Video games in Brazil
In this initial phase of the industry, individual developers and small groups were part of a rich community of game creators for MSX, ZX Spectrum, and Apple II, and later for PCs with MS-DOS, distributed in magazines, cassette tapes, and floppy disks.
During this time, the protectionist policies created by the military governments in Brazil prevented the official importation of microcomputers and video games.
In 1987, Tectoy was founded and, despite being a young company, won the competition against Gradiente for the official representation of Sega in Brazil, becoming the importer of the Master System.
It was sold to Pi Editora in 1998 and became known for publishing games based on TV Globo properties, such as Big Brother Brasil (2002) and No Limite (2002).
[6] Notable titles: Enigma da Esfinge (44 Bico Largo, 1996); Guimo (Southlogic Studios, 1997); Incidente em Varginha (Perceptum Informática, 1998); Outlive (Continuum Entertainment, 2000); Show do Milhão (SBT Multimídia, 2000).
Returning to 2003, this year marked the first time that electronic games became a specific agenda item in Brazilian politics, with the sector being recognized by the Ministry of Culture, under the leadership of then Minister Gilberto Gil.
Notable titles: Trophy Hunter 2003 (Southlogic Studios, 2002); Futsim (Jynx Playware, 2003); Erinia (Ignis Games, 2004); Taikodom (Hoplon, 2008).
In this process of renewal, the Brazilian industry finally began to break down barriers that hindered the success of domestic games on a global scale.
Games like Knights of Pen and Paper by Behold Studios, Oniken by Joymasher, and Momodora by Bombservice took advantage of the rise of indies and became successful internationally.
In 2011, the Socioenvironmental Institute won 3rd place in the Digital and Interactive category at the 5th comKids Festival - Prix Jeunesse Iberoamericano with the MMORPG Aldeia Virtual, developed by 8D Games.
This event led to the establishment of the FEP-Games - Project Structuring Fund, created by the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), to conduct the first large-scale study mapping the global and Brazilian industry and proposing public policies for the sector.
Notable titles: Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition (Behold, 2013); Dungeonland (Critical Studio, 2013); Oniken (JoyMasher, 2014); Toren (Swordtales, 2015); Starlit Adventures (Rockhead, 2015); Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight (Bombservice, 2016); Horizon Chase (Aquiris, 2016).
Additionally, in 2019, Wildlife received a $60 million investment led by the American venture capital fund Benchmark, making it a Brazilian "unicorn" valued at $1.3 billion.
In the same year, the ARVORE studio, specialized in virtual reality, received the first Venice Lion at the Film Festival for a Brazilian production.
The company is a spin-off of Play Kids (Movile Group), which reached 50 million monthly active users within a year with the game "PK XD," available in 11 languages and with a strong presence in Latin America, the United States, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
In 2020, the ARVORE developer received the Extraordinary Innovation Primetime Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for an interactive short film.
London-based Oktagon was acquired by Fortis, a multinational game developer newly created as part of the Las Vegas Sands resorts and casinos group.
Notable titles: Dandara (Long Hat House, 2018), Celeste (Extremely OK Games/ MiniBoss, 2018), Wonderbox (Aquiris, 2021), PK XD (Afterverse, 2020), Suspects (Wildlife, 2020), and Relic Hunters Rebels (2021).
