Shahid Ahmad left Sony to develop a VR game in 2015, but continues to work as a mentor for the PS Talents team in Spain, an initiative which recently celebrated its first year anniversary in Madrid. Gamereactor took the chance to speak with him there, and when we asked about his relationship with the games, he said:
"I am not the parent of these games, I am more like a friendly uncle [...] They all have potential, they all are capable, because to get into this program to begin with, they have to be capable. I just want to see all of them succeed in their own way. One may succeed because it is innovative, another one because it is mainstream, another is funny or another because it has technical proficiency."
The PS Store will host every game from PS Talents, but this isn't enough for them to succeed, Ahmad said. "This is a route they can take, and a route [that] is better than no route at all. This is probably the best route available in Spain today [and] to have access to the reach of PlayStation is a very important point. Then the game has to perform, to be good, to be appealing. PlayStation is here to support good games. My job is to help these developers and to give these games every chance to succeed. So, this is the start, this is the exposure point, but there is no secret in this - the developers have to put the effort and create the game that people want to play."
For the past year, Ahmad has been an indie developer, and he thinks VR is important for indie devs. "VR is important for independent developers, but independent developers are important to VR. VR needs fresh, new ideas and the demographic is ideal. The traditional developers would make polished experiences, but this is a new media, and if you want to give the media its own voice, its own space, its own identity, then it needs its own model, its own paradigms, its own ideas, and independent developers are in a very good place to provide those."
He also talked about his relationship with PlayStation, saying: "PlayStation was doing very well before I joined, and is still doing very well [...] Yes, I think I gave everything to PlayStation, [and] PlayStation gave everything to me, gave me the platform and the permission to spread the message that I spread."
What do you think VR games need to do to succeed?
<bild></bild>