"The second there was this new distribution mechanism — digital download on console — all these artists like Jonathan Blow (Braid) and the guys from The Behemoth (Castle Crashers) and everyone like that suddenly saw this amazing opportunity," Charla says.

"Just by creating this kind of ecosystem 10 years ago, we saw this huge flowering of creative content."

Other platforms quickly caught on, of course. Nintendo eventually offered downloadable indie content on its ubiquitous Wii console, including hits like World of Goo and the Bit.Trip series. Sony also embraced indies in a big way halfway through the PlayStation 3’s lifecycle, inking exclusive multi-game deals that ensured games including The Unfinished Swan and Journey were available exclusively on its machine.

ID@Xbox was created from scratch for Xbox One as the restrictions of XBLA — games had to come in under a certain size, and developers had to be working with a registered publisher — no longer seemed appropriate.

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"We wanted it to be easy for developers to publish games on Xbox One, and the more we make it easy the more games we’re going to get, the better the games are going to be, the happier gamers are going to be," Charla says.

"We actually came up with a lot of ways to make sure that independent developers had access to everything everybody else — all the traditional publishers — had access to on Xbox, in terms of platform features, documentation, promotional opportunities and everything else.

Today all three major console-makers feature indies in their stores right alongside the massive releases from major publisher, but Charla believes Xbox's proactive approach sets it apart.

"The typical independent developer is probably a little bit smaller in terms of staff, and there’s higher percentage of the company that’s heads down focused on making the game. We see ourselves having a role of just doing a lot of outreach and education," he says.

"Because we can’t expect the folks making Totem Teller have a team dedicated to platform revelations. We know that we have to reach out .... in service of making games easier to ship on Xbox, and let them know what’s going on."

Some of the games have stood out among the rest to make it to mainstream relevance, including the likes of Inside, Cuphead, Celeste and Dead Cells, but many more find smaller — and often no less passionate — audiences.

Whether they're shooters, digital card games, survival simulators or old-school platformers, the challenge is connecting those games with their potential audience; no small task given the bulk of games appearing on the storefront weekly. While Xbox typically does this with personalised recommendations and by making it easy for players to see what their friends and the rest of the community is playing, its most recent tool is Game Pass, a subscription service that gives players access to a curated library of games on demand for $10.95 a month. This Microsoft's own franchises like Halo and Forza, but it also includes a lot of ID@Xbox games.

"[Game pass] is actually turning out to be a really cool discovery mechanism for independent developers, because it really lowers the barrier of entry for members to try new things," Charla says, noting that inclusion in the program led to a lot more people playing, streaming and talking about the games.

Xbox doesn't disclose how much of the monthly fee goes to game developers that have their work included, but Charla says it's in Microsoft’s best interests to make sure being part of Game Pass is a good deal for the developers.

"The additional discovery is a really cool benefit, and then obviously we have a business relationship as well," he said.