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The GGJ Podcast brings the spirit of Global Game Jam to your headphones, with people from around the world sharing how they found their way into game development. Each week, Susan Gold talks with developers, studio founders, and festival organizers about the twists, risks, and side doors that shaped their paths and communities. You will hear honest stories about creativity, collaboration, failure, and the messy, beautiful reality of making games.
GGJPodcast.PabloQuarta
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Intro
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[00:00:00] Susan Gold: This is the GGJ Podcast, a show about the games industry, the people who make them, and the communities that grow up around them. I'm Susan Gold, a game education Trailblazer and one of the founders of the Global Game Jam. Each week we sit down with a new guest. highlighting their own path and journey.
[00:00:24] This is a space for honest conversation from makers about creativity, collaboration. Failure and the messy, the beautiful reality of making games. So whether you're a young dev or seasoned an educator, a student, or someone who just loves games and the people behind them, welcome to the GGJ Podcast. Take a breath, settle in, and let's hear directly from the makers themselves.
Partners & Sponsors
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[00:00:48] Shirley McPhaul: This episode is made possible in partnership with the Global Game Jam, the world's largest game creation event, bringing together creators from around the globe. A big thank you as well to the Global Game Jam's. Headline sponsors, Epic Games, [00:01:00] Games for Change, and Xsolla for helping make this creative community a reality.
[00:01:05] To learn more and to get involved in the upcoming jams, visit global game jam.org.
[00:01:11] This episode is brought to you in part through the support of the University of Miami School of Communication, and the John s and James L. Knight Foundation.
[00:01:21]
Meet Pablo Quatra
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[00:01:28] Susan Gold: Pablo Quarta is an Argentine writer, narrative designer and game producer Based in Buenos Aires, they have spent more than eight years in independent games specializing in story structure, world building, and Character driven design Their work uses games as tools to think about labor, climate justice, queerness, and Latin American realities, He is best known for co-founding Matajuegos, a bilingual blog in indie game co-op dedicated to critical writing about games and for producing the [00:02:00] award winning, surreal documentary video game, Atuel. and they've become a respectful festival speaker and advocate for co-ops and socially engaging game making. Pablo, welcome to the GGJ Podcast. It is a pleasure to have you here and to dive into your journey from co-ops and criticism to hyperlocal to documentary games and the future you're helping reimagine.
[00:02:25] Pablo Quarta: Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to been invited and to have the space to, to talk with you and to chat.
[00:02:31] Susan Gold: Thank you. Where are you joining us from today? And tell us a little bit about who you are.
[00:02:37] Pablo Quarta: I'm, joining from Buenos Aires, Argentina, so all the way down south at the very. Southern tip of South America. and, like you said in your intro, I'm a narrative designer. I'm a producer working mainly in indie video games, but I've worked on commercial games, games with big IPs like Star Trek.
[00:02:54] but over the last few years I've mostly been concentrating on social, cultural and political [00:03:00] games, with my colleagues. at Matajuegos,
[00:03:02] Susan Gold: So for listeners who haven't seen or heard of your work yet,
[00:03:06] let's talk about your projects and what you're most associated with right now.
[00:03:11] Pablo Quarta: Yeah, so I think the latest project that I've been involved with that is perhaps the most well known one, is Atuel, a surrealist documentary video game about the actual river in Argentina and about the climate crisis.
[00:03:23] In the game you play as the Atuel river which is born up in the Andes mountains and flows west across the immense Cuya desert. You start off the game playing as the meltwater coming down the mountainside, and then you become different parts of its ecosystem, all while listening to clips of interviews with specialists like historians, geologists, activists, poets. Who all speak about, the past, the present and the future of the region and about its current conflict with the climate crisis. and before that, you know, in Matajuegos we developed several video games, with strong, cultural, political [00:04:00] and social themes that all draw on the current Argentine and Latin American, context.
[00:04:06] games about Latin American, youth and adolescence, games about unionizing in Argentina, games about, local politics and, and about our own autobiographical experiences living in Argentina during this time.
[00:04:20] Susan Gold: you started though as a critic more than as a maker, correct?.
[00:04:25] Pablo Quarta: Not necessarily. So, uh, about the same time that I started working in the video games industry, we also started Matajuegos. So it was something that was happening, at the same time as my work developing video games professionally.
Matajuegos
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[00:04:40] Susan Gold: So why don't you walk us through Matajuegos. it's the first of its kind in in Argentina, correct?
