Before we announced the ID@Xbox program, we did a listening tour in 2012 with more than 50 developers to help us shape a program that really worked for developers. At the time, it felt like a lot of people! It’s almost surreal that we’re now looking at thousands of talented people working at more than 3,000 studios independently creating games for millions of players around the world on Xbox One and Windows 10 with the ID@Xbox program. It’s an amazing feeling to not only see how much the independent development scene has grown over the years, but also to be part of a program that empowers and helps independent developers continue to do what they love.

Sixty-seven countries across the globe, over four billion hours played by the community and more than a billion dollars in digital revenue later, we’re thrilled to share that 1,000 games have been released through the ID@Xbox program. Joining some of our most memorable releases like Studio MDHR’s Cuphead, Fullbright’s Tacoma, playdead’s INSIDE, Chucklefish’s Stardew Valley, Matt Makes Games’ Celeste and The Behemoth’s Pit People, games including Team17’s Overcooked 2, Dark Star’s Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption and Pixel Trip Studios’ The Videokid launched this year helping push us to this new milestone.

Over these past five years, we’ve seen the releases of incredible titles across every single genre imaginable – and lots of games we never could have imagined when we got started! We’re stoked that ID@Xbox is continuing to offer developers a place to share their stories in a meaningful way, helping to increase independent game discoverability and shaping Xbox One and Windows 10 as platforms that anyone can make games on and create with. We’re continuing to celebrate this momentum into the future and bring even more rad experiences to players with upcoming titles like Slow Bros.’s Harold Halibut, Capybara Games’ Below, Aurora 44’s Ashen, Black Desert from Pearl Abyss and Sable from Shedworks.

The 1,000^th release this month marks an important milestone for ID@Xbox, and we’re taking the opportunity to look back on the impact our development partners and fans have had on the program:

Above all, thank you to the fans that have shown independent developers an indescribable amount of love on Xbox since day one, and thank you to the developers that keep making awesome game and giving us great feedback on a daily basis about how we can improve our program. We’re psyched to help developers bring us more surprises, more outside-of-the-box thinking and discovering new ways to push boundaries within gaming.

Stay tuned to Xbox Wire for more exciting updates on awesome games coming from independent developers via ID@Xbox!

In presenting the results of its survey of 4,300 cloud developers, DigitalOcean seemed surprised that only 55 percent of respondents contribute to open source projects. Yet to tech outsiders — or old-timers — it may be more surprising that more than half of developers do contribute. There are relatively few professions in which companies and their employers regularly offer pro bono services for the greater good of the industry.

DigitalOcean, which provides cloud infrastructure software and services, has timed its “Currents” survey release in conjunction with the conclusion of its fifth annual Hacktoberfest program. Co-hosted with GitHub and twilio, Hacktoberfest invites developers to collaborate during the month of October on a smorgasbord of open source projects.

Corporate leaders appear to be sending mixed messages to their developers about open source. Although 71 percent of respondents to the DigitalOcean survey said that their employers “expect them to use open source software as part of their day-to-day development work,” employers are less supportive of their developers contributing to software that doesn’t directly benefit the company. Only 34 percent of respondents said they were given time to work on open source projects not related to work.

Younger developers more willing to contribute

The report reveals some encouraging signs, as well. Some 37 percent of the developers said they would contribute more to open source if their companies gave them the time to do so. In addition, despite some 44 percent of respondents saying they don’t contribute because they feel they lack the right skills and 45 percent saying they don’t know how to get started, the less experienced, and presumably younger, developers appear more open to contributing. A total of 60 percent of developers with five or fewer years of experience contribute to open source, while the number is “significantly less” for developers with more experience, says DigitalOcean. This bodes well for future contribution levels.

Developers in India were more likely to contribute to open source projects (68 percent) than any other nationality. Although DigitalOcean did not speculate, this may be due in part to the younger average age of Indian developers.

Motivations to contribute include the opportunity to improve coding skills, learn new technologies, and advance one’s career. Also noted was the less tangible benefit of being part of a community.

Among the many other findings in the survey, the leading programming language for open source projects was JavaScript (62 percent) followed by Python at 52 percent. The only other languages over 20 percent were PHP (29 percent), Java (28 percent), and CSS (25 percent). When asked which open source projects have “excited you the most” over the last three years, the React.js JavaScript library for building UIs took the top spot with 468 mentions, followed by Kubernetes (335), Docker (252), Linux (240), and Tensorflow (226).

Companies are failing to lead the open source charge by example. Only 18 percent of employees said their companies actively participated in open source organizations such as the listed examples: Apache Foundation, Node.js Foundation, and Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Three out of four respondents said their companies have donated $1,000 or less to such organizations over the last year.

