Announced over Twitter, the ID@Xbox programme will be partnering with IGN to present the programme’s next showcase which will air next month, on the 11th of July. Like showcases of yore, viewers can expect new game announcements and plenty of gameplay trailers.
The ID@Xbox programme is a group dedicated to help bring indies and games foreign to the Xbox platform. With great success, too, as these independent developers have earned more than $2.2 billion in overall revenue and royalties as of 2022.
Have a gander at the announcement Tweet below or the ID@XBOX blog post for more information. You can watch the show anywhere IGN broadcasts at 10AM PST, check out some of the links below. Demos will also be available for these games from the 11th to the 17th of July for you to try out.
Hopefully this means their partnership with Twitch on ID@Xbox shows is done with. Those shows always presented a lot of great looking games but the pacing was terrible as they would bring in influencers and streamers, completely destroying any momentum and excitement the games provided. It was a terrible format and not being locked down to one platform should reach more people.
More food for us Gamepass users. The games that i play nowdays are like 80 plus percent indies. So more indies on Gamepass is always good. Keep em coming.
Yeah agreed. My hope is that the IGN people have much less air time and they put more of a focus on the games, creating a better flowing show. I just want the games to be the center of attention, not what a bunch of people I don’t care about think about those games.
Especially when a lot of their interest came off as performative. I’m not blaming these folks, either, as a game has to be right up your alley in order to be genuinely excited. They’re just doing their job and likely are trying to just put on a good show.
I can also see why Xbox would have these content creators front and center, as they have their own draw and can bring in their own communities. I liked the idea of them having full interviews with developers. I like the idea of these games reaching out to an audience that likely doesn’t own an Xbox. But it looked like, in execution, that it just didn’t work out. Both in 21 and 22.
Marketing in this sphere is incredibly hard so I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, but I think today’s Nintendo Direct laid out a winning formula.
Each trailer is gameplay guided by a voiceover that goes over the gameplay loop, player goals, possible strategies and possible surprises. It truly showcases the game itself and lets the viewer decide if it’s for them.
It’s a format that allows for a high volume of games to be shown, as well.
But maybe that’s just me. I’m sure there may be some disagreement on how good the Direct format is.
Agreed. The twitch showcases were pretty lame due to being 80-90% look at these cool streamers you could be following. Instead of you know a showcase about games
I thought the host did a good job in the last show and I liked that there were interviews. Love it when developers, especially smaller devs, can talk about the game they’ve been passionately working on. However, half the time it seemed like the streamer/influencer who was conducting the interview wasn’t really interested in the game and going through the motions. I think you are right on the money by describing it as performative and that’s probably my biggest issue with it all. It didn’t come off as genuine relying on people with some sort of status or platform to pull in viewers just never sits well with me. It’s why 99% of the time, I think it’s cringy and roll my eyes when a celebrity shows up at a game show. Except for Keanu Reeves, that dude comes off as a genuine treasure no matter what he does lol He could introduce every game at a show and I’d be ok with it.
