For those who don’t know (is there anyone who doesn’t?), Eva Gaspar is the CEO of Abylight since a few years ago, but her beginnings were different. However, she is probably one of the best people who can tell the true story of Abylight from its beginnings, not only because she was there, but because of the number of details she can lovingly provide.
How has Abylight survived all these years full of changes and evolution of the videogame industry in Spain and the world since 2003? That’s what Sara Borondo has brought to light with this special interview in Vandal.
You can see the full interview on Vandal’s website (only in Spanish).
Vandal is one of the oldest specialized videogame websites in Spain (giving it all since 1997!). It’s also one of the biggest referents in digital press in this country in terms of news, articles, reports, interviews, and much more of the videogame sector, including all platforms, indie games, and esports.
Before the Big Bang
Abylight did not begin its journey under this name but grew out of Bit Managers, which specialized primarily in the creation of 8-bit Game Boy games during the 1990s. Eva Gaspar joined then as an administrator and soon found that her stay would be longer and her duties would vary.
Although a few years later she took a break to live and work in other European countries, she had already established a very strong connection with some people at Bit Managers, which eventually disappeared – or rather, transformed – into other companies such as Enjoy Up or Abylight.
First steps
Upon her return, Eva took on roles in practically all administrative areas of Abylight. Together with a large number of games produced and their quality, this allowed Abylight to participate in many events that served to publicize the studio and get new projects and orders.
The team not only focused on game development but began to diversify its activity. This planted the seed of what is now a publisher under the Abylight Studios label.
An ascending path
One way or another, Abylight has been constantly working frenetically since its beginnings, which has allowed us to not only have a source of income with which to continue expanding the team and doing what we are most passionate about developing video games. So it is not surprising that our catalog exceeds the impressive figure of 40 games, and counting.
In addition, Eva has developed her activities where she is the axis of development to be able to offer, among other things, specialized video game consulting with GD Consult. She is aware that video game entrepreneurs do not have many references to rely on, given the youth of this industry, and creativity is a factor that can sometimes make things go well and sometimes not so well, so it is important to know how to manage this in order to survive over time.
A step further
After the change in Abylight’s leadership, where Eva Gaspar became a majority partner, changes began to happen. One of the first initiatives was teleworking. This allowed having a more varied team that was more focused on the needs of the team and not so defined by the geographical proximity to the company in Barcelona.
This is something that continues to this day, with 25 people working from different parts of Spain (and the world). It has not negatively influenced in any way the productivity and workflow of the team. The physical office has been kept as the logistic headquarters for the distribution of the physical editions of games like Hyper Light Drifter and Cursed Castilla; since Abylight started its new stage also as a distributor under the Abylight Shop label.
The 5 questions
Finally, Sara Borondo closes the interview with 5 questions to know a little more about Eva on a personal level. They also delved a little deeper into the new journey of Abylight as a distributor (as well as developer and publisher) and the current IP we are developing: One Military Camp.
Did you want to know more? You can watch the full interview here (only in Spanish).
You can also follow Abylight’s adventures closely on all our social networks, but especially on Discord (we’re always happy to chat with new people!) and Twitch.
