Soft power – a nation exerting power through economic or cultural influence – is something we’re all used to in terms of film and TV. Think of the influence that Hollywood has around the world, or the way that anime has spread the recognition of Japanese culture.
But the idea that video games are a vital conduit of soft power is relatively new. In his recent book Power Play, George Osborn explored how many western democracies have failed to catch on to the importance of video games for spreading influence, while a few nations have been quick to seize on their potential.
Brazil is one of them. “Definitely, soft power is in our agenda,” says Rodrigo Terra, president of the Brazilian games industry trade body Abragames.
He has lofty goals for Brazil’s game industry. “We want to be in the top five game producers in the world in less than 10 years,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “That’s my wish. Let’s see if we’re going to be there.”
“In 10 years, I definitely want the world to know our culture,” he continues. “Know different stories about us, know the talented artists, writers, the talented people in our industry building great games, and then perceive the country, perceive us, as we did with other cultures since the beginning of video games.”
Patricia Sato, executive manager for Brazil Games, an export program that aims to foster new international business opportunities for Brazilian companies, says that currently, people in other countries tend to associate Brazil with only a handful of things: mostly football, samba music, and carnival, and possibly also capybaras, the South American rodents that have become an internet sensation in recent years.
But she would like to see players picking up on other aspects of Brazilian culture through playing video games made in the country. She gives the example of someone realising that Brazil also has dry, desert-like areas after seeing them in a game, “because every time they think of Brazil, they think of the Amazon.”
Sato cautions that they are not actively directing developers to represent Brazilian culture. “They do this by themselves,” she says. She gives the example of Hell Clock, a game about a dark fantasy version of the War of Canudos in Brazil. “It’s a part of our history that not many people know.”
Terra says that in 10 years’ time, he wants Brazil to be perceived for “other cultural values that we have, not just football or samba or whatever.” He points to how The Witcher introduced a global audience to a Polish perspective of history and storytelling. “What we want is that for Brazil, to recognise how we tell our stories, recognise our values, our symbols, everything that we can do to show the complexity and the beauty of the cultural values in Brazil.”
He can see it happening already in the way that Brazil is being perceived as “cool” in other countries. “You see on TikTok, influencers across the countries, US, UK, Europe, and even Asia, always you’re now seeing Brazilian symbols,” he says. “People are rediscovering globally what Brazil is, or what they think Brazil is.”
Go for growth
Much has been going on in Brazil in an attempt to grow the country’s game sector. A couple of years ago, the nation adopted a new legal framework that redefined video games in the eyes of the law, opened up new incentives for games companies, and created additional opportunities for investment.
Terra says that the changes have continued apace, and just recently, the ministry of labour recognised more video game-related professions. “Until June, you needed to be registered as a software developer or something similar: now, you can be registered as a game designer,” he says. “So we have four professions now recognised: producer, game designer, game narrative, and game artists.”
More broadly, he says, institutions in Brazil are starting to understand that “games can be a potential driver for economic development.”
Abragames has also been fostering more international connections. “We’re now looking more into the Asian countries: Japan, Korea, China,” says Terra. “And Southeast Asia – Thailand, Vietnam, we’re looking at Malaysia now – and trying to understand where we’re going to step up our efforts.”
He notes that a Korean company wants to start an operation in Brazil, and more generally they’ve seen strong interest from Korean firms. “They want to expand their market,” he says. “I think they are really looking seriously into the region.”
All in all, it points to a country on the up in terms of games industry growth, along with the Latin American region more widely. Newzoo’s Global Games Market Report, released last month, predicted a 4.7% rise in the number of players in Latin America in 2026 to 394 million, and noted that it’s one of the fastest growing regions for Steam use, along with the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions.
The data firm predicted that games revenue for Latin America would top $9.3 billion in 2026. That’s a fraction of the $56.9 billion revenue in North America, but growing fast: up 7.9% year on year compared with 5.4% year on year for North America.
As our own Rob Fahey commented recently in his predictions for the next decade, “developing markets in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, which are tipping over into having a sizeable middle class, will be the industry’s best source of growth.”
It’s quite the turnaround. “I remember years ago, every time we talked about jobs, we would talk about drainage outside of Brazil,” says Sato. Now, she says, it’s “the other way around.”