On a beach in Greece in 2004, Konstantinos Manos and Dimitrios Xanthakis were playing a browser game.

“We can make games 10,000 times better than this one — in a weekend!” Manos said. They laughed it off.

Six years later, the software developer and master storyteller realized that they ought to stop denying their talents—and so, they began working on Vesuvius Media, a gaming company.

Not many game companies start or headquarter in Greece. Vesuvius Media had one strong local competitor, and so they found it hard to get off the ground. With no gaming companies, they had neither friends nor enemies to help them evolve.

“If you’re alone, you don’t know, you don’t have any competition—competition makes you become better,” Manos said in an interview.

Nova Scotia, however, has lots of gaming companies, ranging from Alpha Dog Games to Xona Games Inc. Nova Scotia Business Inc. heard of Vesuvius Media from across the ocean, reached out to them and told them tales of the supportive and diverse ecosystem of gamers in the province.

In 2014, Manos picked up his family and moved to Halifax.

Alpha Dog Launching MonstroCity

The company began to pick up momentum here. It already had the foundations, and with Manos’ expertise in software frameworks and Xanthakis’ unstoppable imagination, the games kept coming. And with access to other gaming companies, schools like Nova Scotia Community College and support systems offered to them through NSBI, Vesuvius Media could thrive.

The company has not only received local attention, but also international recognition. In August, Vesuvius Media will be one of the 21 companies chosen to have a booth in Entrepreneurs' Avenue at the biggest gaming convention in the world: Gen Con in Indianapolis. Vesuvius was also one of the six companies chosen to receive a marketing fellowship from Gen Con, which means that conference will promote Vesuvius even more.

“We’re small, but we’re extremely creative,” Manos said.

Vesuvius Media currently offers three games: Nocturion, an online medieval game; Universe Online, an online space game; and Centauri Saga, a strategy board game.

In the coming months, Vesuvius plans to release Atlantean World, an online resource-management game to rebuild Atlantis; Cosmic Pioneers, a board game; Dwar7s Fall, a board game; and a mobile version of Universe Online.

Vesuvius also plans to take its current games and expand them into different media. The company will release graphic novels for some of its games and start creating mobile versions of the games. Manos said that the company wants to engage players in different media so that they can experience each game in a different way.

“We’re listening to our players in the games we’re creating,” Manos said. “Their ideas and input guide our productions.”

Vesuvius has used crowd-funding campaigns several times to finance the production of its games. Nocturion's browser game was finished with $11,000 through Indiegogo and Centauri Saga the board game was solely financed by the $70,000 raised over Kickstarter.

Vesuvius is currently looking for investors, but Manos said that they don’t want an investor to just give them money: they want someone who has expertise in the gaming field in order to help them create a sustainable business as they expand, as they plan to do with a bureau in the U.S.

“It is a roller-coaster, it is scary, but we are willing to go all the way,” Manos said.