The South African game studio that made R172 million with its first game

Free Lives is one of the clearest success stories out of South Africa’s local video game industry, in large part due to the viral sensation of its first game, Broforce.

The independent studio was founded in Cape Town in April 2012 by Evan Greenwood, who has led the company as its creative director ever since.

As of 2026, Free Lives employs 16 people and runs out of a house in Cape Town’s Constantia neighbourhood, which the studio converted into an office space.

The first game Free Lives developed was a 2D game inspired by 90s action movies titled Rambros, which the team entered into the April 2012 Ludum Dare game jam.

The positive reception of Rambros inspired the studio to continue working on the game and improve it, renaming it Broforce and releasing it on Steam in 2013 for $14.99.

The game was an instant success, with Greenwood revealing to MyGaming in May 2016 that it had already generated $3 million (or R46 million) for the company.

While official sales data for Broforce is not available, estimates from Video Game Insights place the total at 2.9 million copies sold on Steam alone.

According to the Steam Revenue Calculator, this has helped the game to generate an estimated revenue of $35 million (R583 million).

Of this, $10.4 million (R172 million) went back to Free Lives as net revenue, with the rest going towards discounts, refunds, taxes, and Steam’s cut.

The game has also been ported to multiple other platforms, such as PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, which means its overall sales and revenue figures are much higher.

Since Broforce, Free Lives has released several other popular titles, including Genital Jousting, Gorn, Terra Nil, Anger Foot, and Stick It To The Stickman.

All of the studio’s games since 2015 have been published by American game publisher Devolver Digital, which specialises in the publishing of independent games.

Leading South Africa’s growing games industry

Free Lives has established itself not only as one of South Africa’s most successful game studios but also as a leader in advancing the growing industry.

According to Free Lives managing director Dominique Gawlowski, the studio is entirely self-funded, taking no outside investments and funding all its projects itself.

Meanwhile, South Africa as a whole has one of the fastest-growing video game sectors on the African continent, valued at an estimated R7.3 billion.

A report from video game industry data analytics provider Newzoo placed South Africa’s total gaming revenue for 2023 at $266 million, or R4.9 billion at that time.

This represented 0.14% of the global gaming industry’s total revenue generated that year, which came to $184 billion (R3.4 trillion).

However, the compound annual growth rate of South Africa’s gaming industry between 2020 and 2024 was 4.7%, and was expected to grow even further.

Newzoo estimated that by 2026, South Africa’s total gaming spend would grow to $333 million (R5.5 billion), at a 7.8% growth rate.

Despite this, it is estimated that less than 1% of all game developers in the world come from Africa, something which Free Lives and their fellow local studios aim to change.

In 2024, Free Lives launched a support initiative called the Jam Dole, providing monetary incentives for local game creators to develop their ideas.

Gawlowski explained that the idea came about after Free Lives was approached to fund numerous game projects, but saw no tangible results.

“It was sort of throwing money into this black hole that wasn’t coming back,” Gawlowski said. “When we funded these games, there were no strings attached, but the games still weren’t being made.”

“So we’ve created a new system. You get R10,000 for every prototype you submit, and you get two weeks to make the prototype. At the end of the two weeks, you have to have something playable.”

The studio also finances and operates the annual Playtopia festival in Cape Town, showcasing local game talent to industry professionals from around the world.