Brazil is home to the 10th largest video game market globally with an estimated 103 million players diving into video games across the region. According to data published by local advocacy group Abragames (as featured in a recent Nordicity white paper) the Brazilian industry generated USD $251.6 million in revenue in 2022 and employed roughly 13,225 people as of 2023.
Yet, the white paper also states that almost half of studios in the country rely on internal resources to bring their projects to market, with only 16 percent receiving investment from international publishers and 10 percent securing other private investments.It’s a data snapshot that provides a glimpse into a region that’s seemingly bristling with potential but is in dire need of support.
But how does that track with the sentiments of developers actually crafting video games in the region? We flew out to Gamescom Latam 2025 to find out.
Unrivalled creativity hampered by a funding ‘bottleneck’
The sense around the Abragames booth, which featured a litany of wonderful projects created by developers in the region, was that teams in Brazil are passionately creative, eager to learn, but also somewhat outmanned and outgunned due to a lack of consistent governmental support, scant external investment opportunities, and a talent pool that lacks veteran experience.
“In terms of building teams, we have a lot of great talent here in Brazil. I think the most challenging part is funding [because] Brazil is very strong in terms of games. Being at this event, where there are thousands of people passing by, you can see it’s super competitive,” says Gabriel Garcia, founder and CEO of Rio-based studio Hype Animation.
Multiple developers said there are a decent number of prototype funds available to studios in Brazil, but there aren’t many designed to help teams clear late-stage production hurdles. Garcia agrees and says there is a “bottleneck” where funding is concerned that often prevents studios from moving forward with their work once they hit a certain point.
He also feels Brazilian developers have become adept at highlighting their local culture to great effect, which can help their projects stand out on the international stage. “We have a lot of stories to tell,” he adds, before acknowledging that, right now, the people attempting to tell those stories are often working in small-scale studios that don’t have the clout of their counterparts in North America.
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That’s an issue, because Brazil needs to keep its talented developers on home soil so they can gain invaluable experience that will in turn allow local studios to turn their biggest dreams into reality.
Another developer dealing with similar issues is Arthur Silva Aguiar, lead game designer at Caramelo Games, who said the biggest challenge the studio has faced is finding the right people for specific roles. “[It’s tough] to find qualified people. We have a lot of extremely talented people in Brazil, but they’re not always well versed in the development process,” he adds.
Caramelo is currently working on a Pokemon-like called Bagdex that has been in development for around 18 months. The studio managed to raise $200,000 to finance the project via a crowdfunding campaign, but despite that interest has struggled to attract publishers outside Brazil. “Brazilians support us, but we do not have the right traction outside the country and that’s where we’re actually looking for funding.”
“There’s lots of mythology here in Brazil that’s been forgotten”
It’s a situation that perhaps means Brazilian developers need to be more vigilant when it comes to scoping their projects. Eter Games executive producer Bruno Cricenti, whose studio is currently developing a third-person adventure based on Brazilian folklore called Matinta, explains his team actually received a government grant to accelerate the development process—but the understandable interest in those financial boons means there “is a lot of competition” among local studios.
“You need to have more structured projects and pitches, and should know where to sell and what markets you want to enter based on the genre of game you’re making,” he says, explaining how studios might stand out when pitching for funding. “We got a grant for our vertical slice but we had invested our own money before that to build the prototype.”
He, like others in the country, explains the studio is now struggling to find investors that are willing to push the project over the finish line after around two-and-a-half years in development. “That’s really difficult right now,” he continues.
The appeal of building video games in Brazil, for Cricenti, is the penchant for creativity in the region. “There’s lots of mythology here in Brazil that’s been forgotten that we’re trying to bring it back and put it inside our own production,” he adds. Even so, he underlines how vital it is for developers to balance their aspirations when meeting with investors and publishers. “Try to be very focused on what you want to do,” he continues. “Try to build a short game to test the market before investing too much of your money and your time.”
Marcelo Rigon, CEO of Ilex Games, has been making video games in Brazil for around 22 years. He explains the market has matured rapidly in that time and recalls how he was branded “crazy” in 2003 when he approached an incubation program looking for funding to start his studio. At that stage, he says the region didn’t have any local publishers or distribution.
“The only way we could try to publish our game inside Brazil was to have a contact at magazines who would place CDs in their publications,” he explains. He claims a lot of investors and decision-makers in Brazil still “don’t understand the market of games,” which is why studios in the region often look for financing beyond its borders. “It’s hard for us to get [local investment] because they think gaming is so risky and they don’t know how to approach that,” he adds.
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There are local organizations such as Sebrae Nacional that are dedicated to promoting the development of small businesses in Brazil, including game studios. Rigon explains those advocates are attempting to teach investors how and why they should be investing in the video game industry. He also claims there is “a lot of public funding” available to developers at the moment, but says the turbulent political climate in Brazil means there are no guarantees it will stick around.
