Oscar Martinez founded Mazorca Games, an indie video game studio in 2016, which he has been growing with help from long-time collaborators Beto and Eduardo, ever since.
Since then, he has tried several routes to find success including reaching out to Sheffield City Council’s: Business Sheffield which supports local businesses in the city.
Mr Martinez recalled how he was advised by Business Sheffield to change the name of his studio as it might not resonate with the gamers of Sheffield or the UK.
Born in Mexico, Mr Martinez has been in the city since studying at the University of Sheffield in 2003.
From the age of five, Mr Martinez dreamt of becoming a video game developer which brought him to the city where Britain’s National Videogame Museum currently stands.
Mr Martinez spoke about how he accidentally discovered the National Videogame Museum while walking on the street, highlighting how there’s not enough advertisement out there for gaming enthusiasts to take notice of the home of video game history in the UK.
Mazorca Games’ struggle to get up and running as a game developer in the UK is highlighted through its efforts to find gamers to try out their titles on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Marketing the game through ads reflected the tough ad bidding prevalent on these platforms.
Spending upwards of £800 in a month to gain traction on their titles wasn’t enough to garner tangible attention from gamers in the UK.
Mr Martinez, a die-hard Legend of Zelda fan, who has lived through the infamous Nintendo versus Sega console war, feels Sheffield’s video game culture is hardly “evident”.
He added that there might even be a bustling culture for video games in Sheffield but he’s yet to stumble upon it.
He felt this may stem from the lack of his complete integration into the culture of the UK, saying: “I’m not completely integrated into the culture and society, and it feels like I’m half-integrated due to the differences (in culture).”
Mazorca Games currently has six mobile games released in Mexico, and one of them, called Small Party, is also available in the UK.
