In the world of entertainment, little lives forever anymore. Movies like Batgirl can be locked in a vault to never be seen again for tax reasons, changes in ownership of franchises can tie up legacy releases in limbo for years and, in July 2024, Microsoft will close down a brand from its storied home console history, which did immeasurable good for Xbox players, and independent game developers who used to be at the complete mercy of giant publishers in order to succeed.

I speak of Xbox Live Arcade and the general digital store for the Xbox 360. The news that it was closing was first revealed by Xbox on its official website in August, and while many seem to have moved on and are making their way through the latest major releases without reflection, I am not this kind of person.

When this platform, which first launched in 2004, entered the Xbox 360 era, independent creators working with various genres could get time in the spotlight with Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays in 2006 and later Summer of Arcade promotions from 2008-13.

Indie Gathering

Through these campaigns on the service with a user base in the millions, a game could see over 300,000 downloads in its first month as Microsoft revealed in a 2007 presentation to partners (archived here). Then, taking into account the lack of need for physical discs to be made (as big games made around the same time like Bioshock required with their multi-million-dollar budgets), you had a system that allowed independent folks to truly thrive.

For those who may not remember, in the past things were very different. As Xbox boss Phil Spencer wrote in a leaked email Kotaku reported on a couple of months ago, people making a game once had to fight for physical shelf space in stores before Xbox Live Arcade (and other digital distribution platforms) came out. Then, you could not just find something easily online and today’s indie hits owe a lot to this new accessibility era introduced by Xbox Live Arcade’s debut.

Here’s how Spencer put it:

“Games like Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, Candy Crush, Clash Royale, DOTA2, etc. were all created by independent studios with full access to distribution,” Spencer writes in his March 2020 message to colleagues. “Overall this, [in my opinion] is a good thing for the industry.”

It certainly has been. Breaking down these walls led to unique works in the vein of Braid, Bastion, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons getting the exposure to be successful, and you have to wonder whether a game that tears down video game conventions like Braid would have been successful enough to get an upcoming remaster had it had to fight for shelf space against the triple-A games or even mid-budget productions backed by a publisher which ruled sales charts.

The Great Shake-Up

Xbox Live Arcade shook up a staid world and its legacy certainly continues today in the current Microsoft Store and through Xbox Game Pass. We are where we are today because of this early and ambitious experiment which others like Sega first flirted with through the Sega Channel which could stream content to owners of the Sega Genesis nearly three decades ago.

Gaming today is all the better for it. Here’s hoping games remaining on Xbox Live Arcade that are not backward-compatible are eventually put onto Xbox Game Pass permanently or given a place in the cloud and people tip their hats to the outgoing service when it finally rides off into the sunset next summer. It certainly was not the birth of indie games, but it certainly gave indie developers a foothold in the market from which they could become as good as they are now.

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