[00:04:48] Pablo Quarta: Yeah. so Matajuegos was born, as an indie game dev collective. Here in Buenos Aires. it started off with just four of us meeting up, um, at indie dev [00:05:00] events. And we were having a very similar dialogue within our small group. About kind of the social scene around us and the indie dev events that we were a part of and, that community. And there were two things that were happening that we were being drawn to. One was that we found that a lot of the games that were being made in our community, this was about 2015, were, very proficient technically and made a lot of references to other games. They were kind of games that, really felt that the innovation came from very. Good programming and very good mechanical design. kind of the more formal side of game development. Uh, but there was really no work being done in the substance on, on the content side, and no innovation in storytelling or in Connecting games to the real world. You know, we all came from, other disciplines, like films like journalism, like literature. And we really wanted to make games that discussed you know, the world that we inhabited. And we found that games in our community very [00:06:00] much wanted to run away from the real world and only be games about games in a certain way, or games that made reference to previous games. and so we started making very small games about the real world, And we started writing about this.
[00:06:11] The other thing we found you know, this was 2015, it was very shortly after Gamergate, and our community was mostly, straight white and middle class men. And there were, you know, a lot of attitudes that made it very hard from people from different backgrounds. to be included in that community. and so we really wanted our community to start having these conversations and we kind of forced upon them by starting this blog, talking about about these different kinds of games, what innovation could come from in games, and how to also make Latin American games with Latin American perspectives. 'Cause we found that a lot of our peers wanted to make games that spoke to The global North imaginary, you know, games based in North America, games based in Europe and the games that we grew up with in a lot of ways. 'cause there hasn't been Latin American game production
[00:06:57] Susan Gold: But it doesn't tell your stories. and [00:07:00] if it does, it tells a very sanitized version of a story, you know?
[00:07:04] Pablo Quarta: Uh, yeah. Or very stereotypical version, or a very symbolic version. and we really wanted to trust that, you know, by telling our own experiences, we don't have to tell stereotypical Latin American stories. We can just talk about our lives. And that is a way to Talk about Latin American perspectives in games and make Latin American games.
[00:07:21] and so these were all things that were very present in the early days. When we began this blog, we started writing about these issues and we also started translating a lot of, indie game developers and indie game critics who were doing really good work in English and other languages.
[00:07:33] to, give our community a sense of the other kind of conversations that were happening outside of Argentina and outside of Latin America. which we felt was, was a very rich kind of discourse that was occurring that a lot of our community did not have access to. and that was the initial project with the blog alongside our own indie game development that each of us was doing.
[00:07:52] and that started in 2016, and then in 2021, still in the throes of the [00:08:00] lockdown, the pandemic here in Argentina, we became, Argentina's first, video game workers co-op, because a lot of the other conversations we were having on the blog were about, about labor and about, labor rights.
[00:08:11] and the idea that, games need, unions. And we saw that there was a lot of exploitation, in, in our country, in, in big game companies that we worked at or that our peers worked at. there was a lot of crunch, there was a lot of exploitation, there was a lot of abuse of power. a lot of people were leaving the industry and new people were coming in who had no idea of what their rights were. and as, An end point of that conversation we were having on the blog and with our peers, we decided that, since we wanted to formalize Matajuegos, we wanna become, a legal personhood in order to, be able to receive grants and apply for funding and also, work in a more straightforward way with different institutions and clients, and produce more ambitious games as a studio, we decided to, incorporate as a co-op rather than a, a more [00:09:00] traditional, company.
The Co-op Model & Video Game Development
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[00:09:01] Susan Gold: In practical terms, what did co-op actually mean for you and how did ownership and decision making and dealing with money actually work day to day?
[00:09:10] Pablo Quarta: So in the initial foundation of Matajuegos in 2016, there were four of us. For the co-op, we needed a few more people at that time. worker co-ops needed a minimum of seven people in order to incorporate. So we invited some of our, frequent collaborators to join us in the co-op.
[00:09:25] and they said yes. so we had enough people to join. and so for anyone who doesn't know a workers' co-op is a company. Like any company, the only big difference is that it's owned by its workers. That means every worker's also an owner, and all workers are owners in equal parts You know, one worker can't havemore, ownership of the company than anybody else. and at the base of it, decisions are made in a legal, technical sense, through consensus and through voting and through, discussion. It is very much what if a company was a democracy in a sort of sense.
[00:09:58] and that is, ideologically [00:10:00] Very inspiring and, very hopeful. At the same times, it brings a lot of challenges, which are the challenges of any democracy, which means that communication is key.and it means that everybody needs to participate in a certain sense, and everyone is also responsible at the end of the day for what is happening within the company.
[00:10:16] So, so, you know, the way Matajuegos was run, it was a very small company that was just getting off its feet, and finding clients. and basically within the studio, we took on several different projects and different parts of the co-op were involved in different projects at the same
[00:10:31] time.
[00:10:32] Susan Gold: kind of projects?
[00:10:33] Pablo Quarta: so some of them we've already mentioned, we worked with, local educational institutes, making games for their programs.
[00:10:40] One was a narrative card game about having difficult conversations with your friends, about adolescence, about sexual identity, about, social media, and about, having these close bonds as you grow up and are trying to figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life.
