Playing In The Big Leagues

Playing golf is not easy. To play it on a videogame console with the skills of a champion sounds even more difficult. With a videogame for Nintendo inspired by Mexican golfer Lorena Ochoa, the Mexican company Digital Media has placed itself on the shelf of international videogames and is moving towards it’s goal of positioning the Mexican videogame industry on the global scene.

In 2002, when Iván Díaz de León decided to start his own company –Digital Media– he did it with a clear goal in his mind: to support the consolidation of the videogame industry in Mexico.

Since then, he has launched proposals such as the creation of a university degree in videogame development, the foundation of a national association of videogame developers and the creation of special funds to support small and medium companies in the country.

To date, Digital Media is a small company. With barely an eight-year history, it has done what was said to be impossible: develop a game to be launched worldwide by Nintendo for its Wii console. Digital Media’s videogame was entirely designed and developed by Mexican professionals and is based on Lorena Ochoa, another Mexican who is world champion in her specialty, golf.

“This game presented the opportunity for entering the industry at a professional level. It comes from the idea of having a ‘made in Mexico’ product to be exported to the world, leveraging in the fact that Lorena is at the top level of a high profile profession. Negotiations took almost two years,” says Díaz de León.

Launching will be defferred according to each market: US, México and Latin America in the first half of 2010, Europe and Asia in the second half of the year.

The Beginning
Díaz de León, founder and general manager of Digital Media was in Spain, being certified in videogame development, when he decided to create his own company and become part of the “creation wave” for a new market.

“It was easier opening something in México at a slower rhythm because it gave the opportunity to collaborate in founding this industry in the country. Since then, many cases have projected the Mexican industry to the world,” says Díaz de León from his Guadalajara-based office, in the state of Jalisco, west Mexico.

As a consumed gamer, Díaz de León knew since he was a child that he wanted to develop videogames. With that in mind, he specialized in it. His passion happened to be contagious to the members of his team, now integrated with 29 professionals, all focused on the same goals.

The company began developing advertgames –advertising based games– to promote specific brands and products. Three months after operations started came the first client, Aeroméxico. Since then it has not stopped. Among its extensive client list are familiar names such as Samsung, Sony, Mercedes Benz and Intel.

Experience acquired in multimedia development has allowed the company to survive and keep a place in their favorite market: videogames.

“Advertgames helped us to know, learn, improve techniques and to become internationally competitive. As these videogames are developed by request, specific objectives and needs have to be met. We produced multimedia projects to gain experience and learn how to deal with big international companies,” says Díaz de León.

Díaz de León foresees a great future for the videogame business, especially due to the fact that sales in México are higher than in other Latin American countries, like Brazil or Argentina.

“Latin American markets present the opportunity of creating different projects that can be produced for diverse audiences, keeping all of them satisfied, as they are eager for different products,” says the businessman.

Since he presented Digital Media’s project in Spain, the company has gained the trust of firms like Nintendo and Xbox, both giants fighting resistence to share their technologies. Even though, since its beginning, the Mexican firm has been working with the most advanced systems.

“It was like crashing into a big party, like entering the industry by its back door. We learned who were the key players, how decisions were made in the industry and how everything moves within it. These elements helped us define our strategy,” says Díaz de León.

Think Global, Act Local
Digital Media’s goal has always been projecting Mexico internationally. Perhaps that’s why they prefer to move slowly but with certainty in a market valued at around one billion usd, according to figures from International Data Corporation, a leading company in market research and analysis for technological industry.

Díaz de León is clear that Digital Media has a long way to run yet. Business trips to create contacts and build alliances and professionalization is how the company expects to progress in an industry with more than 30 years behind it.

“We are trying to strengthen the entire industry so we can export more contents. China, India and Singapore are emerging markets that have invested between eight and nine years to build their videogame industry. Now they are important outsourcing centers for the entire world. There is a lot to learn and we manage as a ‘start-up’ company. It is not the best moment to pretend to offer something fully professional in the region. That wouldn’t be realistic. Good news is that even by being humble we have grown. We believe we are on the right track and what we offer is a young company achieving global production levels,” says the Digital Media founder.

But Digital Media does not want to grow alone. The company has been a strong supporter of the creation of a Mexican Federation of Videogame Developers, which aims to group together all companies interested in the professionalization of the industry.

“We are presenting the brand México Develops Games [mexicodevgames.org] and taking it to every major event worldwide. We are presenting Mexico as a country in the process of maturing to host leader companies and to share our outsource projects,” Díaz de León explains.

This initiative has already worked and the Federation has been invited to take part in some of the main events for videogame developers in cities such as San Francisco, Tokyo, Montreal and Lyon that have become key players of the global industry.

Becoming Professional
Part of the objectives of the Federation is training and professionalizing human capital in Mexico by inviting specialists from around the world.

For example, explains Díaz de León, “if we need someone with experience in solving physics issues we go to the network and access a specialist that can solve that specific issue for the project. It works as outsourcing.”

“Talent in Mexico has to grow. We are working for college degrees in main universities and soon a new generation of professionals will be on the market,” he adds.

Digital Media is mostly made up of passionate videogame fans, explains its founder. Maybe that is why their achievements can be compared to those of a larger company.

Through its short life, the firm has diversified and now owns a distribution company, Catapulta Entertainment, and a web-based videogame company, Gran Tiki Games.

“We are building an entertainment holding. In the future we will offer diverse contents for the web, consoles and mobile devices. The future seems golden, we are entering at a level that is very complicated to access to. That is an achieved goal. The rest of the way has challenges but we know we can face them because we are competitive,” concludes Díaz de León.