Business

The man who founded South Africa’s most successful studio and made millions with his first game

Declan Thompson • 3 September 2026

Evan Greenwood founded Free Lives in 2012, with the studio going on to release multiple successful titles and making millions of dollars.

Growing up in Cape Town, Greenwood fell in love with action movies from the 80s and 90s and dreamed of becoming a game designer from a young age.

Before founding his own game studio, however, he worked as a commercial graphic designer while participating in game jams on the side.

After quitting his job in 2008 to pursue game design full-time, Greenwood saw little commercial success for the first three years of his career.

“It wasn’t until about 2011 that I’d made a game that really made a significant profit at all,” Greenwood told Forbes Africa in 2018.

The following April, Greenwood and three friends teamed up to enter the 23rd edition of the Ludum Dare Game Jam, with the theme being “Tiny World”.

Over the course of four days, the team developed a small retro game based around Greenwood’s love for classic action movies, which they titled ‘Rambros’.

The game was well received, voted first place in the jam’s “Fun” category and placed 7th overall out of 1,402 entries.

Rambros’ success motivated Greenwood and his team to further develop the game, and they founded Free Lives shortly after to continue building on it.

The members of Free Lives rented a double-storey house in Cape Town’s Kenilworth neighbourhood, which doubled as the studio’s office space.

They continued to work on Rambros, which was eventually renamed ‘Broforce’, with funding assistance from Greenwood’s parents.

Broforce opened in early access on Steam on 7 April 2014, with the full game officially launching a year and a half later, on 15 October 2015, for $14.99.

The game has since been ported to various platforms, including the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch, with its final major update and expansion released on 8 August 2023.

Giving back to the gaming community

Broforce was an instant success upon its official release, with Greenwood reporting that by May 2016, it had already generated $3 million (R46 million) in revenue for the studio.

To date, the game has sold 2.9 million copies on Steam alone, generating $35 million (R583 million) in revenue, of which $10.4 million (R172 million) went to Free Lives.

The team bought a six-bedroom cottage in Cape Town’s Constantia neighbourhood and converted it into an office space, which serves as Free Lives’ headquarters to this day.

From here, the studio developed more successful titles over the years, such as Gorn, Genital Jousting, Anger Foot, Stick It To The Stickman, and Terra Nil.

The success of Broforce and Free Lives prompted Greenwood and his team to want to give back and support South Africa’s growing game development scene.

In 2018, the studio launched the Playtopia Festival as Africa’s first independent games festival and conference, attracting developers from across the continent and around the world.

Playtopia operates as a non-profit organisation subsidised by Free Lives, as the studio estimates that selling out all tickets would cover only 10% of costs.

The studio also hosts its own game jams for prospective South African game designers, with Greenwood stressing that jam experience is crucial for those looking to enter the industry.

“Free Lives, through the Playtopia foundation, hosts a game jam every month at the Maker’s Massive in Cape Town,” Greenwood explained to Games Industry Africa.

“In addition, the foundation also pays developers to prototype their ideas through a program we call the ‘Jam Dole’.”

Launched in 2024, the Free Lives Jam Dole allows local developers to submit game prototypes to Free Lives and receive monetary compensation.

These developers are given two weeks to build their prototypes. By the end of the two weeks, they must present something playable, upon which they are given R10,000.