[00:10:56] this game is called "Viaja baraja" , it's, uh, it's only available in [00:11:00] Spanish, but it's up on itch if you're interested.
[00:11:02] Susan Gold: did these types of project, is that what helped you become more in line with the country's cultural programs and allowed you to get more subsidies and opportunities?
[00:11:14] Pablo Quarta: So Matajuegos from its beginning, both as a blog and as an indie game collective. We very much specialized in making games about social issues. So when we became a co-op and a company, This was our niche. There. There was really, these were the kind of projects that we were drawn to and that we felt that we could do better than anybody else within, within our region. so they were the kind of projects that, that clients and collaborators really trusted us with. Yeah.
[00:11:41] Susan Gold: Do you think that the co-op model unlocked something different that allowed people around you to become more interested in your projects and you were able to bring in other artists, other writers, and other collaborators?
[00:11:57] Pablo Quarta: Um, it definitely unlocked some things. [00:12:00] So we kind of became a co-op, right, as the government was starting to streamline the co-op model as a big reform that occurred during lockdown and after lockdown.
[00:12:11] And the, recently, reformed ministry of culture in Argentina the government institution that is responsible for managing co-ops. They began to work together to create, the model of cultural co-ops, so co-ops to formalize the cultural industries in Argentina.
[00:12:27] This means, music groups, theater groups, cultural centers, and any kind of industry whose main business is culture. This also included video games, and we were the very first, video game co-op to come in as part of that program. this allowed us to interface with the Ministry of Culture interface with other co-ops and interface, also with co-op federations And to collaborate with a lot of other institutions to find, work opportunities to find, projects to work on together and to start getting, you know, some money in, because at the end of the
[00:12:59] Susan Gold: this [00:13:00] model in North America, so what you're sharing with me is novel and it's a new way of looking at how to create, a studio. that allows you to bring stability, visibility and work with all these different kinds of people and still have that independence.
[00:13:22] Pablo Quarta: Yeah.
[00:13:22] Susan Gold: It's truly something that I've never seen happen here. we have a very different perspective. And so I think opening this kinda mindset to working with government, finding alternatives to creating business is truly an interesting path.
[00:13:42] Pablo Quarta: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, you know, video game development, especially at an indie scale where you have maybe between. Four to 20 people in the studio. It is very naturally aligned, I think, to cooperatives. if you're creating a, a work of art, a video game that has to [00:14:00] have a, a single cohesive vision
[00:14:01] But labor production requires specialists from different disciplines like programmers, artists, writers level designers, musicians, who are all bringing in their own knowledge and authorship and authority in their chosen discipline, And the only way to align all these visions. Through conversation and consensus and a democratic horizontal approach. And this is what, a cooperative protects a cooperative turns that approach and that consensus dialogue based, production model into the legal model through which the studio runs that cannot later be upturned into in a very hierarchical, system in which some people are part owners of this production model and everybody else is just a worker that is beholden to their vision.
[00:14:45] Um, and I think, you know, in a lot of
[00:14:47] Susan Gold: it sound so
[00:14:48] rough.
[00:14:49] Pablo Quarta: well, well, it can be very rough, but I think, Indy game development tends to be this horizontal in this way already. And so a co-op model is in a lot of ways is a natural extension of that, of protecting this way of [00:15:00] working. And it was certainly the way that we had worked as a collective throughout all those years before we became a co-op. So we decided to formalize, we thought. A coop would actually, allow us to enshrine this way that we've been working in a legal way so that we can continue to operate this way and that is not endangered later down the line.
[00:15:17] Susan Gold: For someone who's listening, who's thinking about, well, what if I started a co-op? Uh, what are some of the things that you really learned that you'd like to share? Dos, things to follow? Maybe some don'ts.
[00:15:34] Pablo Quarta: So, I I think co-ops are a great way to create a company and I think a great way to empower yourself and your coworkers into having a lot of agency and having a lot of responsibility about the work you're creating and the work environment that you're creating. At the same time, it's still a business. And that means that the business has to function it needs to have money coming in. It needs, to pay taxes, it needs to have, [00:16:00] bookkeeping. It needs to have a joint bank account that someone is taking care of. And for any new company, whether it's a co-op or not, you need to know about all these things. And you need to make sure that within your team there are people who can take care of these tasks, uh, which are very big. And for a lot of us coming from video games who don't know about any of these things, it requires a lot of learning if you want to take care of them in-house and not hire extra people
[00:16:23] and I think a lot of people are drawn to co-ops. ideologically, because ideologically they're very romantic and they sound great. but at the end of the day, you still have to interact with capitalism and interact, you know, with business. Uh, and so it's very, important, to have a business that is actually working and that is stable for everyone involved and that there is money coming in and coming out. so I would definitely say, don't, don't get ahead of yourself. Make sure that you start the co-op when you need the co-op and that the business that is undergirding all this is working already and has strong legs before you formalize, because otherwise you're gonna take on all this extra workload, and there won't be anything that [00:17:00] will sustain you through that process.
