【1980 Archives】

Xbox Game Pass980 Archivesalready one of the best subscription deals in gaming, and Microsoft has a plan to level it up.

The Xbox maker revealed what it's calling (for now) "Project Moorcroft" during a recent press briefing. Sarah Bond, VP of the Game Creator Experience and Ecosystem at Microsoft, laid it all out in the context of a larger discussion about trade shows like E3 and the challenges faced by game creators, and indies in particular, as they try to stand out from the crowd.

In Bond's words, the goal of Project Moorcroft is to "take Game Pass and make it like the show floor." So a developer would be able to "take a piece [or] level of their game, release it into Game Pass, generate excitement for what's coming, and also get that really valuable feedback as they're tuning and preparing their game for launch."

It's a solid idea. Even without the global pandemic, the advent of streaming video and cloud-based gameplay has kicked down the walls that previously set up press (and later, influencers) as the primary disseminators of information coming from game publishers and developers. Industry-centric trade shows like E3 were already facing a transitional period even before COVID-19 arrived.

So the basic premise of Moorcroft bringing that preview portion of the trade show experience into players' homes is a natural step for any publisher to take. Microsoft already has the infrastructure in place for cloud-based gaming and this new program would put that technology to use in a new way.

Bond also revealed that the program is structured to provide participating developers with "financial compensation." That's important because it addresses one of the bigger pain points video game creators face when it comes to trade shows: Building demos for an E3 or a Gamescom is costly. The slices we see at these events aren't simply copy-pasted out of a larger experience. They're custom built and polished to run for (and, they hope, dazzle) show attendees.

Microsoft's move to give development teams financial incentive to participate in Moorcroft is a more invisible feature of the program if you're a player. But it's a smart, creator-friendly decision that makes it much more likely that any given studio will want to participate. In other words, financial incentive for creators likely means more cool demos for you to check out at home. When the industry empowers creators to do what they do best, we all win.

Project Moorcroft is expected to launch in 2023, so we'll have to wait and see if the reality matches up with the promise.