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PlayStation India Hero Project incubator program announced by Sony Interactive Entertainment

nial

Member
• Sal Romano
Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced India Hero Project, an Indian offshoot of its PlayStation China Hero Project incubator program.

China Hero Project has supported a number of notable projects from Chinese developers, including F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch and ANNO: Mutationem, as well as upcoming titles like Boundary, EVOTINCTION, Lost Soul Aside, Convallaria, and AI-LIMIT.

India Hero Project aims to identify promising Indian developers and support them in bringing compelling gaming experiences to global gaming communities.

“As part of our evolving journey to ensure that PlayStation remains the best place to play, we’re committed to developing regional incubator programs capable of identifying new and diverse developers worldwide,” Sony Interactive Entertainment India market strategy director Radhika Thakur said in an SIE.com blog post. “The India Hero Project is fueled by this commitment and our belief in the Indian gaming market.”

Thakur continued, “Through mentorship, training, and project-based investment, PlayStation strives to lower the barrier of entry and showcase the most incredible talents emerging from India. We’re pleased to announce this new initiative and our call for submissions.”

Interested companies of all sizes can read the full FAQ and apply to the program here. To apply, companies must be based in India and able to register as a PlayStation Registered Developer.
https://www.gematsu.com/2023/05/playstation-india-hero-project-incubator-program-announced
https://sonyinteractive.com/en/india-hero-project-call-for-submissions/
 

Luigi Mario

Member
Hopefully, we will get more classics like this:

jsNJFqa.jpg
 
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yurinka

Member
Dhalsim approves this news

India,China? Cynic in me says that phase one of outsourcing game development.
I'd say that what they are doing is trying to nurture talent and get extra attention in the contries with the biggest population of the world to grow their market there.

I now expect ludicrous amounts of dancing regardless of genre in their games.
It would be cool to see an Uncharted game with the crazy action setpieces from certain Indian movies.
 
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skit_data

Member
Imagine the roadkill, powerlines, and train gore mechanics.
I literally just watched a clip where a guy gets the bright idea to reach out while hanging from the side of a train going full speed, he hits some bar and flies off

Edit: and yes, it was in India
 
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CamHostage

Member
Huh, cool. I was actually thinking about how there should be something like this for South Asia and specifically India when China Hero Project started gathering steam. There are a lot of development studios in India and a ton of schools and training centers... mostly these are to foster the cheap-labor support needs of mainstream developers elsewhere in the world, but where there is training and facilities/equipment, there is the potential for unique talents to emerge. Unfortunately there's not really even many seedlings of great games by Indian developers to point to of what might be worth fostering in this development community (and there's not nearly as much easy, but then, that's what a program like this is for.

China Hero Project IMO has turned out better than expected (some pretty nice games have come out of it, like FIST and Anno Mutationem and Hardcore Mecha and the upcoming Boundary, so we'll see how this turns out.

Hopefully, we will get more classics like this:

jsNJFqa.jpg

Well, yeah, there is that, and that was the first thing that came to mind.

Ra*One wasn't good (going by reviews; nobody I know has played either version,) but It's interesting thought that Sony has been in this country so long ago looking for game developers and franchises for the India market and that region. Would have been cool if that could have continued and gotten better over time, and like there was like a lost Bahubali game only in India to discover...

(SCE Europe also produced a PSP/PS2 game by Gameshastra called Desi Adda, who also did some PSP Minis I think. Can't think of other works by Sony using developers from that area; they marketed The Last Guy with a bizarre cast of South Asian "developers" in promotional clips, but AFAIK, the game was made entirely by Japan Studio.)
 

Woopah

Member
Its a good move from Sony to be building ties in these big developing markets. I would expect it to take a bit of time to bear fruit though (will probably impact PS6 more than PS5).
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
These are markets with a large growing middle-class and growth vectors for PS. For example, install-base for PS5 in China is expected to reach 7M this gen. That would make China the PS5 #3 market. For reference, PS4 sold 9.5M in Japan and that was the #2 market for PS4.
How many units did the UK sell for PS4?
 

CamHostage

Member
You think outsourcing isn't already done?

This is a different thing

Right, it's kind of phase two of expanding (or exploiting, depending on the viewpoint) that market's workforce. Phase one was, let's get these people to work making our games, and game publishers have been doing that in India for at least two decades. Phase two would be, let's give some of these people a little backing to make their own games and see what they come up with.

China Hero Project was as successful as it has been so far because there's a bubbling game development community there of talents who have worked for years (or come out of colleges/training programs started for their predecessors) and some of them now have the yearning and skills to make their own products. Chinese game developers even have had a foot in the door of indie and other offbrand development cycles for a while before this CHP program started, and probably a lot of us have played (or been impressed by) a cool game made by a small Chinese studio over the years.

India unfortunately doesn't have that same track record or underground clout, so we'll see how this goes, but undoubtedly there must be good game designers there waiting for their chance, and we'll see if Sony can find them and back them enough to work out.
 
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CamHostage

Member
Its a good move from Sony to be building ties in these big developing markets. I would expect it to take a bit of time to bear fruit though (will probably impact PS6 more than PS5).

Unfortunately, yes, this will take time, as it's just the start of the program. China Hero Project started in 2016, and there are still games like Lost: Soul Aside and Boundary from the first phase which still aren't done. CHP did get some of the small-scale stuff out in 2018/2019 (maybe that stuff was already well underway before Sony backed them?), but it's a long-term program and even if they get cool stuff with a promising demo signed up early, actually getting to play that cool stuff may be a long wait...
 
