OV Entertainment's quest to unite Latin American games firms begins with Kokku, 3OGS acquisitions

The newly-formed OV Entertainment Group has made its first two acquisitions: Brazilian developer Kokku and Argentinian tools and tech specialist 3OGS.

Both were acquired for an undisclosed sum and form the basis of a group that aims to unite Latin American games companies in order to accelerate their growth and give them access to resources they would otherwise be unable to reach.

GamesIndustry.biz sat down with key execs from all three companies during Gamescom Latam in São Paulo this week, where the vision for the group was described as the brainchild of Thiago de Freitas, founder of Kokku and now CEO of OV Entertainment.

De Freitas (pictured above left) explained that the idea began following a string of acquisition offers for Kokku, one of the largest studios in Brazil and one of the few with AAA development experience. Kokku provides services ranging from art production and co-development to full game development, and has contributed to games such as Horizon Fobidden West, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, Prison Architect 2, and more.

"We always wanted to show the world that the future of games development is coming from South America and Latin America, but we decided it's not for us to sell the company to any of these other groups or institutions," the CEO told us. "We really understand the culture, we don't want to be diluted into a different brand. And since we are Latin Amercians and we're proud of that, we know how to work with the culture, with the politics and labour laws, and all the weird financial taxes you need to pay here. Having this kind of understanding helps us to grow business here.

"That's one of the big reasons why Kokku was never sold to anyone, and why we decided to start uniting the Latin America game companies."

De Freitas added that Kokku's reputation and established contacts will help elevate other companies in the group, ones that may not have had the same opportunities before or lacked the structure and resources to take advantage of them.

"Companies like 3OGS, they're very talented, extremely skilled but they were struggling to find better companies and to reach other clients because they didn't have access to investment money and go beyond what they were already doing," he said.

3OGS, which stands for Three Ordinary Guys Studio, is a tech specialist based in Argentina and the team first met with De Freitas nearly two years ago when they were seeking investment. Co-CEO Pablo Navajas (pictured above right) said that when he heard the overall vision for OV Entertainment, it was "beyond our imagination."

"It was aligned with what we wanted to do in future, but we had that ambition alone and with [OV] we have the opportunity to accelerate that process," he said.

"We've also had companies trying to acquire us in the past, but this was the first time we felt like, 'Yes, this is the sort of future we want to shape.' This is going to be the huge step we wanted to do, just more quickly."

Navajas added that being part of a larger group will enable 3OGS to be involved in more complex projects and recruit larger teams to handle them.

De Freitas also hinted that this group will go beyond video games development and services, expressing a "broader vision of tapping into film, TV and other areas."

While OV Entertainment will focus on acquiring companies from Latam markets, the parent company itself is registered and based in the UK, with chief strategy officer Chris Bergstresser (pictured above) telling us this will make it easier for the group to access capital and operate with a more global focus.

Crucially, Bergstresser said the company has been watching other, larger games and services groups carefully and aim to learn from their mistakes.

"The idea [Embracer] got correct is operational independence," he said, by way of example. "Ultimately, the only value in any company is the teams that are there. The reason why you get the best talent is because people love the working methodologies and the culture of those companies. Those are preserved.

"While Kokku and 3OGs are all part of OV Entertainment, it's the same shareholders so I wouldn't say they've lost independence. No one will do that in the future. It's effectively the same guys running the companies as it was before."

De Freitas added: "When we created OV Entertainment, it was to make sure we would use the company not like a Keywords or Embracer or these other groups, but we want to be a backstage kind of group. We're not here to take the lead or to dilute brands."

Navajas concurred, emphasising that a key reason 3OGS agreed to this acquisition was because the team can "make our own decisions [and] keep our clients."

"I think this is going to be a great group, and the next few years are going to be great. If we went alone, this sort of thing would have taken us another ten years, and now we can be there in two to three years."