Not surprisingly, high cost was the leading reason (38 percent) why companies skimp on open source donations and labor contributions. This was followed by a preference for in-house development (33 percent) and lack of knowledge of the listed organizations (27 percent). More promisingly, 29 percent said their companies plan to contribute to such organizations in the future.

When asked which of the five leading tech companies were doing the most to support open source, 53 percent listed Google, and Microsoft came in second at 23 percent. Next came Facebook (10%), Amazon (4%), and Apple (1%). Although IBM does not appear on this list, its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat this weekend — the largest software acquisition in history — should boost its already extensive open source contributions in cloud software.

New official Sega merchandise stores for the UK and Europe are now available to visit online.

Sega tells us that the Sega Shop is “the definitive shopping portal for Sega themed merchandise”, with a range of Numskull Designs-developed products available to purchase as we speak. Products for both stores are set to include t-shirts, beanies, snapbacks, socks, pin badges, mugs, and more from some of Sega’s most iconic brands.

The launch range has a pretty impressive mix of iconic SEGA properties including Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kidd, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Yakuza, alongside even more merch relating to the Mega Drive and Dreamcast consoles. Jason Rice, Director of Licensing for SEGA Europe, has said the following:

“Our partnership with Numskull represents a major part in the strategy to grow our e-commerce presence, and to offer a destination for SEGA fans, who can now obtain exclusive and innovative products across a range of categories and brands.”

Here are the links if you want to check out the stores for yourself: Sega Shop UK | Sega Shop Europe

If you sign up to your chosen store’s mailing list, you’ll be able to snag 15% off your first order (you can find links to do just that near the bottom of the store’s home page).

Do we have any Sega fans in the room? Are you resisting the urge to spend your life savings as we speak? Let us know if you’ll be visiting the store in the comments.

Bless Online is Now Available on Steam!

The evolution of high fantasy MMO

Dive into the beautiful world of Bless with breathtaking experiences that feels surreal.

Bless offers variety of contents such as RvR battles, field PvP, dungeon exploration, field raids, monster taming, and much more.

“The fear is those at the top have seen how profitable this is working at 150, 200 percent and wonder why we should ever slow down.”

– An anonymous Rockstar developer weighs in on the company’s crunch culture

Rockstar Games has long had a troubled relationship with crunch, and concerns over working conditions at the game developer have re-emerged just as the company’s latest game, Red Dead Redemption 2, hits store shelves.

Following criticisms over studio co-founder Dan Houser’s “100-hour weeks” comment, several developers have spoken anonymously to publications like Kotaku to share their crunch and overtime experiences without fear of professional repercussion. While those experiences vary, many of the quotes paint a troubling picture.

A recent story from Eurogamer now backs up much of what was said in that initial Kotaku story and is worth a read for the added perspective it brings to the issue of overtime, mandatory or voluntary, at Rockstar Games.

Devs at Rockstar’s UK-based QA studio Rockstar Lincoln tell Eurogamer of mandatory six-day work weeks and waivers signed to opt out of a UK employment law that would otherwise prevent night shift workers from working more than 8 hours during a single 24-hour span. As of last Friday, seemingly following the public criticism over persistent crunch, employees at that studio were told all overtime was now voluntary, but some speaking to the site say that the terminology is all that’s changed. 

“Naturally it’s a worry that people not working overtime now, even when it is ‘voluntary’, will get a black mark against their name,” said one developer, and many—but not all—of the others interviewed echo that sentiment. 

The full article on Eurogamer has more stories that detail working habits at Rockstar Games from devs who both worked on older titles to those that created the company’s most recent release Red Dead Redemption 2. 

Sometimes a well-intended feature can become more of a liability in the wrong hands. A current trend in SoulCalibur VI’s online play is a perfect example of that.

SoulCalibur VI’s character creation feature offers creative players a significant amount of customization options that have been used to re-create pop culture figures or characters from other games. But those same features are being exploited by some to gain an unfair advantage in online play thanks to a combination of external cheat software and a lack of anti-cheat in the game protections that can block it. 

On first glance, the exploit itself is fairly entertaining, but the result is an unfortunately comedic example of a developer’s well-intentioned feature being used in an unexpected way to get a leg-up in a competitive game mode.

In short, players are placing objects like cubes or apples on their custom character, then enlarging those objects as much as possible until the object completely covers the character itself, with, according to players on Twitter, the assistance of external cheat software not blocked by the game. It makes for a hilarious battle from the outside, but the object itself actually serves to obscure the animations fighting game players rely on to quickly read and react to an opponent’s attacks during a match. Even worse, SoulCalibur VI players have spotted giant colorful cubes and massive battling apples in the more competitive ranked mode as well.

