Meet the ex-footballer who built one of Brazil's largest games studios

Matheus Vivian has had a very unusual path into games.

A former footballer, he played professionally for 18 years – first in Brazil and then in Germany and France. The end of his career was "a stop" in his life, he tells us, as all of a sudden he needed to find a new direction.

He started consulting for football clubs and leagues, had his own radio show in France, but ultimately what he really wanted to do was start a game studio, with business partner Guilherme Gonçalves.

"Our goal was to connect sports and gaming, because that was our passion," Vivian says. "And we saw a big opportunity in that. People love sports, people love games, and this is so big, both platforms. How can we put the two together? It's so hard to compete with the big companies.

"With my background we started to build this business model, we licensed Paris Saint Germain and players of the club like Neymar and [Kylian] Mbappé, and we built a very casual game, a free-to-play game."

And, just like that, Hermit Crab was born, with Vivian as its CEO. From this initial mobile title many more were born, based on other football clubs including Arsenal, Manchester City, and FC Barcelona, among many others.

"Our biggest success I think was the Paris Saint Germain game," Vivan says. "We got more than six million organic users for this game – organic, not user acquisition. On different platforms. That showed us the power of the [licence], and casual games. Because the game was about freestyle [football], doing some tricks, and it's so fun. It's not simulation, it's so arcade.

"When we built that, we saw the opportunity not only to get licences and build a dedicated game for each brand, but we saw the opportunity and the problem that brands have entering the games [industry], and how you can solve that, puting the brands on all kinds of different platforms."

Hermit Crab now employs over 100 people and is dedicated to sports titles, trying to convey Brazilian culture through its games. The studio is developing for platforms like Roblox and Fortnite as well as mobile, and has gone beyond football with titles like Sports Land.

"For us it's very important [to showcase Brazilian culture]," Vivian says. "We really believe that we can deliver more than some mechanics. We can deliver culture. Especially in the metaverse, it's our opportunity to communicate with the fans and deliver our colours, our energy, to export Brazil to the world.

"Sport is not only entertainment. Sport is something that's part of our life here. I play football on the street, I play volleyball on the beach, it's part of the city, and this is something that we tried to build in Sports Land."

"For us it's very important [to showcase Brazilian culture]. We can deliver more than mechanics. We can deliver culture... Sport is not only entertainment. Sport is something that's part of our life here"

He mentions that each Hermit Crab title is built specifically for each platform, saying:
"[For instance] we'll build the same Sports Land on Roblox, and on Fortnite. In different ways and with different visuals, because each platform is different."

To be able to create for each platform, Hermit Crab has been focusing on building its team over the past three years.

"We really built a dedicated team for each kind of platform, so for mobile free-to-play, for more arcade AA games, [for] Fortnite, Roblox, The Sandbox. Today we have departments for each platform, and we are building our own platforms and trying to integrate all these games [and] brands."

While many studios aim to release titles independently on consoles or PC, there's a very good reason Hermit Crab has been focusing on what Vivian calls metaverse platforms.

"If you look today [in] the games industry, the users are playing Roblox, or Fortnite. So I think our strategy to build an audience [there] is not a bad strategy [compared to] only trying to build our own products.

"Roblox and Fortnite are part of our strategy to be present [across the entire] gaming ecosystem and to touch different audiences, to target different users."

We ask Vivian about the challenges of bringing games to these platforms, to which he says it's crucial to learn about the platform first and foremost. He adds that while the licences Hermit Crab works with are crucial to its games' success, it's not (only) about them.

"The game should work alone. The mechanics need to be good, and should fit with what the users are playing. And after, we put the [licences] in to deliver more value. The other stage [is] connecting with influencers. Because they will be the easier way to get more users, to build community, and to learn quickly about the platform.

"So I think [it's] all together – connect to the platform, connect to the communities, connect with the influencers – and building a great game."

For all of Hermit Crab's titles linked to European clubs, Brazil was always the first or second country, in terms of downloads, Vivian says. So the studio also wants to make sure it serves that audience as best as it can, and recently started licensing Brazilian brands.

It became the official game studio for the Brazilian Olympic Committee, for instance, and will be working on football titles linked to Brazilian clubs.

"Users are playing Roblox, or Fortnite. So I think our strategy to build an audience [there] is not a bad strategy [compared to] only trying to build our own products"

"Our goal with that is to really focus on this first momentum in Brazil and learn more about how we can really improve these games, how we can improve the connection of the brands with our games, and when we'll learn about that and get some KPIs, our goal will be to export that to the US, Europe, and Asia.

"Our goal [for now] is to be more focused on Brazil and, next year, [we'll] return to Europe, the US, with our new business model."

A games studio growing at that speed with over 100 employees is still a rare sight in Brazil. We ask Vivian about how they've reached that size.

"I think it's because our focus was, and still is, on the culture of the company, and our vision to connect sports and games. [We] always continue with our strategy, and build a very strong culture. Because we know [that] a product is part of the company, [but] it's not the company."

Case in point, Hermit Crab's PSG game isn't live anymore, so the focus of the company couldn't be on its most successful game, and the studio has to constantly reinvent itself and look for new partners.

"The long term vision and ambition is to be the reference on the sports games with IPs," Vivian concludes. "I really believe that in a few years when a sports brand thinks, 'hey, I'd really like to get into games', [they will go], 'there's these guys in Brazil!'"