
dollars,” said Artus, confirming that, in some ways, being a video game developer in Latin America allows people to afford a lifestyle that's superior to that of the average population. "Within all our problems, as a region, we have an advantage, and that is that costs are much lower while we continue to sell our stuff in U.S. And, while anyone would tend to think that, stemming from Latin America would make things even more complicated, Ironhide's PMO believes just the opposite. Who Said It Was Easy?ĭevoting yourself to making video games is really difficult, especially in the mobile world, where metrics and algorithms are as, or more, relevant than television ratings. If it were one of our usual sagas, the strategy would surely have been different - as well demonstrated by 'Iron Marines Invasion,' also released recently,” said the studio's marketing manager.

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“ The safest bet for a new IP like Junkworld is to make it free because if you come out with a new title and it's not free, it might not get downloaded at all. Of course, the move seems risky, but according to the current numbers of the mobile market, it would have been riskier not to modify its premium model and lose ground to similar-but-free options. But we're currently working hard on polishing Junkworld to make it as close to an Ironhide product as possible." We had never released a game that had less than 4.7 stars in the stores, and the truth is that we were not used to it," confessed Paula Bentancur, Ironhide's head of marketing since 2018.Īlthough, she added, “ Today the market takes you down that path we cannot go against the market. The process seemed natural due to curret market trends, but the decision did not go down well with the studio's lifelong fans. The new RTS video game was a turning point in the history of the studio since, although it maintains the genre that characterizes the studio's work, this time it turns to the free-to-play model. However, in September we did a soft lunch for our new game, Junkworld,” explained Gabriel Artus. Only after that, we reviewed metrics and balanced what was necessary and possible. We'd make a game for two years, playtest it with a small group for a couple of months before release, and hit the market.

But recently, with one of its four projects under development, the landscape changed. Now, what's going on in today's Ironhide?ĭuring these 12 years, the studio became well known for only making premium videogames, without falling into free-to-play practices, unlike most developers who publish in the mobile market. This number may sound small for many countries in the main gaming markets, but it is not so when we take into account that Uruguay has 3.4 million residents. See also: Video Game Market Sees Another Unexpected Entry As TikTok Follows Netflix's Steps: What Are The Chinese Giant's First Moves? This gives us a parameter of how the industry is progressing, both in the quantity and quality of its output," said Ironhide's PMO. "This year alone we had 10 new teams working on new titles. And of course, the path of the new generations is something that Gabriel knows very closely since, in addition to being the vice president of his country's developers association (CAVI), he is in charge of the National Video Game Contest, an initiative that has been rewarding the best projects in development for the last 15 years.