#SoulCalibur6 Hey, I don’t think CaS should be playable in ranked mode, it changes the hitboxes and hurtboxes of the opponents character too much

Others: “No, it’s not that bad”

*Meanwhile in ranked* pic.twitter.com/VZ0DYhq0iO

— Kuma (@_kumaking) October 24, 2018

We know you’re busy and might miss out on all the exciting things we’re talking about on Xbox Wire every week. If you’ve got a few minutes, we can help remedy that. We’ve pared down the past week’s news into one easy-to-digest article for all things Xbox! Or, if you’d rather watch than read, you can feast your eyes on our weekly video show above. Be sure to come back every Friday to find out what’s happening This Week on Xbox!

Play Conan Exiles Free with Xbox Live Gold This Weekend on Xbox One
Conan Exiles first released on Xbox One back in August 2017, then as an Xbox Game Preview title before releasing in May 2018. And just a few days ago we introduced the biggest update to the game since launch, introducing the new concept of taming and owning pets – plus a whole lot more. Now we’re excited to finally… Read more

Hera, Queen of the Gods, Makes Her Royal Entrance to Smite
The Queen of the Gods has arrived in Smite: Battleground of the Gods. Smite features over 90 playable Gods and Goddess from global mythology. Hera, Queen of the Gods, is an iconic character from Greek mythology and a long-requested addition to the Smite universe. Hera has descended from her throne to restore order to the pantheons… Read more

Buy a Double Chalupa Box for a Chance to Win a Limited-Edition Xbox
When combined, few things are better than tacos and Xbox. Calling all Taco Bell fans – here’s one you won’t want to miss. That’s right, in the United States, Taco Bell is partnering with Xbox again to give fans the chance to win limited-edition Xbox One X consoles each time they buy a $5 Double Chalupa Box starting October 18… Read more

Learn About the Inspiration Behind The Jackbox Party Pack 5
Our team has been so excited to bring The Jackbox Party Pack 5 to Xbox One players. We feel that this Party Pack showcases the fun gameplay you’ve come to expect from us while throwing in some major surprises that we think you’ll love. We made it our goal to home in on the things that players (and streamers) would appreciate… Read more

Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption Available Today on Xbox One and Xbox Game Pass
We started working on Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption because we wanted to make something for ourselves. We’d worked for bigger studios for years and with the rise of indie games around the world, we decided that we wanted to join the party and make our own indie game. Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption came about… Read more

Watch the Red Dead Redemption 2 Launch Trailer
America, 1899. The end of the Wild West era has begun. After a robbery goes badly wrong in the western town of Blackwater, Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are forced to flee. With federal agents and the best bounty hunters in the nation massing on their heels, the gang must rob, steal and fight their way across… Read more

Classic Valve Titles Now in Enhanced Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility Collection
The Backward Compatibility program has quickly become a hallmark feature of the Xbox family, and we love seeing people discover (or rediscover!) games they may have missed the first time around. Gamers have played over 1 billion hours of Xbox 360 and Original Xbox games on Xbox One – and we think our new release… Read more

Explore a Haunted Amusement Park in Roblox’s Hallow’s Eve Event on Xbox One
Roblox’s annual Hallow’s Eve event has officially begun on Xbox One. Play millions of free, user-created games today by downloading Roblox and start earning limited-time Halloween-themed rewards! Discover What Lurks in Sinister Swamp Underneath the ghostly glimmer of a full moon, the pale visage of a forgotten amusement… Read more

Starter Tips for SoulCalibur VI, Available Now on Xbox One
Welcome back to the Stage of History and prepare to take part in a story of souls and swords! SoulCalibur VI stands as the standard of 3-D weapon-based fighting and continues its long-standing tradition of iconic characters, including new ones, such as Geralt of Rivia as a special guest character. The formidable protagonist from The Witcher series… Read more

A Guide to Weapon Specializations in Battlefield V
The weapons of Battlefield V are powerful, deadly, and adjustable. You read that right; you can modify your primary weapons by using them in battle and spending the in-game currency you’ll earn by playing the game. Want more accuracy when you’re lining up your next target? How about a faster hipshot in the thick of battle… Read more

Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 23 – 26
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox, where we cover all the new games coming soon to Xbox One! Every week the team at Xbox aims to deliver quality gaming content for you to enjoy on your favorite gaming console. To find out what’s coming soon to Xbox One, read on below and click on each of the game profiles for pre-order details (dates are subject to… Read more

