While receiving a lifetime achievement award, Phil Spencer about his wish that gamers would get on with each other better and stop disrespecting developers.
Xbox might have only celebrated its 20th anniversary as a brand last year, but Phil Spencer has been working in and around games for almost 35 years.
To acknowledge his contributions to the industry he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent DICE 2022 event in the US and used the occasion to talk about his hopes for the industry and to speak to gamers directly.
‘[K]eep playing, keep using your voice, understand the power of creativity, the power of community, Spencer’, he told IGN after the ceremony. ‘The other thing I would just say is, let’s respect creators. I think it’s very often that creations can be kind of weaponised and used in battles between platforms and other things.’
‘I look at everybody who is brave enough to create something, put it out… have their peers, the industry, players, play and analyse and talk about what they do, and let’s just celebrate the fact that so many great games are coming out from so many creators, and realise that’s such a foundation for where this industry is going to go.’
During his acceptance speech he spoke of the need to tackle toxicity in all aspects of the industry, including the working environment at publishers and developers – in what was a clear reference to the many controversies at Activision Blizzard, which Microsoft is in the process of acquiring for $68.7 billion.
‘We have a responsibility to everyone in this business. We have a responsibility to society. And we have a responsibility to ourselves,’ Spencer said. ‘Our responsibility is simple: do everything possible to ensure that this entire industry is about treating every single person with dignity and respect.’
Spencer is widely respected as an astute businessman and a keen gamer, who rarely indulges in rhetoric against Xbox rivals. Although he was recently criticised for obfuscating the circumstances behind Microsoft’s initial approach to buy Activision Blizzard.
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