool new things, but always with the mindset of how to make it easier for developers and having that focus on developers in everything we do. That makes everything we do unique.

[Michael] Pushing boundaries is great, but it only matters if we’re able to bring the developer with us to the end of the journey. How can we move the industry forward and enable developers to make their games more accessible or create new kinds of experiences for their players?

Q: In your time working on ID@Xbox, is there a project you’ve worked on that really stands out? What stood out about it?
A: [Guy] For me, I always remember one of the first projects I worked on, which was a game called Everspace. It’s a space combat title from a German studio called Rockfish Games. This was in like 2016, and they were one of my first developers to work with. It was also one of the first third-party titles to launch with support for Xbox Play Anywhere. If I fast forward a couple of years, we had Everspace 2 come from the same studio and launch into Xbox Game Pass. Just being able to work with them a second time a few years down the line, seeing how our tech stack had changed, having Game Pass brought to PC and what that brought to their audience… The first partnership brought success overall but had a few hurdles to overcome. The second game just had everything come together, though, and it really showed how far Xbox had come. Seeing so many things come together like that was just really cool.

[Michael] So many come to mind! One of them is a series of games. I think most people know MLB the Show is available on Xbox. But what they might not know is that it’s actually published through the ID@Xbox program. I remember starting to work with that team, which shipped its first version with MLB the Show 2021. They had never shipped a game on Xbox or developed for any Xbox platform before. With it being an annual release, we have now gone through several cycles with them. Being able to see them from when they first started out to now and being with them on that journey of multi-platform and what that means. That team is just a machine; they have really developed processes for how they ship their games and it’s been great working with them on that.

A more recent example is with Expedition 33, which I hear some of you all have probably played. It’s a fantastic game and for many of them, not just the studio, it’s their first game. They’re first-time game developers. It’s special to be able to see a developer that can capture something that magical and ship a game that exceeded all expectations, including those of the fans that have played it. That’s really motivating and gives me a lot of energy to continue what I’m doing.

Q: What advice do you have for smaller studios to maximize their success when shipping on Xbox?
A: [Michael] I would say, specifically talking about developers that maybe haven’t shipped on Xbox or console before, the first thing I’d recommend is to read through the Xbox requirements. For those of you who haven’t read our documentation, most of the Xbox developer documentation is available publicly. You can find a lot of it at learn.microsoft.com.

As you go through those requirements, ask yourself “How do I take a game that I have that’s on PC or another platform and bring it to Xbox?” It helps you set a bar you need to hit in terms of passing Xbox certification and getting approved for release. It can give you a road map as to what are all the different pieces that your game needs to make it onto Xbox. Do you need to have cloud saves as part of that? Okay, now you know you need to go and integrate with the game save API. If it’s a multiplayer game, ask yourself how you plan to handle matchmaking or handle join-in-progress.

By starting at the end, it sets you up for success and lets you plan how you’re going to tackle that process.

[Guy] That’s pretty good advice, Mike. I was going to add on that you should take a look at documentation around Xbox Play Anywhere. What does it mean for you to implement XPA into your own project? How does that impact your timeline? The earlier you can do that, the better.

By supporting XPA, you’re going to have a game that can reach players across the entire ecosystem that we’re building for developers. We’re seeing that titles that support Xbox Play Anywhere are seeing a 20% increase in hours played. We announced at last GDC that we have over 1000 XPA enabled titles now. As more developers are choosing to build XPA games, we’re seeing that more players are choosing to spend more time playing them as well. Definitely think about it early on!

The other thing is to just talk to us early! If you haven’t signed up for ID@Xbox, join the program and get our newsletter. You’ll get platform updates and news about marketing opportunities. The earlier we know about your game and have a conversation, the more we can help you meet those certification requirements or help you plan for those launch day marketing activations. As developers, you have more options than ever for platforms you can go to. There’s often no right or wrong way to do it, but there are pros and cons to staggering your announcement or release dates and that’s something we can chat about too.

Q: How does cross play impact a game’s visibility on the marketplace, if it does at all?
A: [Guy] We love cross play. From both a platform and policy perspective, with Xbox trying to be at the forefront, pushing cross play as a platform has been one of those goals. A developer who wants cross play in their game within the Xbox ecosystem is one whose goals aligns with ours, especially as we continue to push forward Xbox Play Anywhere (XPA). If you want to have cross play outside just the Xbox ecosystem, we love that too!

[Mike:] With cross play, there’s a couple ways to look at it. For titles that are supporting XPA that have multiplayer, that’s a way in which the audience for both versions can be extended. You can find more people to play with and that can help create stickiness for your game. People are more attracted to multiplayer games that have an active community of players they can engage with.

You don’t have to look far into the top played multiplayer games to find those that support cross play. I don’t want to diminish the amount of effort and energy that goes into making a game cross play enabled, but the benefit for multiplayer titles especially is potentially very huge.