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Yoboman

Member
Right, it's kind of phase two of expanding (or exploiting, depending on the viewpoint) that market's workforce. Phase one was, let's get these people to work making our games, and game publishers have been doing that in India for at least two decades. Phase two would be, let's give some of these people a little backing to make their own games and see what they come up with.

China Hero Project was as successful as it has been so far because there's a bubbling game development community there of talents who have worked for years (or come out of colleges/training programs started for their predecessors) and some of them now have the yearning and skills to make their own products. Chinese game developers even have had a foot in the door of indie and other offbrand development cycles for a while before this CHP program started, and probably a lot of us have played (or been impressed by) a cool game made by a small Chinese studio over the years.

India unfortunately doesn't have that same track record or underground clout, so we'll see how this goes, but undoubtedly there must be good game designers there waiting for their chance, and we'll see find them and back them enough to work out.
Yeah that's why some of the games out of China like Stellar Blade or Black Myth Wukong look good out of the gate. Cause those teams or individuals have a lot of experience already making games as outsourced talent
 
Yeah that's why some of the games out of China like Stellar Blade or Black Myth Wukong look good out of the gate. Cause those teams or individuals have a lot of experience already making games as outsourced talent
I'm getting instant flashbacks to the Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake catastrophe from those Ubisoft studios in India.
 

CamHostage

Member
I'm getting instant flashbacks to the Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake catastrophe from those Ubisoft studios in India.
Because that's your context for game development in India; lots of people when they think of games from China have the context of microtransactions and Tencent clone work. There's not a game history from these places that we are aware of, and the little we do know about probably isn't great.

A program like this is designed to hopefully find the talent who will help to change that.

It might not work out. Ubisoft did try it's own internal version of talent elevating when they gave Ubisoft Prune/Mumbai the PoP Remake project, and it didn't work out. However, that's only one studio rather than a bunch of applicants, and that's a very difficult assignment of remaking a classic, plus we don't know the budget or other circumstances of the PoP project. It's a different set of circumstances with India Hero Project.
 
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nial

Member
Yeah that's why some of the games out of China like Stellar Blade or Black Myth Wukong look good out of the gate. Cause those teams or individuals have a lot of experience already making games as outsourced talent
Stellar Blade is South Korean.
 

CamHostage

Member
Yep. This was my first thought as well. "Let's train Indian and Chinese developers so that we can make games for less, increasing our profit margin."

Sony does not publish most of the games made within China Hero Project. (Also, some of these games end up releasing on non -Playstation platforms like Switch and Xbox.)

So no, it's not a program built to increase the profit margin. Profit will come by other ways.
 
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Cashon

Banned
Your thoughts are wrong, though.
It's far too early to know that. If a company were to do this, they would, you know, actually cultivate the talent better depending on them.

If Sony can cultivate talented developers in India and China, then replace Japanese/American developers with far cheaper talent, why wouldn't they?

They're a company; they aren't in this for the sake of altruism. There's always a bottom line. Their customer service certainly shows this.
 

CamHostage

Member
It's far too early to know that.

Sony Interactive Entertainment China Hero Project has existed since 2016, and has seen 7 games shipped by independent developers (some also independently published.)

India Hero Project follows that same model.

If Sony can cultivate talented developers in India and China, then replace Japanese/American developers with far cheaper talent, why wouldn't they?

The Hero Project program is not a training center or outsourcing recruiter. It is an incubation program for funding talent already trained who have formed a studio and are looking to make original products.

(Both training centers and outsourcing recruiting already exist in India, btw. Sony has in the past used such services in its games. )

They're a company; they aren't in this for the sake of altruism. There's always a bottom line.

The international Hero Project programs will connect to Sony's bottom line in a different way.
 
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nial

Member
It's far too early to know that. If a company were to do this, they would, you know, actually cultivate the talent better depending on them.

If Sony can cultivate talented developers in India and China, then replace Japanese/American developers with far cheaper talent, why wouldn't they?

They're a company; they aren't in this for the sake of altruism. There's always a bottom line. Their customer service certainly shows this.
Has any of this happened before in the gaming industry? Yeah, I don't see that being the case. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by trying to deploy Chinese/Indian talent into American/Japanese offices and replacing already established teams with such different development cultures as a whole. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.
 

hlm666

Member
There is absolutely nothing to be gained by trying to deploy Chinese/Indian talent into American/Japanese offices
I don't think they ment that, more along the lines of closing the american office and doing the work in india kinda like what happened with call centres. Not agreeing with the idea or anything just saying how I comprehended that sentence.
 
Has any of this happened before in the gaming industry? Yeah, I don't see that being the case. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by trying to deploy Chinese/Indian talent into American/Japanese offices and replacing already established teams with such different development cultures as a whole. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.
It Should happen. Americans demand lot of money to work. Getting cheap quality talent will reduce development cost.
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
India is an emerging talented market, and Sony would be wise to tap into it. This is a win-win for everyone.

New employed developers, new studios, more games, cheaper cost of production for Sony, more exclusives for Sony, a different flavor of games, and more diversified cultural representation.
 
Sony is out here cultivating developers around the world.

As competition for content gets more and more expensive and difficult to recruit, having built out resources across the world is going to pay dividends.

They kind of missed the boat in South Korea, so they're investing there and in Malaysia, China, and now India.

Difference between Microsoft and Sony.
 
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