If you go to that room today, you'll see the marks the chairs left on the floor. It was a small room with a computer and a couple of chairs, half the space of the meeting room they have now. The studio began at Azofra's place, with just the three of them at that time. Inside the studio, it has a cozy atmosphere, with the team of 15 sharing the same space: programmers, artists and game designers are all mixed up in a room with large tables and a kitchenette at the back of the room. It's difficult to think that a game studio would be a couple of blocks from the town's center, on the second floor of one of the busiest streets. It's a city with old buildings everywhere and displays in the streets that still advertise PlayStation 2 games. Unlike other Latin cities like Buenos Aires, Lima or Santiago, Montevideo has a slow pace. Even more, they are confident that their next game is going to surpass all expectations. It's clear that Ironhide is an important part of their lives and they don't want to return to being employees again. And they send an email to Rovio refusing the deal. They think about the the plans they have for their studio, its future.
They decide to take some time to make their decision, so they travel back to Uruguay. Now, sitting in Rovio's office, the three stare at each other with disbelief. And when they flew to Finland, they were preparing a sequel. Less than two years after assembling the team, the trio had made one of the most popular tower defense games in the world. The game took off, first as a Flash title, and then it went mobile. The team invested half a year in making the game and it paid off. Azofra discovered great games at web portals like Kongregate that made money through sponsors, so the three formed a team to try the same.Īfter making a couple of small Flash games working part time, they decided to try something bigger. They had been working freelance jobs for a while, but they wanted to do something together. Ironhide Game Studio was founded by Álvaro Azofra, Pablo Realini and Gonzalo Sande in Montevideo, Uruguay in 2010. But that's not the case.Īfter a few minutes, an executive from Rovio enters the room, and the Uruguayans find out the real purpose of the meeting: Rovio wants to buy their studio.
It's their first time in Europe and they think that the developer of Angry Birds is interested in creating alliances with Latin game studios or maybe wants to publish their next game. It's January 2013 and inside a closed room at Rovio's headquarters in Finland, three Uruguayans are waiting.
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