A peek into Argentina’s video game scene | Hacker News Reader

A peek into Argentina’s video game scene

buenosairesherald.com

105 pointscarride38 comments

In my close Argentinian circle I can name the following:

- Ricardo Quesada [1] can name zillions of incredible achievements but you can search on Google. You is the creator of Cocos2D [2] a super successful 2D game engine where many of the implemented games and apps where shown even by Steve Jobs in the time of the iPhone 1.

- Daniel Benmergui: very personal and creative games [3]

- Martin Sebastian Wain: also creative and very personal games and controllers such as Doggy Tug of War [4]

Can name more...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCX_dqlpVpYtlm2Es_PAZcA

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocos2d

[3] http://ludomancy.com/

[4] https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/alt-ctrl-gdc-showcase-m...

Hey, I also know Daniel Benmergui. He's a cool guy. It's strange that his brother (in tech, but not in games) is such an unlikable weirdo. They are totally unlike each other.

Plot twist: they are the same person, just deciding who to play each morning depending on mood.

"Who would know these specific individuals?". Hola!

As a mobile gaming pioneer you can tell more stories...

To complement:

- Per Aspera [1] is Argentinian, made by Javier Otaegui [2]

- Eterspire [3] is being made by a close friend of mine and his friend here in Buenos Aires.

- I believe the open-source Ogre3D [4] rendering engine used by a few commercial games was originally developed by Matias Goldberg [5] from Mar del Plata

[1] https://per-aspera.vg

[2] https://twitter.com/javierota

[3] https://www.eterspire.com

[4] https://www.ogre3d.org

[5] https://twitter.com/matiasgoldberg

Surprised this article had no mention of Godot, considering the original creators are from Argentina.

Especially with Godot just having gotten a lot more attention recently due to Unity's fuckups. It's basically viewed as the third 'biggest' general purpose third party game engine now, I think.

I'm waiting on Fanny Pack to finally release Runna[0] - which I know has been developed in Godot. Some members of the team ran a game development workshop last year, I'd love to see what they came up with.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2283470/Runa__the_Chaikur...

The creator of Godot no longer lives in Argentina.

Argentina is brimming with talent and the economic and social realities mean you need an entrepreneur mindset even to just get through with your daily life. At the same time the level of the education system is quite high and it's free to boot. The next wave of talent also speaks English at a much better level than the people before.

I knew many more people with businesses, products and side hustles there than I know in Western Europe, where lots of people live in the warm comfort of a secure, daily job and avoid any risk or opportunity outside of that.

> Argentina is brimming with talent and the economic and social realities mean you need an entrepreneur mindset even to just get through with your daily life. At the same time the level of the education system is quite high and it's free to boot. The next wave of talent also speaks English at a much better level than the people before.

You have to get creative in Argentina, otherwise you won’t survive. Also, a lot of people leverage the education and English level and leave the country, as it’s easier than dealing with it. Over the past 4 years there has been a huge migration of well educated professionals who got tired of dealing with all the uncertainty.

On a personal note, most of college friends left for Europe and the USA, as I also did.

Replace Argentina with Brasil and the sentence is as valid :-(

No, Argentina and Brazil are very different. For example, Mercado Libre and other unicorns started im Argentina and are serving Latam. Brazil has a large population and local market to serve while Argentina has a relatively small population, lot of land, and needs to look outside to growth.

Not at all, Brazil doesn’t have +100% yearly inflation. It’s so bad that the government started reporting weekly inflation trying to trick people to think because the number is smaller, there is less inflation.

I heard the same thing from a colleague from Brazil, I can imagine that after containing inflation there are many more problems left to solve that are probably not taken care of either in Brazil.

The flow of talent from Argentina to other countries has happened many times before in difficult circumstances.

While it is true that the difficulties increase creative endeavours, it is also true that Argentina has a tradition of creative endeavours in the region that are not connected to the harsh situation but older traditions and inmigrations.

To give outsiders a quick look: Argentina has advanced nuclear capabilities comparing to other countries in Latam.

Yes, that’s right. However, Argentina has been continuously getting worst since I was born. There is a common phrase there used to describe this, “today you are better than tomorrow”, most people default to that line of thinking.

If you ask, most probably, older people than you they will give the same answer although there are specific time periods that are remembered positively by a big amount of people. Besides if they trascended historically.

The idea of old times were better is a global classic. Specifically to Argentina there are other classic sayings like:

- "In Argentina, everything can change in a day, but nothing changes in a decade"

- "There are four kinds of countries: developed countries, undeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina." [1]

[1] https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/28/h... (https://archive.is/Ayiuu)

> In Argentina, everything can change in a day, but nothing changes in a decade

Right now, if you pick news from the late 80s and now, it might be hard to differentiate them except for the names.

@Neonate: for some reason replies are disabled on your comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37711567, so I'll have to post a sibling comment to ask: why did you post the archive links? The page is neither down nor has any sort of pay or tracking cookies wall. I didn't even get annoying newsletter pop-ups or anything.

Your profile shows a lot of posting these, but also normal comments in between so it can't be a system account. Is this automated or what's the reason here? And what's the deal with not being able to reply? Lastly, do your comments always get voted to the top (knew I should have implemented this, I was thinking about industrial sized karma farming myself but didn't think it would be appreciated) or are they pinned by a moderator?

I added the archive links because the page wasn't responding when I clicked on the link.

My comments aren't automated and they don't get upvoted to the top. The mods pin archive links sometimes.

I had the same in mind for my account

https://archive.ph/Rxc2w

http://web.archive.org/web/20230929145145/https://buenosaire...

While torrenting(vidya)there are a lot of folks that seed and leech. Majority of them are from Argentina and Brazil. So happy they have a vibrant gaming culture.

the most interesting Argentine game scene is godot engine

I'm living in BA now, and my son(11) is a huge Esports gamer. Where can I find local gaming/conf/events info?

Argentina Game Show (AGS) is in two weeks in CABA

Age of Empires 2 is big in Argentina.

The article is about games development in Argentina, not about playing games made elsewhere.

Where did you get the Age of Empires 2 statistics? I'm an Argie and I don't know anyone who plays it. In my age bracket, we still remember it, of course.

The lobby is full of Args

Even if the majority of AoE2 userbase was from Argentina, I can assure you most Argie gamers don't play the game (most are too young to even know of it) and so it's not "big" in Argentina.

In that sense it wouldn't be big practically in most countries but I think OP refers to it that it enjoyed a huge popularity back then and now with AOE DE people (probably of the age bracket that played it back then) do absolutely play it in large numbers.

Anecdotically, I know a lot of people who do.

Back then? Sure! CounterStrike was also massively popular here, both in "cybercafés" and in offices for after hours gaming.

> This figure, however, represents a 29% growth compared to the US$70 million earnings reported in 2021.

Adjust for USD inflation and it is closer to 10% growth.

If it wasn’t for lag I’d show them up in Half Life DM - they still rock that shit

I know several people who still play the game. Still plays like shit due to low FPS, netcode and completely nonexistent weapon balance. But it's fun, damn it. Black Mesa multiplayer used to play better but they've turned it into shit with one of the later updates. What sort of idiot removes the server browser...

I believe it's due to the fact their school system gives them some notebook that has pretty basic specs, like 4GB RAM.

So that enables them to play older games but not current ones.

Is King of Fighters as popular in Argentina as it is in Mexico?

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