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The ‘India Hero Project’ is a scheme which will allow the nation’s indie developers to pitch to a committee of nine Sony employees. Financial, technical, and marketing support will be offered to the best demos and Sony may even publish games directly.
The gaming market in India is currently worth an estimated $868m which is expected to double by 2027, according to data from analytics firm Niko Partners.
As of 2023, the world’s most populous nation (1.4bn) boasts the title of the fastest growing video game market within Asia and Sony is keen to cultivate its burgeoning talent pool.
Having already tapped into a host of previously undiscovered developers within China, Sony’s ‘India Hero Project’ will imminently offer indie-game makers the chance to pitch their game to a PlayStation committee of nine members.
Those who impress will be offered financial, technical, and marketing support from Sony’s experts and may be given the chance to see their title join the PlayStation 5 roster.
The same scheme has enjoyed great success in China since its 2016 foray, birthing the likes of F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch and hotly anticipated games Awaken: Astral Blade and Daba: Land of Water Scar, among others. India, Sony executives hope, will now begin to join this developer ecosystem.
Despite being home to 500m gamers (as of 2021), just 21% of early respondents for the scheme said they had previously worked on console games before, instead opting to hone their focus and craft on developing for mobile or PC.
This isn’t exactly a surprise, given the recent advances in affordable smartphones coupled with government investment in high-speed internet accessibility. Console players make up a meagre portion of the nation’s current gaming community, but it is growing nonetheless.
