Meet Shahid Ahmad, the man winning over indies for Sony with passion and commitment

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Source: http://www.edge-online.com/features/shahid-ahmad-the-man-winning-over-indies-for-sony-with-passion-and-commitment/

 

It's good to see Sony committing to getting Indies on board and attempting to nurture their relationship with them.

 

 

 

PlayStation Vita is an incredible piece of hardware, but its early lineup has been thin. Every day, Shahid Ahmad goes to work to remedy that situation. As a senior business development manager at SCE Europe, Ahmad’s Strategic Content team has been responsible for signing Luftrausers, Thomas Was Alone and Hotline Miami to the PlayStation Store.

In an industry where the stereotype of ‘the suit’ – ignorant, duplicitous and concerned only with the bottom line – casts a long shadow, Ahmad represents something novel. As indie developers and changing distribution methods shift the balance of power, he’s become a human face for a once-intractable corporate giant that has radically rethought its relationship with creatives.

Having joined Sony’s developer relations team in December 2005, Ahmad was involved in everything from the launch of PlayStation Minis to building out a console development ecosystem for the market in India. His current role began in January 2012, when he started running the new strategic content team. That sounds dry, but the 47-year-old explains what it really means: “I get to work with developers and publishers, to sign games, and to do what it takes to make that all happen. It’s probably one of the best jobs in videogames today.”

In many ways, Ahmad is more like an A&R man from the music industry than a stereotypical videogame executive. It’s not uncommon to see him share his company email address to promising devs via Twitter. And he’s constantly improving connections, generating many stories of how he goes out of his way for the developers he covets.

“To some extent, it’s the methodology we use,” he says. “It’s old-school A&R, too, in the sense that we’re very interested in working with exciting developers with whom we’d like to build relationships. We love seeing developers progress through our platforms, growing with us. Honeyslug, FuturLab, Dakko Dakko and Vlambeer are some examples of this approach. It’s a new approach to A&R, in that the business model we use is fair and developer-friendly. Our philosophy is ‘support, steer, don’t interfere’. Developers are creatives and you don’t tell them what kind of game to make. You find those with a vision and you nurture their vision.”

When Luftrausers developer Vlambeer’s Vita was stolen, Ahmad personally delivered the replacement.

Stories of Ahmad’s commitment illustrate that nurturing attitude. When Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail had his Vita stolen at Eurogamer’s Expo last year, Ahmad left his sickbed and drove across London on a Saturday to give Ismail his own Vita. The next day, he dropped the Dutch developer off at Victoria Coach Station. “There was no ulterior motive to any of this,” says Ahmad. “Nobody likes to leave their sickbed, but you have to look after your guests. Rami was a guest in my town.”

“If there are ever Vlambeer games coming to Sony,” says Ismail, “it’s because of moments like those. It was pretty amazing. Shahid’s main USP is not a single, simple thing. He’s passionate but he mixes that with accessibility, capacity and dependability. I talk to passionate people every day, but never are they as passionate, easy to reach and capable of making things happen.”

At FuturLab, creator of Velocity Ultra, MD James Marsden is equally warm in his praise. “If you had to boil it down to one trait that makes developers respect and adore him, it’s that he bloody well keeps his word. His team is tiny, yet he and his colleagues have managed to give PlayStation a compelling marketing story that is the most authentic narrative there is right now. The public perception that is growing around the PlayStation brand is that PlayStation cares – and a large proportion of that has been set into motion by Shahid’s actions and initiative.”

Such commitment comes at a price. “You need to be constantly available,” says Ahmad, who’s often on Twitter and Skype at unsociable hours. “It’s not about service. It’s more about mutual respect, understanding of the art, understanding of what [devs] are trying to do and being available.”

Sony has been reaching out to indies more than ever for the coming console generation, and Ahmad’s philosophies are at the heart of its courtship. “We’ve been doing this for years, but we’re keen for people to realise the barriers are down, and that – although there’s always going to be some process – we’re here to help. And if that means it goes beyond the usual professional courtesies, then fine. I’m not going to watch the clock. You don’t get anywhere that way. Scenes don’t develop with a ‘business as usual’ mentality. There is no more business as usual,” he says.

Shahid Ahmad’s Chimera.

It helps that Ahmad has first-hand experience of indie development. Starting as a bedroom coder in 1982 – his most famous work is isometric adventure Chimera – he spent 15 years in development before moving into publishing at Virgin and Hasbro Interactive. He still dabbles in coding. Last year, he spent his commute on the route-98 London bus remastering Chimera. More recently, he’s been teaching himself Open GL 3D programming. “Although I’m not the world’s greatest C++ programmer, I have nevertheless released a simple game using it, having coded it on a bus with a full-time and rather demanding job,” he says. “That’s not too far off the life of some indies, actually, who have a day job that takes a lot out of them, but still have the passion to make a game in what little free time they have left. They can see that I share that passion and that I genuinely empathise and understand.”

Passion, authenticity: these are watchwords Ahmad uses a lot. It’s telling that he grew up religiously listening to Radio One DJ John Peel. Like Peel, Ahmad has the opportunity to discover new talent and bring it to the attention of a wider audience. But new talent is often skittish; the trick, it seems, is to offer it a safe haven.

“Authenticity is primarily a function of presence. If you’re not present, people sense that you are in some way disingenuous. That kills trust,” Ahmad says. “To move to the next phase in videogames, trust is going to work better than mistrust. Presence is the absence of distraction. Whatever I’m doing, I try to make an authentic impact and I commit with whatever I have.”

As the next generation gets under way, Sony is gambling more than ever on its indie community, and Ahmad is passionately awaiting the results. “I’m excited that we’re engaged with people who are going to define videogames for another generation; that we’re no longer constrained by the formulaic; that at long, long last we are seeing a Cambrian explosion of creativity; and that I’m getting to be a witness to that – and, sometimes, a participant.”