Microsoft plans to take indie development to the cloud with ID@Azure

The pandemic has undoubtedly changed the way people work. Remote and hybrid working solutions started to crop up out of necessity while people were locked down at home, and while some companies are eager to get their employees back in the office, others have embraced the new approach.

One such company seems to be Microsoft, which revealed its new ID@Azure project at GDC this year. The main thrust of the program appears to be a shift towards a cloud-based working environment for developers, particularly indies, offering a suite of powerful tools to those who might otherwise lack the wherewithal to buy or use them on their local machines. The initiative, which is expanding from a closed beta to general availability today, could have the potential to provide resources to indie devs and allow for better collaboration between remote or geographically-displaced teams.

It will be interesting to see how the system pans out in practice, though. The intent is good; cloud-based initiatives, from gaming to corporate collaboration, are still in their relative infancy. ID@Azure, for example, is using Parsec as a remote desktop and collaboration tool, which boasts low latency and high fidelity. However, it remains to be seen how well the system operates at scale, especially when needing to deal with assets with large file sizes and effective version control.

The initial response from the beta testers appears to be positive. Developers from studios such as Add-A-Tudez Entertainment, Fast Travel Games, and Heart Shaped Games commented that the program could “help smaller studios be more competitive,” has been “incredibly helpful and valuable,” and could help small teams “pursue more ambitious online designs.”