The team at Xbox has spent a lot of time trying to grow the gaming community and bring players closer together regardless of the platform. The company has also made strong pushes to make gaming more user-friendly and accessible for all types of players even teaming up with companies to help promote and develop new tools made with disabled players in mind. Xbox head Phil Spencer recently took some time to reveal his thoughts on what gaming is, should be, and how Microsoft plans to reach these standards.

“No one group “owns” gaming. Instead, whether you’re new to gaming or are a diehard e-sports fan, you are welcome to play and welcome to all the fun and skill-building that comes with gaming,” began Spencer in his most recent blog post. “In this way, when everyone can play, the entire world wins.

“If you imagine gamers as predominantly men and specifically teen boys, think again. We are a 2.6 billion-person strong community of parents playing with our kids, adventurers exploring worlds together, teachers making math wondrous, grandmothers learning about their grandchildren through play, and soldiers connecting with their folks back home. Most gamers today are adults; nearly half are women.”

Spencer explains that he believes that the gaming community stands upon two tenets. The first principle is that gaming is for everybody. No matter what race, sexual orientation, age, or beliefs, it doesn’t matter whether or not a player is brand new to the gaming community or if they’re a professional gamer, everyone is welcome to experience and enjoy what video games have to offer. Secondly, gaming as a whole should be safe for its users. Safe for developers who work tirelessly to bring forth a product made from passionate creators and safe for the players who want to enjoy gaming to the fullest.

He went on to talk about the importance of keeping gaming safe, a community filled with people that protect each other – both professionally and as gamers. “No different from rock and roll, books and TV before them, video games are often dismissed or maligned as frivolous, fraught with violence or filled exclusively with hate-mongering. But gaming is uniquely designed for equality. We don’t just walk in someone’s shoes — we stand on equal footing, regardless of age, education, socioeconomics, race, religion, politics, gender, orientation, ethnicity, nationality, or ability. Gaming doesn’t just bring stereotype-defying gamers together; it unites us through our universal language of fun and answers our human need to play.”

In order to fulfill Microsoft’s promise for a better community, Spencer lists three major commitments that he and the team at Xbox plan to follow in order to foster this safe and inclusive environment for players. Not only does he pledge to keep a sharp eye out for possible and/or misuse of their platform but the Xbox Safety Team aims to quickly respond to solve problems as they arise. Of course, while acting after an issue has arisen is helpful the team also hopes to prevent future incidents before they happen by giving players the power to moderate their own experience in new ways as well as working with developers to help protect users.

Spencer also went in detail about the importance of community with input from psychologists and well-researched studies involving communities as a whole and how that impacts gamers of all kinds. As our friends from Prima Games stated, this includes people from kids learning social skills and empathy, to people with autism reaching out to make new friends. Seniors suffering from Alzheimers, even dealing with depression and varying degrees of anxiety – this community is powerful and it’s potential is limitless.

Because of the potential and the importance, Spencer promises do justice to their “Defenders of Joy” title in every aspect of Team Green.

E3 is just around the corner and Xbox has plans for their upcoming presentation during the event to be their biggest yet. Let us know your thoughts on Phil Spencer’s message to the community and more in the comments section below. As always, don’t forget to follow Don’t Feed the Gamers on Twitter for 24/7 coverage of all things gaming and entertainment.