Born and raised in São Paulo, Rafael Grassetti is among the biggest Brazilian names in the gaming universe across the planet. He started in the industry as a digital modeler and today he has more than 17 years of experience in the entertainment industry, making him one of the best known digital sculptors in the world. Throughout his career, he has contributed to some of gaming’s most successful franchises, such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age. In addition, he has won numerous awards, including Best Art Director, NAVGTR Award (for Character Design) and Best Digital Sculptor. He is currently linked to Santa Monica Studio, Sony’s game development. Since 2013 he has served as art director on the God of War franchise, which has sold over 23 million units, counting the eight different games released and totaling approximately $500 million, according to Playstationlifestyle.
How did you get started in graphic design?
I’ve always been kind of invoked in this part of art. In 2000, I had the opportunity to start working with marketing and advertising in Brazil, a segment that ended up taking me to this part of character creation. I ended up liking it. I went to design school in Brazil, but I didn’t graduate, because at the time I started working in studios in São Paulo. They were really my school, working in commercial production or print or whatever. And that’s what led me to character creation.
Have you already started your career in games?
In the beginning, I still didn’t know much about game production. I didn’t even have exposure to that, which is something difficult to happen in Brazil too, right? At the time, when I started doing this kind of advertising and marketing work, I started to receive some proposals to work with games. I learned as I did and worked with these companies outside the country, like Ubisoft and some others.
How did the opportunity to go abroad come about?
Already working for foreign companies, here in Brazil, the opportunity arose to go to Canada, to work with Mass Effect [franquia de sete jogos de ficção científica] on BioWare. That’s where my career really started within the industry. I was really learning how games were made, I was exposed to tools and other things that studios use and are difficult to get outside.
How was the move to Sony?
I already had contact with Sony, at the time they tried to open a studio in São Paulo. And this opportunity arose to come to Sony in the United States, where I have been for ten years. I learned and continue to learn a lot in this world of games.
Did you face any difficulty or prejudice for being a foreigner?
I think that the industry, because it is so varied in terms of nationality, there is no such prejudice in relation to its origin, also because it is an industry that requires a lot of talent. You have to hire a lot of people because the segment grows every year and there are more and more studios coming up with new investments. It’s very competitive in that regard, so the industry knows it needs talent from all over the world to function, especially in the United States. The biggest difficulty is getting to come here and enter the industry leaving Brazil. The visa part is difficult, in addition to another complex point, which is the professional being able to have a good experience and background in Brazil.
What do you personally do to change this scenario?
I hire a lot of people from Brazil. I’m always trying to sign artists that I know. Because of the pandemic, the doors opened a little more for this. Hiring someone from abroad without having to come here makes it a little easier, but I still think that the biggest difficulty is for people to get involved in the world of games working abroad. The advice is to keep trying to come here, pushing this barrier. Even with the Brazilian artists who work with me, it’s very difficult for us to send a dev kit [kit de desenvolvimento usado na produção dos jogos] for Brazil. There is a knowledge learning barrier when you are not involved within the studio and the country. The biggest impediment is this gap in knowledge which is difficult to bridge by not being here.
What is the biggest difference between a Brazilian game studio and one like Sony’s Santa Monica Studio?
The biggest difference is the maturity of the studio in terms of schedule, project size and investment. Other than that, the organization is the main difference. It’s all very organized and specific. When will it be ready, what are we going to do at each stage, how much will it cost or who will work with this or that. The organization is very large due to the number of people we have. We got to work with hundreds of artists at the same time and even other studios here at Sony. There are a lot of people, unlike the studios in Brazil.
Does Brazil have the potential to have a big studio that can play a triple A game (with the biggest budgets and levels of promotion)?
To tell you the truth, I don’t even know how we, here in the US, manage to deliver a triple A, because the challenge of making a game of this scale is very big. The biggest difficulties are investment and talent, something that has been building for many years in the United States and in other countries. When you have that kind of investment to make a game, even in Brazil, you still need to get talent with experience and the studios that have already tried to do it end up bringing people from outside. On the other hand, the tools are becoming more accessible and you don’t have to develop them all inside the studio anymore. So, as time goes by, things get a little easier.
What is the difference between games and other audiovisual products?
When we manage to align the storytelling part with the cinematic part, together with a good game experience, you end up building a universe that is as realistic as possible. Therein lies the magic of games. You get to live what’s going on.
What’s the difference in creating a narrative for a game and a movie?
The narration and story are told in a linear fashion, just like in the movies, and playable points are inserted into the story to make the experience more interactive. In the development of God of War, one of the difficulties was the care with the preservation of the mythology present in the plot, which is the Norse. We started to study about it, but there is little information, which is good and bad at the same time, because we end up not having so much reference. But we can put our interpretation of that too.
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