Microsoft Makes Its Framework for Inclusive Game Development Available to the Public

Furthering its efforts to make gaming more accessible and inclusive, Microsoft announced a new framework for developers today at GDC 2024.

“For years, we’ve been on a journey to help our teams with the tools and knowledge they need to deliver more inclusive products and games, as we aspire to reach the 3+ billion players on the planet,” Microsoft head of gaming Katy Jo Wright writes in the announcement post. “Today Team Xbox shared publicly for the first time the Gaming for Everyone Product Inclusion Framework, a set of actionable resources meant to help game developers—and the wider games industry—weave intentionality and inclusion into the products they make, in order to reach a broader set of players worldwide in a meaningful way.”

The Gaming for Everyone Product Inclusion Framework is a set of actionable resources for developers that builds on the gaming accessibility advances the firm has been making since it created its Gaming for Everyone initiative in 2015. It created the framework internally in 2019, focusing on approachability, representation, globalization, and accessibility, and now it is sharing it with outside developers.

Among other things, the framework highlights 10 product inclusion actions—design for safety and trust, create entryways for new users, help customers feel seen, co-create with communities, design for the global market, engage local markets, make products accessible by design from day one, share inclusive features in product and marketing, leverage inclusive listening systems, and create custom and personalized experiences—that developers can take to deliver more inclusive games. And interested parties can download documentation in several different languages to learn more.

“It is important to note that the Product Inclusion Framework is not meant to be a checklist or any sort of mandate of what makes an ‘inclusive game’,” Wright continues. “Rather, the resources and tools within the framework are designed to be a guide for developers, to help enable them to make an intentional decision to either open or leave a door closed, based on the game experience they’re trying to create.”