Xbox Boss Discusses Creating “User-Adjustable On-Ramps” To Ease Newcomers Into Multiplayer Gaming

Following Xbox’s impressive Games Showcase during Summer Game Fest a few weeks ago, several members of the company’s head staff have taken to podcasts and talk shows to discuss the company’s vision. Among those is Head of Xbox Games Studios Matt Booty, who recently joined the Variety podcast to discuss several topics including the Showcase itself.

One of the topics touched upon was the initiative that Xbox has taken as a company to make established franchises more accessible to newcomers as gaming continues to grow. During the interview, Booty was asked how the company is focusing on nurturing accessibility and keeping the door open to those stepping into the gaming scene for the first time. He had the following to say in response:

Yeah, well, certainly I would start high level. I mean, gaming is in such a different place in pop culture and in entertainment and in the world than it was, say, 5 or 10 years ago. You know, it’s bigger, it’s become more popular. It’s certainly more accessible, more diverse than ever. And in many ways, we compete directly with more of what I would call ‘traditional entertainment.’

I think the thing we’re all working on is, how do we grow those audiences and how to we bring more people into existing franchises? And, you know, you mentioned, how are we doing that on Call of Duty and on Black Ops 6? It is a topic that plays out with something like Minecraft, and it’s something—we just celebrated the 15-year anniversary this summer. And while Minecraft can be seen as visually simple and is very appealing, there are parts of it where there is still a fair barrier to entry if you’ve never played the game before.

So I think all of our teams, including the Call of Duty team, are looking at ‘how can we provide what I would call user-adjustable, user-customized on-ramps that provide a way to get into the franchise?’ Franchises have been around for 10 or 20 years; they sort of collect a lot of institutional lore and a lore of institutional understanding about how to play a game.

The Xbox Studios boss also touched on the specific practices used in more competitive games like Call of Duty and Gears of War, including the recent popular trend of implementing Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) to create more evenly-leveled lobbies:

At times, it can be intimidating coming into a new game. And that can be everything from game mechanics to making sure, even, that we do a very smart job of how we put together our multiplayer matches. You know, one of the things that we use AI for is to make sure in a game like Gears of War, that if you’re in a multiplayer game, you are matched up with someone who is an equal skill level.

You know, there’s nothing more frustrating [than] to be new to a game; you get dumped into a multiplayer match with somebody and you just, you know, you survive for a few seconds. That’s not a person who is going to become a new fan of a franchise. So I think it’s important for us… to not compromise the existing game. We don’t wanna water it down. We wanna make sure that we provide a game that existing fans love. But all of our teams are focused on providing these more broad on-ramps to how we grow audiences.

While SBMM is a very controversial topic amongst competitive gamers, we always advocate for letting more people play and enjoy games. Speaking more generally, working to implement ways to make newcomers feel comfortable is a respectable effort. There’s definitely been a large blossoming of accessibility features in modern gaming and we hope to see that trend continue.

If you missed the Xbox Games Showcase, you can still catch all the highlights right here.

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