[00:17:01] The other thing is that communication is extremely important, co-ops, because you all need to be involved to to make decisions. and it's very common co-ops that, um, some people who have maybe. A little more, more motivation or understand the, the business side of their ministry side a little well end up, overburdened with work because other people just aren't as motivated to participate.
[00:17:25] especially if you're running a very small studio where, you don't necessarily have people who, only do administration as their work or only do marketing as their work, and you have to spread these tasks out. if there isn't active communication and if there isn't, active participation from everyone to make sure that these tasks are balanced out fairly and that everyone is doing a bit, it can be very common for few individuals to take on the brunt of that work.
[00:17:48] and that can be very difficult. But, this also happens in, in, in non co-op studios as well, in any small company. Yeah.
[00:17:54] Susan Gold: there's burnout, there's politics, there's a million things. Um, [00:18:00] when you decided as a team, as a co-op to formally dissolve the structure, do you still find that you, you took a lot from that. I mean, I assume that you took a lot from that.
[00:18:15] Yeah. You know, we, we closed the co-op last year after, a very fruitful run. as a whole lasted eight years. and the 15th of March of last year, we decided we wanted to split up as a group, kind of like a rock band splits up, not because of any big, conflicts within the co-op or within, you know, our social group. but simply we each wanted to pursue the same ideas and the same interests we had always had in slightly different ways. and it was becoming difficult, I think, towards the end for us to have a singular conversation that kept us all motivated, moving the same direction, and instead of trying to resist that entropy. At a certain point we felt it was too much work and we said, you know, if we don't feel like continuing this together, let's just each go our own ways and be amicable about it, and I think, one of the things that we were able to [00:19:00] demonstrate that way is that, a company or a studio closing doesn't have to be this big terrible, disastrous thing it can be a conversation like anything. And it can be kind of healthy. so I think we all learned a lot from both, the experience of creating a co-op, of being a co-op of learning about cooperatives and working together as a studio, with clients, of collaborating with institutions, creating more ambitious games and bigger games that we had ever created as a collective and individually.
[00:19:26] Pablo Quarta: and I, I certainly learned a lot. You know, I, produced four games under the span of a year, more or less, and did admin for this new company. And, really learned a lot. And we all took a lot also from the collective, from being Matajuegos. But I think, Matajuegos was also born in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, and it really responded to a particular culture and moment and we were all different people. when we began the collective. and the truth is that, people change and people should have the freedom and the right to move apart and to try new [00:20:00] things. And I think that's what we wanted to give each other at the end. Um, and we, you know, we're still friends. We still talk to each other. We still collaborate occasionally on different projects.
[00:20:10] this isn't to say that it was easy and that there weren't difficult conversations and there weren't difficult discussions that some of us didn't feel strong emotions at different, uh, moments in time. But, that is part of all relationships, I
Making Atuel Documentary Game
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[00:20:21] Susan Gold: I think so,
[00:20:23] I wanna talk about the game a little bit because you created a new genre, a documentary, surreal Hyperlocal game, and I have never seen anything quite like it. So how did you approach, who approached who, how did you come up with this idea of doing it as a documentary video game, and the aesthetic that there's just so much, so many questions.
[00:20:52] Pablo Quarta: Yeah, so, so Atuel, I, I don't know if I'd go as far as as saying we created a new genre, although I definitely appreciate the [00:21:00] enthusiasm. but, Atuel is,a very particular, Work. and the way it started was we were approached by a group of documentarians called the 12.01, project, are a group of international documentarians who create, generally film documentaries about, climate change, social conservation, and social change.
[00:21:21] And some of them are based in England, some of it are based in South Africa. But a, a group of them was based here in Argentina, And they were filming a documentary about the Atuel River. and they had traveled across all 550 kilometers of it, from where it's born up in the Andes Mountains to where kind of dries out in the Pampas.
[00:21:40] Um, and they had filmed some incredible views of the, of this desert landscape. And they had recorded a lot of interviews with specialists. and people who just have lived alongside the river for most of their lives, talking about, the past, the present and the future of this river and the [00:22:00] relationship that the local, local communities have to it and how it's all being threatened by the climate crisis. And. They approached us because they had received a subsidy, some funding to create a video game alongside the documentary movie that they were gonna release. They were in the, in post-production of this movie when they got in touch with us. Um, and we talked with them briefly about what their ideas were for, for creating this game.
