Latin American contraflow in global entertainment media: Kingdom Rush series and Zambo Dende as de-localised media products

Abstract

In order to shed some light on how Latin American entrepreneurs are developing products for a globalised market and attempting to overcome cultural discount by making their products more universal in their appeal, we analyse the cases of the video game Kingdom Rush from Uruguay and the Zambo Dende audio-visual project from Colombia. To provide context, the flow of entertainment media products from Latin America is first considered, with two cases then presented in order to provide insight into the processes of economic contra-flow and cultural transduction. Based on an examination of the products and in-depth interviews with the creators (and also survey responses in the case of Kingdom Rush), the findings reveal the various challenges faced by and the achievements of these small-scale entrepreneurs to reach a global market. We pay particular attention to the way in which the products achieve global appeal to mitigate negative effects associated with the geographical and cultural origin of a product.