Xbox’s Project Moorcroft quietly evolved — here’s what replaced it

Project Moorcroft was Xbox’s initiative announced in 2022 that aimed to make game demos more common on the Xbox Store, with a focus on indie titles. The program was part of ID@Xbox and designed to help smaller developers improve game visibility.

While many ran the story that the initiative was cancelled, and whilst they wouldn't technically be wrong, Xbox’s ID@Xbox global director Guy Richards explained that Xbox has been focusing on demos in a “slightly different direction,” pointing to ID@Xbox demo festivals on the store as one way it is helping players try games early.

In his interview with The Game Business, Richards shed light on what actually happened to the project, so let’s go over the details.

The original goal behind Project Moorcroft

Whatever happened to Xbox Project Moorcroft? - YouTube

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Announced in 2022 by Xbox as part of its ID@Xbox initiative, Project Moorcroft aimed to make game demos more common on the Xbox Store, specifically for indie titles, in the hope of providing them with greater discoverability.

The initiative encouraged developers to release demos for their titles ahead of launch. This helped give players an idea of whether they would enjoy the game and potentially purchase it when it would be released.

Project Moorcroft, as described by Guy Richards in his interview with The Game Business, was more of an experiment. He explained:

He then went on to say that Xbox is still focused on demos as part of its strategy, but in a different direction. He said: "We’ve actually been doing a lot of stuff that’s slightly different with demos recently… We’ve been doing our own ID@Xbox demo festivals on the store, which is a really great opportunity to get games out for players to try early ahead of release."

Perhaps the most important quote from the interview comes from Richards when discussing Moorcroft, explaining, “Demos is an area that we’ve been really, really focusing on, but in a slightly different direction to what Moorcroft was.”

🗨️ What do you think of how Project Moorcroft has evolved?

The initiative itself clearly lives on. Project Moorcroft was an interesting premise that has now evolved beyond its original idea, and as we can see, ID@Xbox itself seems bigger than ever, at least from a consumer point of view.

Let me know in the comments and make sure you take part in the poll below:

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