For instance, he says former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro—who led the country between 2019 to 2023 (often stoking controversy in the process)—”destroyed” a lot of support systems that were helping the Brazilian game industry—including a number of grants that were scrapped when he entered office just before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Many of those grants have now been reinstated, but Rigon says it means Brazil has somewhat stagnated over the past half-decade. There are some notable wins, however, such as the creation of a full cycle grant program that will allow successful applicants to move beyond prototyping. The next step is to ensure those opportunities are available to developers playing their trade in all 27 Brazilian states—and the key, says Rigon, is for everyone to push for change as a united front.
“I am the president of the Sao Paulo Association of Game Developers. We have 21 states with regional associations. We need to improve the kind of grants, finance treaties, and other things across the industry,” he says. “We can push the politics in the right direction if we are together.”
Helping developers learn how to run a sustainable business is vital
After finishing our stroll around the showfloor we sit down for a chat with Abragames president Rodrigo Terra and the group’s executive manager for the Brazil Games Export program, Patricia Sato.
Sato feels there are more eyes than ever before on the Brazilian game industry, which is perhaps evidenced by the level of interest and presence of major global publishers such as Nintendo, Microsoft, Epic Games, and Supercell at Gamescom Latam. Now, she explains, the region needs to figure out how to ride that wave.
Terra believes education is absolutely fundamental if Brazil hopes to cement its place on the global stage. He says 93 percent of the region’s studios are small in scale, and while they’re filled with “incredible professionals,” they aren’t necessarily experienced managers or business leaders.
“We need to invest in business education,” he says. “I think thats the next step in really reaching the global market. It’s hard, because people start out as a game designer or game writer. They they start a small business because they’re trying to ship a game—but they don’t even know how to manage your cash flow. That’s a challenge we need to overcome, and people need knowledge to do it.”
How then, can Brazil, nurture that raw talent to ensure its burgeoning studio ecosystem isn’t devoid of the business acumen required to expand internationally? The answer for Terra is simple: “you make it political.”
“Developers need to built and organize themselves as entities that can lobby the government,” he continues. “Abragames does that job, but we cannot do it alone. […] We need to think about how, as game professionals, can we be active politically in a certain way.”
Sato explains Abragames has been trying to help developers understand they need to participate in the video game industry in a deeper way in order to usher in mandates for public policies that can benefit everybody. There’s nothing wrong with developers sharing advice among themselves—but Abragames feels they must become more unified and proactive when lobbying government for additional support in order to deliver stability.
“If the government changes, everything changes,” says Terra. “But there are some state initiatives that are enshrined in law—so when it’s a law it’s better for you as a society, as an organization.”
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Talent retention is another issue both Sato and Terra feel must be addressed. They suggest Brazil routinely suffers from “brain drain” when industry experts depart the region to work for larger, more established companies elsewhere. It’s not a challenge unique to Brazil—during my trip to Australia two years ago, we heard how it had impacted the dev scene there—but one that must be overcome nevertheless.
“We had a very important generation of Brazilian video game experts who emerged around 15 years ago,” explains Terra. “Then the knowledge was lost.”
Terra claims Brazil must convince major studios to put down roots in the country in order to retain talent, and there have been positive signs in that regard. In 2023, Epic Games purchased local studio AQUIRIS and rebranded it as Epic Games Brasil. Service providers such as Keywords and Side have also put down roots in the region.
“It’s important because you need those juggernauts,” says Terra. “They will train professionals from the Brazilian companies and they’re going to maybe pay more. Then, a couple of years later, some of those professionals will leave those companies to perhaps start their own. Or they will start working and partnering with other Brazilian studios. The knowledge transfer will have a massive impact [on the Brazilian game industry].”
On the subject of funding, Abragames believes things are heading in the right direction. We’re told there are discussions about designing grants to help developers complete and distribute their projects. Terra also says Sao Paulo is creating a “match grant” that will see the state double whatever a publisher invests in a game project. “It’s good for the studio. It’s good for the publisher. And the state is doing its part,” says Terra. “You create this mechanism to be more attractive.”
The prevailing takeaway from our discussion with Abragames is that talent and passion can only take Brazil so far—and that the real challenge facing the region is determining how to transform primordial passion into something more structured.
“As game developers, we are all passionate about creating games, telling stories, and building mechanics. But passion sometimes overtakes you and prevents you from thinking about the whole ecosystem,” says Terra. “The thing is, if you want to do business you need to create relations and network. You need to live together, work together, and see whether your company is capable of not just shipping one game—but shipping dozens. […] If you want to open a business you need to transform that passion into love to create a relationship with the market, create a relationship with people, and start building your business.”
Game Developer was invited to Gamescom Latam by event partner Abragames, which covered flights and accommodation.