[00:22:26] and what we ended up proposing to them was, their documentary you know, , it had these gorgeous views of the landscape, this beautifulphotorealist, uh, shots,closeups of the people being interviewed. And the narrative explained the, the origins of the river, the issues with it. and it was very rational. And we thought, well, if we're gonna make a game, we don't wanna do the same thing they're already doing in the film. Let's make something that's completely different. And that in this way compliments the filming and it gives a different perspective. On these same issues. So what we proposed was, that if the film documentary was the waking reality [00:23:00] of the river, then the game should beit's a dream of the river, what the river's dreams of when it sleeps, it's, subconscious to an extent.
[00:23:08] and so we discarded the photorealism and what we wanted to make, what we ended up making was a game that reinterprets a lot of these interviews, grabs clips of them, and rearranges them in a different order, in order to create a meditative and reflexive experiencein which you kinda have to interpret what is happening and what the interviews are telling you.
[00:23:31] and it is not rational, but emotive. You Relate to it through its emotionality and through your interpretation of what is happening and what the interviews are talking about. Because interviews aren't specific in the way they are in the documentary movie. They're more evocative and general. And a lot of what the game is doing is trying to create this intrigue, this mystery for you to fall into, to create this interpretive game space in which you're drawn into, kind of figure out what is happening and you're [00:24:00] creating this evocative emotional connection with the river and what the, these people are talking about all while having this very ecocentric perspective of the river because you play as non-human elements of the ecosystem,
[00:24:15] Susan Gold: how is human conflict dealt with, like water rights and things like that?
[00:24:20] Pablo Quarta: So, so in the game, several of the interviews talk about the negative impact of man, uh, on the natural ecosystem. And there's moments in the game in which you are faced with, forest fires and drought. and it, it is left open to, to an extent, to, what do you make of that as a player, but I, I think Even though the game is very local, and, the interviews are all in not only Spanish, but in the Spanish of this particular place in Argentina. So it's not even, the Spanish that we speak in Buenos Aires, but it's a Spanish with a, with a very local accent and with the kind of very local perspective.
[00:24:53] Uh, it is also asking you what, well, what is your relationship with, the local freshwater around you, the lakes and the rivers [00:25:00] that are the base of the society and the, the place that you inhabit.
[00:25:04] Susan Gold: I have always lived next to a large body of water. and I, it's such an amazing thing that when you look at history and how communities develop, they always. Develop around a body of water, of course. And, it's so important to think about how we as a society come together and what that meaning is about. The fact that we all congregate around this simple idea of we need this for sustenance. and that man over time has forgotten that we need to sustain the river too.
[00:25:43] Pablo Quarta: Yeah. And this is the relationship that is at the base of the narrative of Atuel. It is about this historic and very intimate relationship that we as. As a human society have with the river and the idea that the river is not just a channel of water, but it is a channel of life and that we are part of this [00:26:00] ecosystem, even though we may imagine ourselves to be outside of it and over it, we're also part of this ecosystem and this interconnection of life that the river is at the basis of it.
Hyperlocal Games
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[00:26:09] Susan Gold: Now you talk about hyperlocal and you spoke about the different accents and things like that. However, what else makes something hyperlocal and what does hyperlocal mean to you?
[00:26:22] Pablo Quarta: So the issues that Atuel deals with water scarcity, the climate crisis, drought,the impact of man on nature,are universal issues that we're all close to. but Atuelfocuses on the details of the impacts in a very specific place and to very specific people.
[00:26:40] and I think by centering on these very specific stories, that impact is felt all the more. And by being hyper-local and not, for example, we don't have any dubbing on these interviews. We keep them in their original Spanish and we keep them in their original accents as they were spoken by the people interviewed.
[00:26:56] none of the interviewers explain their culture where they come from or give any [00:27:00] explanation We show this unashamedly and we want the player to feel. Curious and intrigued by this place and these people that they don't know and they haven't heard of, because most games, and even most documentaries, most films are about the global north or they're about the big picture, but they're not about these far out marginalized places. Andwe may think, for something to have a mass appeal, it has to be about something that we all know. I think on the contrary, I think we are very drawn to places we don't know and people we don't know. And we're very curious about the stories of people we haven't met. And I think it's important, to tell those stories. And it's important I think for people from unknown places to, to really feel confident about being able to tell their stories and their, and create their own imaginaries rather than to have to try to play at the mass market, mass appeal imaginaries that we are taught to appeal to in commercial industries and in entertainment, so to speak.
[00:27:56] and I think this has worked, to Atuel's advantage.you know, when Atuel shown at [00:28:00] festivals, in galleries and in museums, it is, in great part because there is an interest in these stories.
A Museum Piece
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[00:28:04] Susan Gold: Did you imagine when you started the project that you would be creating a museum piece?
