The parity clause: For multiplatform AAA studios it means not making one game look exceptionally better on one console than the other. For indies it means releasing at the same time across major console platforms. Heart Machine’s Alex Preston actually came to the defense of Microsoft and explained the parity clause away from the corporate culture that has made it such a PR mess for the average gamer and indie dev.

Worlds Factory caught wind of a written interview over on The Inner Circle, where they talked to Preston about the whole process of designing an indie, going through the crowd-funding and making the game for multiple platforms, which includes the Xbox One.

One of the things that really stood out was a very honest and candid explanation of the corporate culture that muddied the impression of the ID@Xbox program headed up by Chris Charla and overseen by the head of the Xbox division, Phil Spencer.

According to Preston…

“It’s been great[ID@Xbox]. I’ve talked to a few of people now. Chris Charla was the person that we hooked up with to get involved in the first place. He’s awesome. He’s a great evangelist for indies on the platform. We’ve had a few other interactions and it’s been a very smooth experience overall. No complaints from me on them.” “The program has its issues like any program would that’s part of a large corporation. These problems exist on Sony’s side too, which is very indie friendly these days. Everyone solves their issues. Overall, it’s a marked improvement over last generation including the way they interact with people and the response time. It’s all been a very positive experience on our end. There are kinks that need to be worked out and the parity clause can be problematic. Overall, it’s much harder to complain about these programs now than it was 4-5 years ago.”

That’s a very interesting way of looking at it. If you remember way back when during seventh gen, it was Microsoft that actually spearheaded initiatives to bring more indies from the PC space over into the realm of console gaming. The XBLA toolkit also helped bridge the daunting outlook on home console development by offering indies a route to design games for the Xbox 360, oftentimes using the pitch “If you can make a game for Windows you can make a game for the Xbox 360.”

However, the tools these days have made it even easier yet to help indies with no previous design experience make the leap into the home console space. Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program even enables indies to launch their games in the store without worrying about being buried in a hidden section sort of like what happened in the latter years of the XBLIG section.

The only drawback to the ID@Xbox program is the release parity clause. This clause mandates that indies release across Microsoft’s console(s) alongside the release on other home consoles. As Preston explains, this can be a serious financial burden for some studios without the financial muscle to put the extra funds into releasing simultaneously on all platforms, saying…

“It’s a [hindrance] for smaller developers. I get why Microsoft have it in there for larger developers. Developers like us, even with the money we made on Kickstarter, find that a game is really expensive to make. People with even smaller budgets find it harder. You’re forcing them to do a lot of work up front to get on your platform instead of doing it when they can. You’re either telling them you can’t be on our platform, or spend $30,000 extra to get on here at the same time as you would on Sony’s platform.” “The larger issue is that the people behind it and running it, like Chris Charla and the others behind it, are great and fighting for the indie community and want to embrace it. They also work within a larger corporation with its own goals and motivations and sometimes communication breaks down and it’s harder to get something done. Their goals might not be a priority for the larger corporation that they’re working under. There’s a lot of back-and-forth in those situations and I think on Sony’s side they’ve had more autonomy so it’s easier for them to lift certain restrictions and be flexible. It’s corporate culture. It’s small entities within larger entities, within all these different things. It’s complicated.”

Now it’s starting to make sense. If the ID@Xbox policies were in place by management above Charla or before Spencer stepped in control of the division, it’s easy to see how this could have looked like a smart business move by people who don’t have a proper ear to the ground in the indie scene. Sony and Nintendo have done a lot for the indie community over the past two years, and now Microsoft is trying to play catch up after the initial parity clause drove a lot of indies away and into the digital arms of Sony and Nintendo.

However, there have been a lot of positive things being said about the program and Charla has been known to reach out to indies to work out a release schedule so that the studio isn’t burdened trying to get their game on Microsoft’s console.

Hyper Light Drifter is set for release on PC and home consoles some time this year. I imagine Heart Machine’s words of positivity about Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program may help some other indies come around. It can’t be denied that Charla and Spencer have been working their butts off with the rest of the team at the Xbox division to turnaround all the horrible decisions and policies that were put in place by the group management that initially setup the Xbox One and its features.