对于James Lewis来说，让游戏产业变得多样化和包容性完全是有意为之.

“Xbox开发者加速计划的一个信条是，如果你没有故意包含, you will unintentionally exclude,” he says.

詹姆斯花了数年时间有意地与与他有共同价值观的Xbox同事建立联系. Today, James is the Program Lead for ID@Xbox’s Developer Acceleration Program该项目旨在帮助未被充分代表的开发者将自己的游戏带到Xbox平台. 他知道，在平台上加入独特的视角将有助于吸引更多不同的用户，他的团队的努力将有助于重塑整个游戏行业.

James’s path to the game industry was different than many of his colleagues. 他拥有戏剧学士学位，并在攻读剧本写作硕士学位时遇到了 Heavy Rain, an action-adventure game that changed the trajectory of his career. 他被游戏的“制作”视频所吸引，并意识到他想开始在幕后制作电子游戏. James left his playwriting program and signed up for Full Sail’s Game Design master’s degree.

“我很害怕，因为我是一个戏剧孩子，进入一个项目，我的很多同学都有计算机科学背景或比我更多的技术学位,” James says. “但我真的很努力，尽了最大的努力，并试图利用我们拥有的每一个机会. 最后，我以全班第一名的成绩毕业，并在此过程中结交了很多很好的朋友.”

詹姆斯对自己新爱好的投入帮助他在毕业后在Xbox Game Studios找到了一份工作. 在接下来的十年里，他在Xbox从事生产、客户管理和业务开发工作. 他还开始与游戏社区中未被充分代表的声音建立联系:他是黑人游戏基金会(Black in gaming Foundation)的成员，也是Xbox黑人员工资源小组的联合负责人. By 2019, 詹姆斯找到了一群志同道合的同事，他们希望为Xbox平台带来新的声音.

“当时有很多很棒的工作正在进行(将各种游戏带到Xbox)。, not as anyone's core job, 但这只是因为人们热衷于创造一个更具包容性的行业，并为开发者创造更多机会,” he says. “It was a strong business need, 因为我们需要接触更多的开发者，为更多开发者创造路径. But it also has always felt like the right thing to do. 我个人认为，当我们在游戏开发中有更多的声音时，我们的行业将变得更好.”

During the next few years, James和他的团队在Xbox的幕后工作，开发了一款成熟的游戏, inclusive program for diverse game developers. James unveiled the Developer Acceleration Program with a presentation at the 2023 Game Developer’s Conference.  

开发者加速计划与来自游戏行业中代表性不足的社区的开发者合作. This includes Black, Latino, and Indigenous developers; disabled creators; women; LGBTQIA+ developers; developers whose games responsibly center stories around diverse characters; creators who prioritize accessibility; and more.

新程序为这些个人提供了许多其他开发人员已经拥有的实用工具. 这包括帮助他们在多个平台上发行游戏的资金, assistance with prototypes, and access to subject matter experts through the program’s Green Room events.

“[For the Green Room events], we’ve had members from Game Pass come in, we’ve had members of the certification team come in. 我们还邀请了营销团队和商店团队的成员一起讨论游戏生命周期. 我们邀请了一些人来讨论游戏的易用性最佳实践。. 

“开发者加速计划”的资源已经对新开发项目产生了影响, diverse creators: So far, the program has partnered with 100 titles and shipped around 30 games. Since the public announcement at the Game Development Conference, James和他的团队一直在处理来自开发者的新请求，并致力于建立新的合作伙伴关系.

有意识地坚持自己的个人价值观有助于James在自己所热爱的角色中发挥作用——这对即将进入游戏行业的专业人士来说是一种有用的方法.  

“Students who are on this path [to increasing diversity and inclusion in games] should know that they don't have to change who they are to fit into this industry; the industry needs to change in order to welcome more people... I just hope that people don't take as long as I did to find your own voice, to find what really matters to you and then seek that out. 但每天看到这么多不同的团队都有这些非常重要的任务和他们正在努力追求的事情，我都受到了鼓舞, that are making this industry a more inclusive space. 所以不要觉得你必须成为不适合这个行业的人. Help evolve this industry into being a more inclusive space.”