Epopeia Games, by Gaucho and the Grassland, shows the importance of the collective spirit in the games market

In an emerging scenario, where any lesson is important in the search for one's livelihood, the work of associations is crucial to the survival of companies. In the games market, this scenario is no different.

Even with all the challenges of not yet being one of the great powers in the digital games market, Brazilian developers have found a way to help each other develop professionally and also their companies.

This is the case with Epopeia Games , founded in 2010 and currently operating completely from home, with professionals in Rio Grande do Sul, S?o Paulo, and Goias. Today one of the main companies in the games market in the country, the studio is one of the founders of the Rio Grande do Sul Digital Games Developers Association ( ADJogosRS ) , the first state association of developers in Brazil.?

?The Mundo Indie team recently sat down to talk to the partners behind the studio, which has been gaining international prominence with the game Gaucho and the Grassland, a farming simulator scheduled for release in 2024.?

Epopeia is an example of how collaboration between studios helps new companies grow by sharing lessons about the market, business management, and much more.?

The creation of Epopeia Games

The 'embryo' of Epopeia Games was conceived in 2007. At the time, Rodrigo Moreira and Ivan Sendin were taking a games course at Senac-RS in Porto Alegre.?

"We met there and started talking and the idea of actually starting a company came up," explains Moreira "The name Epopeia came up at that time, but we were still very 'green'. We weren't able to start the company, not least because we didn't know much about the market."?

According to the developer, who is a co-founder of the studio and today works as Epopeia's Lead Game Designer, the course was very focused on execution tasks. The experience needed to get Epopeia off the ground came soon after when the Digital Games course was created at Feevale University.?

Feevale even served as an alma mater for all five of Epopeia's partners who spoke to the Mundo Indie team. Throughout the course, they became professionals in the games market.?

"We were Feevale's first student company. We graduated from there, we're very proud to have graduated from there, we like to give the course as much support as possible," says Sendin.?

During the trips between Porto Alegre and Novo Hamburgo, where the campus where they were studying is located, the talks about creating a games company progressed.?

"I started university in 2009 and in the same year, I met Ivan, who was in the next class. We met because we were on the same bus back to Porto Alegre after school," says Pedro de Castro, Epopeia's founding partner. "We didn't know how or when, but there was this shared interest in having our own business in the gaming area."?

It was then, in 2010, that Epopeia Games opened its doors. Sendin and de Castro took every chance that came their way, learning by trial and error how to run a company in the sector.?

Moreira officially joined the Epopeia team in 2012. The company specializes in educational projects, advergames, and outsourcing.

The role of ADJogosRS in Epopeia's growth

Despite being founded by students from the Digital Games course, Epopeia didn't go through an incubation process.?

For de Castro, the logistics were key to the company not being able to incubate at Feevale Techpark, because the university's technology park is located in Campo Bom, a neighboring city to Novo Hamburgo and with more limited access for students who travel back and forth from Porto Alegre every day.?

The Association of Digital Game Developers of Rio Grande do Sul (ADJogosRS) played an 'incubator' role for the company. At the association, Ivan began to dedicate himself to the business side of the games market.?

As executive director of ADJogosRS, he absorbed important lessons from more experienced members in the sector to be able to manage Epopeia Games more assertively.?

"It's not an official incubation, but we've learned a lot from the association," he points out. "There was a big leap when the association arrived (in the company's daily life)," adds de Castro.?

The association acts as a hub that connects member companies and even with potential clients. In this scenario, it is common for a company to provide services of a certain specialization for another company, or even to redirect clients to another studio depending on demand and free space in the agenda.?

"A nice thing about the association is that we don't have much of a 'rivalry' between the companies, so we exchange ideas so that everyone evolves," comments Sendin. "In calls for proposals, for example, we may be competing for the same place, but we're always 'exchanging ideas' so that at least this incentive goes to one of the companies (affiliated to ADJogosRS). That's the most important thing, so we create this collective sense.?

The 'core' of Epopeia Games

In parallel to providing services, Epopeia Games also worked on authorial projects of a smaller scope. From the second half of the last decade, the studio began to pay more attention to its internal projects.?

That's when Gustavo Silveira arrived at the company, filling a 'gap' in the position of Art Director at Epopeia Games. "In 2016, when Silveira joined, it was the conception of Gaucho and the Grassland," says Pedro.?

André Schuch joined the team in 2019. Since then, he has led the technical side of Epopeia's projects. Like Silveira, the developer came to the company on the recommendation of Feevale professors.?

With him, according to de Castro, the company understood that it had built a cluster of people responsible for the main areas involved in the game creation process. In addition to the five partners who spoke to us, today Epopeia Games has a team of 10 collaborators who help run the studio on a day-to-day basis.?

Gaucho and the Grassland

The conception of the idea that resulted in Gaucho and the Grassland predates the game's first trailer, released in early 2022. The idea came about when Silveira joined the studio as Art Director.

Initially, the plan was to release an adventure game. In 2019, Epopeia released a teaser for PAGO, a project with a theme inspired by gaucho culture.?

It was then that the studio realized the first problem with the project: the name. Typical slang for the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the term - a synonym for 'corner' - was not easy for the public to understand. The project was renamed Gaucho and the Grassland to create a clearer understanding, especially among international audiences.?

After this stage, Epopeia began to study a more radical reformulation of the project. "We began to study the market. We studied various genres to understand what made the most sense for the concept we wanted to apply," explained Sendin.

?The development of the current version of Gaucho and the Grassland was based on a call for proposals from Pró-Cultura, a project run by the state government of Rio Grande do Sul. With the initial funding it received, Epopeia developed the vertical slice of the game - a playable cut-out that shows the concepts of the project.?

"From there, we started working on the project to make it grow to the size it needs to be," explains Silveira. "This time, using our financial resources."

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Author: Guilherme Guerreiro