Pablo Quarta: Evolving the Way we Work | Writer, Producer & CoFounder @ Matajuegos | GGJ Podcast Ep5

Pablo Quarta on Atuel, Hyperlocal Documentary Games, and Building a Game Workers Co-op in Argentina | GGJ Podcast Susan welcomes Argentine writer, narrative designer, and producer Pablo Quarta from Buenos Aires to discuss their work in indie games, game criticism, and cooperatives. Pablo shares how Matajuegos began as a bilingual blog and dev collective responding to Argentina’s 2015 indie scene and a lack of real-world, Latin American perspectives in games, later becoming Argentina’s first video game workers co-op in 2021. They describe producing social-issue projects, including the Spanish card game “Viaja baraja,” and explain co-op decision-making, business realities, and communication challenges, as well as dissolving amicably after eight years. Then, Pablo details Atuel, a 20–30 minute surreal documentary game where players embody Argentina's Atuel river and its ecosystem amid climate crisis interviews, its hyperlocal nature, and its success across museums and festivals. They discuss their interests in climate crisis, neocolonial extractivism, queerness, feminist issues, and invite listeners to create their own hyperlocal games. 00:00 Intro 00:48 Partners & Sponsors 01:28 Meet Pablo Quatra 04:40 Matajuegos 09:01 The Co-op Model & Video Game Development 20:21 Making Atuel Documentary Game 26:09 Hyperlocal Games 28:04 A Museum Piece 31:31 The Issues at Hand 36:36 What the Future Holds 40:38 The Throughline 41:59 Where to find Pablo 45:39 Outro