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Yes, dreams come true, but “you have to work hard,” says Sergio Rebolledo, video game artist and designer. For this Mexican, the path to a career in the industry took him to Canada, and perhaps staying in his home country was never part of the plan. 

Sergio remembers that one Christmas, when he was little, he received a Playstation and that is how his imagination awakened a hunger that will not allow him to keep his feet still. It was the wonder of seeing stories like Resident Evil or characters like Marvel VS Capcom that called him to tell stories in the same way. Although he admits that without knowing English, the gaps that the language had were filled by imagination.

So when the time came to choose a profession, he was determined to make video games, but the universities that advertised courses for the development of these digital media were private and therefore out of reach for him and his family. Noticing the young man's enthusiasm, his father told him: "Study something related and you'll get started." 

Sergio decided to study graphic design at the University of Guadalajara with the plan of getting involved in the video game industry later on, after all there is no video game that can be made without an artist or graphic designer. With great enthusiasm the young artist asked his teachers about how he could make illustrations for video games, to which they all responded "I don't know anything about that, ask me the difference between RGB and CMYK or how to make logos and print." That is why Sergio admits to being self-taught, he learned by searching on his own, with YouTube videos to fill the gap that formal school had left. 

Of course, to achieve your goals it is not enough to learn, you also need to take action. Sergio then began to try to test his skills, asking here and there about video game projects where he could participate. Game jams and meet ups were where he found people with the same passion for video games and a special interest in creating. In one of them he also met Blas David Castañeda Martínez, with whom he would work on the game The end is nahual: If I may say so, whose development would last around 13 long years.

With renewed energy and confidence in his abilities, the Mexican managed to find ?Una Simple Idea?, a company originally dedicated to marketing that wanted to start participating in the mobile game industry and together with them he created Mucho Taco, a Mexican-themed clicker for mobile phones. As art director on this video game, Sergio was in charge of the colorful and cartoonish game that you can still find in the appstore.

Dreams take you far from home

It is sad to hear of talented people who dream of leaving their country due to lack of opportunities. Just like Felipe Falanghe, creator of Kerbal Space program, left his native Brazil or Ramón Zárate, who works with Blizzard veterans at Uncapped Games, left his Mexican homeland, Sergio also had his eyes set on the north to begin to seek the stability and development that his Mexico could not give him. As many countrymen can attest, the task of migrating is not an easy thing and involves a lot of work and sacrifice. For Sergio, this journey began by knocking on doors, sending emails and looking for opportunities in companies that needed a video game illustrator in the United States or Canada. He tells us that time and again he found himself in dead ends; employers simply were not interested or able to extend a work visa for foreign talent, but rather, they were interested in employing students from exchange programs who are already in the country. 

The second option for this designer seemed impossible at the time. If no one could help him migrate, he would have to pay for a degree in the northern country, but? Pay for the trip and the studies himself? Impossible, it's too expensive! This thought kept going around in his mind until, facing his fears, he began to do the math. With some savings, a loan from his family and a job in Canada, it could be possible, but he immediately realized the enormous task he was about to undertake. 

Sergio shares with us the sacrifices he had to make to be able to pay for the adventure, saving on food, buying only what was necessary and above all, working constantly or as he describes it, "parr chayote." He studied full time, working to save money and also studying Canadian immigration laws to be able to stay in the country. Stress was building up in the young student as the date approached when the three-year permit he was given to study a diploma in the country of the maple leaf would end. Fortunately, he got a stable job and that also allowed him to return to video game development in his free time. 

The Michoacan boy who had dreamed of developing video games when he received a Playstation for Christmas achieved his dream. Through perseverance and hard work, he achieved what many fellow countrymen, brothers and sisters in Latin America long for when they leave their families in their native countries.

Sergio's story, like that of many talented Latin Americans who face the world and succeed, has a bittersweet tone. On the one hand, there are few stories more powerful than those of Latinos working and reaping the fruits of their efforts. On the other hand, it leaves a pit in my stomach to know that staying in the beautiful country of Mexico (or any other country where talent is present) is not part of the plan of any of our fellow citizens. Lack of support, without a doubt, but also a lack of ambition on the part of different sectors condemns our artists and developers, especially in digital media, to leave their homeland, so that their art can flourish in more fertile lands. 

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