That said, it’s not required to have cross play to be in the ID@Xbox program. If you see requirements listed, that’s only if your game plans on supporting that feature. It’s a list of standards that applies to that feature’s certification requirements, not an indication that your game is required to have it at all. It’s important to read the documentation closely; all the requirements for supporting each feature is well documented, but not all of it is required for every game.

Q: What are some key marketing or visibility opportunities within ID@Xbox that we shouldn’t miss once our game is closer to launch?
A: [Guy] There’s lots of these! If we go right to the beginning of the marketing timeline, we’re looking at announcement opportunities. Ask yourself how are you going to announce this game? Are you going to put your product up on another platform at the same time? Are you planning on trying to get on wish lists early? Do you plan on building your community on Discord or Reddit early?

That’s one way of announcing a game. If you see a lot of success with an early announcement you can start building a social media following. That gives you data points you can use to build momentum when you’re having conversations with publishers, media influencers, or even other platforms. It demonstrates you’re a step ahead.

Alternatively, we do a lot of showcases with Xbox, like the Xbox Summer Showcase in June. There are partner previews in fall and spring. These are Xbox-produced showcases that focus on third-party developers, from AAA all the way down to Indie. We’ve also done ID@Xbox specific showcases, like last February when we partnered with IGN and showcased only ID@Xbox games. If your game is unannounced, it might make a good world premiere. That’s an ideal candidate for a showcase.

 So the advice there would be think about what’s the right thing to do for your game and how to bring it to market. Do you want to have a conversation with us first to see if there’s a showcase opportunity? Or do you want to get the game out there and start building your audience early? Speak to us early, and we can talk about it with you.

After that, there’s so many little things we can talk about. Pre-orders, discounting, best launch timing, maximizing your visibility on the store… There are a lot of conversations to have, and we’re always happy to talk about best practices.

Q: How much of a vertical slice does a game need for its application to ID@Xbox?
A: [Guy] Honestly, it’s different for every game. What a 4x grand strategy game looks like in its vertical slice stage is different from a tower defense title, for example. It’s hard to say exactly what works.

For a lot of those big partnership opportunities like with Game Pass considerations, the advice I’ll give developers is that we like to go hands on with gameplay. In the same way you’re thinking about pitching the game to other publishers in the industry, you want to make sure what you’re presenting is fun and showcases what makes your game unique. That will always be specific to what kind of title you’re building.

Q: For indies and ID@Xbox, how does the process of pitching a game for Game Pass work and at what stage of development is it best to reach out?
A: [Guy] Rewind a few years back and it used to be that the way to pitch to Game Pass was to know somebody at Xbox. We love chatting to developers, but it wasn’t the most inclusive way for developers from around the world. Like, what if you don’t know anybody at Xbox? What if you live in a place where there isn’t access to regular industry events, or don’t have the ability to attend them?

So, where we are today, speaking to somebody at ID@Xbox like myself is a great place to start if you have that opportunity. But now any developer can register with ID@Xbox by going to Xbox.com/publish to access our onboarding hub where we’ve provided a pitching process. That allows you to submit your game directly to our internal green light process for Game Pass. You can submit all the information that we need to conduct internal initial reviews and goes straight into our weekly meetings, though it can take up to two weeks.

That process has really helped because more developers around the world now have the chance to be considered for Xbox Game Pass. And it’s helped save our inboxes from being drowned by pitch submissions! It’s way more efficient, allows us to get back to developers quicker, and gives us better tracking and responses as well.

In terms of timing, I’m always going to say speak to us early! However, it’s better to talk to us when you have something playable. I’ve been in some situations where we look at a game a little too early and then 9 or 12 months pass before we see something playable. We see a lot of games, so after all that time, it feels like we have to start everything all over again.

Q: What would you consider is the definition of playable?
A: [Guy] Lots of people have different definitions of this. Vertical slices, demos, prototypes. I’ll come back to something I said earlier: as a developer, you really want to make sure what you show is capturing what makes your game special. It needs to be fun, and it needs to capture the essence of your pitch deck. That might be your gameplay loop, it might be something else.

Our portfolio team is pretty used to seeing things early. So don’t worry if you don’t have final art or something is unpolished. You can supplement your build with things like mockups or screenshots to show different parts of your game while it’s in progress.

Q: What would you consider the most important thing to keep in mind for initially applying?
A: [Guy] I’d carefully consider your release date plan, including a timeline with context around your release window. That will help us understand where you are today, how much development you’re planning to have left, and what your roadmap looks like.

Additionally, a window is better than aiming for a specific date. There might be better marketing opportunities we can help leverage for you if we’re looking at your game as having a date range.

[Mike] Adding on to that, have an idea of what your game is going to be. Know your features, plan out your development cycles, and what you need to take time to build into your game. Taking the time and having that inventory for yourself will allow you to better relay to other people what your experience is going to be. Having a clear vision for your game will make your review process that much easier and really set you up for success.

If you'd like to learn more about the ID@Xbox program, you can read more information here or get started on your application.