[00:28:10] Pablo Quarta: Not at all. Not at all. Atuel, is a very small project it's a game that only lasts 20 to 30 minutes. It is very easy to play. It's not a very complicated game. it was made by a very small team, with a very small budget. and we made it for a very, general Latin American audience. We did not think of making it for gamers. it's a free game and we wanted it to, to be as accessible as possible. but this also meant, that by so accessible and by being so multifaceted, it was very easy for a a lot of different curators to fit into their curational frames.
[00:28:43] What I mean is, for a science museum, Atuel is relevant because it talks about the climate crisis. for, an art gallery. Atuel is interesting because it is beautiful in the way it treats, surreal art in a video game and as interactive art it's [00:29:00] interesting. for design museum, it was interesting how Atuel puts together, the documentary genre with the video game format. And for documentary festival, it's interesting because it's a different way to approach the genre.
[00:29:12] and it is a very easy game to display it doesn't require very big technical in installation or set piece. It's just a computer and it can be played with a keyboard or with, you know, any, any game pad. it doesn't have a very big technical requirements to run, even though it's, it's very beautiful to look at. so it's not an expensive game to display. and I think because ofall these factors, actors, curators were really drawn to it. it's still being shown at very diverse places. to this day, it was just in Saul at Out of Index, which is a, an experimental games festival, in Korea. It will be shown in Sao Paulo in the second half of this month, by Funda, which is a very large cultural institution in South America. but you know, it's been shown at the Smithsonian, [00:30:00] national Art Museum in Washington, DC It's been shown at the, design museum in Atlanta. It was at the Cans Film Festival. it's been a lot of very different places because it, I think it, it's interesting to a lot of different communities and disciplines,
[00:30:17] we definitely did not think about that. This is all new to us. We, we had really not been shown at festivals very much before. This definitely not been shown museums. None of our work had been presented in these kind of spaces before. So with Atuel, it was a learning experience for us. Um, and I think it's part of a big wave of interest in new media art experiences by, different cultural institutions.
[00:30:41] Susan Gold: I am of the mind that there are many games that belong in museums as they are both. Visually stunning and say something so provocative that creates an emotional response. And to me, that's art. [00:31:00] And I think you successfully did that with your game. It's beautiful. And although I don't speak Spanish, I still felt like I understood what was going on in playing the game.
[00:31:12] Uh, it definitely is an experience and I highly recommend if anybody's out there listening and wants to play this game, it's found easily on itch.io
[00:31:24] Pablo Quarta: Yeah, it's also on STEAM and on Google Play if you,
[00:31:28] what's interested and it's free on all those platforms.
[00:31:30] Susan Gold: Wonderful.
The Issues at Hand
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[00:31:31] Susan Gold: Now let's move on to identity politics and culture, because you're right at the center of all of those things and you're actually like a, a tuning instrument to culture, and you allow us to see into some of these things that we haven't. What kind of stories are you interested in telling and what are you looking to work on and fight for in the future?
[00:31:57] Pablo Quarta: Um, a lot of the work we've done in [00:32:00] Matajuegos and that I've collaborated on, has to do with. Latin American social issues and, cultural issues that are very close, to my life experience and to the life experience of the people that I call my friends and my peers.
[00:32:14] and I don't think the issues that I've been drawn to working on have changed really since I started being part of Matajuegos in 2016. and I think they're gonna continue along those lines. one of the things that I'm very interested in since we worked on Atuel, is seeing how we can talk about Neocolonialism by talking about the climate crisis. And what I mean by this is. in the last few years here in Argentina, there has been a big incentive by government to invite large companies from the global north, from the United States, from China, but from elsewhere as well, to fund extractivism projects like mining, for lithium, for [00:33:00] copper in very big swats of, of Argentinian land that are, legally owned by, native communities, and which are protected. But these resources, these minerals are very sought after as part of, the shift in industry towards, Green energy, and there is a very complicated and intriguing situation that is happening both on a very local level in which a lot of these in native communities are being pushed off this land in order to make space for these mining operations, which are also very damaging to the local environment.
[00:33:34] But at the same time, we have very big companies continuing politics of imperialism and neocolonialism in which, Argentina and the global south are places to draw resources from without any interest in developing these regions for the people who are from these regions to profit from this extraction or have a decision in these attractions.
[00:33:54] And I think, in the same way that Atuel talks about, the climate crisis, global issue [00:34:00] by talking about a very specific place that I, I am wondering. if there's a story that we can tell through games about this situation that's happening in Argentina, um, but this is maybe a more ambitious project.
[00:34:11] Uh, but I'm also, continuing to see a lot of Argentinian developers in these last few years start to make games about Argentinian politics, about Argentinian culture, about their lives. Uh, and I'm, very inspired by their work.
[00:34:25] And I think this is pushed by public universities teaching video game development. And this has meant that a lot of peoplewho didn't have access to game development as a means of expression, have started expressing themselves through games and creating a lot of non-commercial kind of indie games, that havereally made the local indie scene. A lot more colorful and flavorful and a lot of different experiences are coming to the surface in local games.