Watch the Forza Racing World Championship 2018 – Oct. 20 & 21
This Saturday Oct. 20 and Sunday Oct. 21, the Forza Racing Championship (ForzaRC) 2018 season races to the finish line with its final and most exciting event of the year – the Forza Racing World Championship (ForzaRWC) 2018. After months of competition, the top 24 global drivers will take the stage at Gfinity Esports Arena…. Read more

Creating Rhyme Without Reason in Kingdom Come: Deliverance DLC Amorous Adventures
Honeyed Words, the first quest in our Kingdom Come: Deliverance: The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon DLC, was one of my favourite quests to work on – the design nicely develops the relationship between Henry and Hans Capon. It’s a classic buddy relationship, beginning with antagonism, slogging through an unwilling… Read more

Stardew Valley, the Herculean effort from sole designer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone, is massively popular across every platform it’s been ported to – and that’s practically everything, including PS Vita and Nintendo Switch. Now you can cross iOS (with Android coming soon) off the list at long last, with the long-awaited mobile version of the indie farming sim/role-playing game finally out on the market. It’s available now for just about anyone who wants to carve out some time to try the accessible yet challenging sim game, and its mobile iteration is its most ambitious yet. It succeeds at making farming and everything that goes with it a fun and intriguing adventure for just about everyone, too, albeit with a few small missteps that come with the mobile territory.

The game invites you to take on the mammoth responsibility of caring for your late grandfather’s farm, which is a sizable plot of land that lays in disrepair. It’s your job to build up your plot of land to its former glory while getting on with the other citizens of Pelican Town, where the game all goes down. This includes growing crops, raising livestock, and performing a variety of important activities that all take place in day-to-day farming. Much like the very similar Harvest Moon series, you’ve got to take care of everything on your own, whether that means clearing your farming area of bushes and rocks to make space for crops, watering them, harvesting them, and collecting supplies to keep things running smoothly.

Planting crops and harvesting them means you’ll turn a profit, of course, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Crafting, raising livestock, and interacting with the NPCs around you play large roles in the game as well. There’s always something new to do, whether you’re getting to know the abundance of NPCs out in the world, learning to fish and selling off your hard-fought spoils, or heading into the mines to become a seasoned member of the Adventurer’s Guild. There really feels as though there’s no end to what you can accomplish, no matter if you’re just starting out or heading back in for round two, three, or four – no shame!

But despite all of these things being available for you at any given time, there’s no real push to try and make you concentrate on one thing out of it all. You can explore as you wish, at your own leisurely pace, whether you spend an entire day weeding your fledgling farmland or meet up with the locals before going to your in-game bed to advance time to the next day. If there’s a special someone you enjoy speaking to and getting to know, there’s even a chance you might marry them one day, which is a delight in and of itself.

There’s always something more to do around the corner, and the game reminds you of this at every turn. But it never forces you into completing objectives if you don’t want to. It continually introduces new optional quests to take on as it gently pushes you to dig deeper into the systems it’s already lavished you with. It’s difficult to believe all this content is the work of one man, as it’s polished and in fine form, and all here laid out for you to enjoy once more, even if you’ve clocked an ungodly number of hours on another platform.

Mechanically, Stardew Valley‘s iOS version is just as sound as ever. It’s the same fantastic, content-rich game you’ve likely played on just about every other platform. Unfortunately, the mobile version makes a few sacrifices to make it accessible for players on the go. You can tap on the screen to make your character travel to a certain point and tap and drag. It works well enough, but it can be frustrating when navigating tight quarters such as your farmland, which is lined with rocks and other obstacles at the beginning of the game.

What’s more, your tool line-up is set on the left side of the screen in the vertical position, which makes tapping or dragging your character to travel in that direction a pain when you’re forever accidentally hitting a tool instead of heading to the next screen. This is an issue those who play on other platforms won’t run into and isn’t a huge problem, but it’s massively frustrating sometime when you keep having to switch from tool to tool instead of moving to the next screen. Combat controls don’t get any better, but it’s serviceable. Again, these are minor problems in the grand scheme of things (such as the whole of Stardew Valley being available here on mobile), but it’s also enough to drive one to hope for MFi controller support in the future.

Additionally, there’s no multiplayer option available, though it’s not exactly the version I’d recommend playing with others on – it’s still something players would like to see eventually, though, myself included.

Stardew Valley on iOS is another excellent version of the popular farming title, and while it has its own platform-related peculiarities, it’s still very much the same fantastic product, with everything you love about the other versions packed in here. It’s a great and affordable way to experience the full game if you haven’t already, and while you might get a touch annoyed with its mobile-centric control scheme, it’ll still suck you in immediately for the long haul – better settle in.