[00:34:50] Susan Gold: I, I think that Latin America has wanted to recreate these stories that were already started in North America or [00:35:00] Europe about world wars and things like that. And I'm like, no, you have so many amazing stories, cultural stories, indigenous stories. You have your own histories and it can be hyperlocal. And I like the idea of focusing on. Environment as one. Have you focused on other areas besides environment?
[00:35:24] Pablo Quarta: Yeah. So in Matajuegos we had several projects that dealt with queerness, queer identity, trans identity. we had several projects that were, about feminist issues. in 2015 and 2016 when Matajuegos started, it was in the peak of. of "ni una menos".
[00:35:43] "Ni una menos" was a huge feminist marches andfeminist,association, fighting the amount of, of women who are being murdered in the country,And to speak about these issues and to speak about misogyny and the violence that occurs there.
[00:35:56] And members of Matajuegos made games about their experiences at these marches and, and their [00:36:00] own personal experiences. And we also made games, for example, promoting and supporting, the marches that were happening. to fight for the legalization of abortion in Argentina in 2018 and 2020 when it finally passed.
[00:36:13] we made virtual marches for people who couldn't go to the street to send in their avatars, to march virtually alongside them. Um, and we've also made games about Argentine literature and about Argentine culture in general as well. and these are all issues Yeah. That, that have come up in, in my work and the work of the, the collective in general.
What the Future Holds
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[00:36:36] Susan Gold: And yourself. How do you wanna see a future for you? where are you growing?
[00:36:44] Pablo Quarta: I'm going to continue to try to find funding for these kind of games and to make these kind of games. but, I, I also do, freelance, work for all kinds of narrative projects and as a producer for other indie games and larger commercial games.
[00:36:57] And I, I see myself continuing to do this [00:37:00] work. and I find thateven though, my heart is very much set on, indie experimental artistic games, I learn a lot from working in the industry and working on commercial projects and a lot of what I learned there and working on those projects. I, things that I can bring back to these smaller, more creative endeavors. Um, I, I would love to do some curatorship in the future and put on some exhibits, but I think this is maybe further down the line once I find the right partners to collaborate with and learn from.
[00:37:25] Yeah.
[00:37:26] Susan Gold: As Matajuegos was the first, uh, game co-op. Are you helping mentor new game co-ops? Are there new game co-ops?
[00:37:36] Pablo Quarta: Yeah, so in Argentina, since Matajuegos was funded, there are now about 10, video game co-ops in the country. and I have spoken with most of 'em and I helped several of 'em. make this decision whether, to incorporate as a co-op or to incorporate as a different kind of, legal entity.
[00:37:55] and I've helped several of 'em, just understand, what you need to run as a co-op, [00:38:00] from the bureaucracy around it, to formalize and get everything set up to start out and, get all the paperwork in.
[00:38:07] Susan Gold: Are co-ops a common thing in other Latin American countries as well?
[00:38:12] Pablo Quarta: I think it very much depends on the country and its history. in Argentina we have a long history of co-ops, which very much started as ways for immigrant groups who were coming to Argentina to gather money collectively to better their neighborhoods and to improve their living situations as a community. and then it went from there into different spaces. But for example,70% of the electricity in the country is run by community and community based energy co-ops. There's a lot of farming co-ops. There's a lot of industrial co-ops.
[00:38:41] and I think it really depends on the history of the country and how the governments in those countries have promoted or not promoted cooperatives.
[00:38:47] and I think, co-ops as an alternative model to the capitalist system of running business, are still very much alive and still proposing an alternative. And, the end goal of cooperative and all [00:39:00] cooperatives is sustainability, rather than profit. And to create a world in which we can all, make a livable wage and have, dignity in our work. and even in countries where co-ops, are difficult to create, for legal reasons, a lot of workers still run as co-ops in practical terms,
[00:39:19] Susan Gold: Yeah.
[00:39:19] Pablo Quarta: you know.
[00:39:20] Susan Gold: If, funding and policy would align the way you wanted, what kind of ecosystem around co-ops and experimental studios would you like to see in the region, if not in general, in game development around the world.
[00:39:35] Pablo Quarta: Yeah. So, around the world. We're at a very difficult moment for the games industry. It's very, very hard to find financing for new games. publishers are very risk averse. There's been a ton of layoffs. and the marketplaces that we depend on to get our games out to our public are monopolized. And it's very hard for our games to be seen. I think, it would be great, especially. locally to have [00:40:00] more government funding for games in the same way that government funds art and funds culture. I think the kind of games that I'm interested in, you know, cultural games, social games, games that don't necessarily have a commercial, angle or could be feasible commercially, but would still be meaningful. I think they need a means of funding and an alternative means of funding. And I think it would be great to see that in general all over the world as well as alternative platforms so that we're not all cramped into steam, who is very much decided to, to promote the biggest games and the popular games and not really make a space for. for creative indie games
The Throughline
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[00:40:38] Susan Gold: Understandable. If you were to connect the dots between all of the things that you've done, the co-op climate, hyperlocal, documentary games, what's the through line of everything so far in your story?
[00:40:54] Pablo Quarta: it is hard to narrow it down, but I think we live unfortunately in a society where human dignity is [00:41:00] not as valued as it should be in all kinds of ways. You know, co-ops are a way to bring human dignity back to work, that we have often lostin a lot of places and a lot of kinds of means of employment.
[00:41:13] and, the work that we've done around queer identity is also a way to display human dignity, in a political social situations where, queerness and transness is very often treated as something that is not worth respect or dignity. and so on. um. I, I, I think about this in the ways that I approach work, it's to, to value the dignity of others. and obviously, it's a very high minded and idealist thing to say, but it's very hard to
[00:41:41] Susan Gold: it's beautiful.
[00:41:42] Pablo Quarta: very high minded and very large
[00:41:44] Susan Gold: No, but it's a beautiful statement to think that your life is connected by how you treat others. It's truly a life full of drive and passion, and that really says a lot about you as a human.
Where to find Pablo
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[00:41:59] Susan Gold: [00:42:00] As we start to wrap this conversation up, what would you like to leave us with?
[00:42:04] Where would you like people to be looking at your work? Would you like them to contact you? What are you looking to do, for your future?
[00:42:13] Pablo Quarta: Um, so if,you still want to hear more from me, you can find me as, as pf Quata, that's P-F-Q-U-A-R-T-A on just about any social media. feel free to ping me or to email me at, pfquarta@gmail.com.
[00:42:26] but mostly if you're intrigued by Atuel, I invite you to download it. It's a very small time commitment, 20 to 30 minutes. It's a very relaxing game. You can play it with a nice, relaxing drink with some nice headphones on to listen to to the sound and to the music. And if you like it, please leave us a review either on Itch or on Steam, or on Google Play. It really helps us out a lot.
[00:42:45] and, you know, I'm gonna be looking for work opportunities, doing narrative design and game design and production. so if, from what you're here, you'd be interested in working with me, let me know. I'm very interested in, in, uh, listening to opportunities for collaboration for [00:43:00] 2026 and 2027. and yeah, I've spoken at a lot of conferences and, uh, festivals these last two, three years, and if you're looking for speakers, let me know. Maybe we can make it happen, maybe
[00:43:11] Susan Gold: Absolutely. I think that what you really bring to the table, my friend, is this honesty about dealing with our problems , and finding novel ways to approach introducing these concepts to people that are just not aware. It's not a part of their consciousness. And the idea that to play through this game, but at the same time have my mind thinking. Now mind you, I don't speak Spanish, so it's very hard for me to get all the nuances. But you get the intonation, you understand what's building, what's happening, and, You don't have to have a common language. You could have, it's a common emotion. It. In that [00:44:00] way of being able to communicate with the world around you, you're truly gifted.
[00:44:05] And I think your team and the people that worked on this the thought that went into this game is truly poetic and I really feel like you've given the world something worthy of 30 minutes, if not more.
[00:44:22] I think it, once they play, it'll be a lifetime of thinking and that is a gift
[00:44:29] Pablo Quarta: Thank you Susan. That's, that's very, that's very kind of you to say.
[00:44:33] Susan Gold: I. I don't know many people that can do that. And I live in a world where I only am looking for people who could make effective change. I want people to be out there finding alternative ways to communicate and share stories and that we can do it through games. Truly unique and a, a beautiful experience, [00:45:00] and I highly recommend our listeners to go play and watch it.
[00:45:03] And I want to thank you very much, Pablo, for your time today for sharing this journey, not just down a river, but through life. It's truly been an honor to meet you and get to know you. Thank you.
[00:45:18] Pablo Quarta: Thank you so much, Susan, and thanks to everyone who's been listening, if you. If you take anything away from this, uh, I hope it is to make your own hyperlocal games about the places you live in and the places you inhabit and the stories. Only you can tell.
[00:45:33] Susan Gold: That would be truly beautiful. I hope they listen. Thank you so much, Pablo. Bye-bye.
[00:45:38] Pablo Quarta: Bye.
Outro
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[00:45:39]
[00:45:39] Shirley McPhaul: Want to get involved with the G GJ podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Please send your ideas, suggestions, and questions to ggj pod@globalgamejam.org and tell us who you think we should be talking to next. What stories or issues matter most to you about the future of games, and help us [00:46:00] highlight the people and practices that make a sustainable, creative life and games possible.
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[00:46:26] Catch us on substack and on YouTube and anywhere else you find podcasts. This has been the GGJ Podcast. Thanks for listening and keep making games.