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[PATV] Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - Extra Credits Season 5, Ep. 22: Global Games: Brazil
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
This week, we begin a series on the potential for game industry growth in new regions around the world. First up: Brazil!
Come discuss this topic in the forums!
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Anyway, great episode, can't wait to know more about other countries.
And Brazil is named after the wood, not the nut.
And Brazil is named after the wood, not the nut.
...I'd invest in Brazil.
Big gov't bureaucracy = bad for you.
I'd also like to point out that as I see it, localization is not a big issue. A good portion of Brazilian gamers speak English - even if just a little as a result of playing video games - and those who don't are used to it and get by rather well. I've personally spent most of my gaming years not understanding a word of what was being said yet that never got in the way of fun.
By the way, that show at around 5:45 - I was there. And it was awesome
It is a very good video, I agree with most of it, but there's a big thing preventing it's game market to grow: costs.
Brazil is very expensive... it's a very contrasting economically, with huge income differences and life costs in big cities (where you can gather professionals) are very high, professionals here are paid higher than other countries in Latin America and there are a lot of taxes over it, it is like paying a second salary to the government. It's much cheaper installing an office in Argentina or Chile.
It should be pointed that some big industry names tried setting offices there, in Sao Paulo, like Ubisoft and Gameloft, but closed early. I'd think currency instability might have played a big role. They installed there in a moment where USD 1.00 = BRL 2.40, it dropped to something like USD 1.00 = BRL 1.60 in less than 2 years. It might be a huge difference for a company spending millions, as they are having their costs in Brazilian Reals(BRL) but their revenue is more likely to be in dollars as the brazilian market alone doesn't pay itself. Then, there's no reason to outsource production to a place where it's gonna be more expensive.
I'm amazed on how living in Montreal's downtown is cheaper than in São Paulo, even though the income here is higher. I'm sure that keeping an office in São Paulo is more expensive than Montreal or Buenos Aires for example.
If there's any chance for Brazil to grow a game industry right now it would take an attempt to create a "Sillicon Valley" in a smaller satellite town, possibly with government benefits like they have in Québec where it is subsidized through tax cuts.
(That little green game is so cute
Anyway, I'm currently based on Chile, and I must say, that we have a lot of the issues that are discussed on the episode ( up to 93% of all pc software is pirated ). And it is also true that the issues are fading (there is still no psn or XBLA here, but you -can- access steam) and that imports are becoming slightly cheaper, and there is a raise in the interest to develop games.
However, there is a major problem in their analysis...
They say that Brazil might become a huge influence on the region, and it -might-. But sadly, as I see it, Brazil is actually very isolated ideologically and culturally from the rest of Latin-America. Yes, they are the biggest, but in many ways, they are also just by themselves (language being just the first barrier).
Don't get me wrong, there are some of cultural connections to the rest of the region, but it is a common misconception that Latin america as a whole is one thing, when it's actually quite fractured.
Anyhow, its good to see you guys doing this.
Another thing that hurts selling games here is that even with XBox Live and PSN available, the difference between the list of games available in Brazil and the list available in the US is gargantuan. For example, Mass Effect 2 is yet not available for download here.
Myself, I'm a game designer professional from Israel. While we have a really (I mean REALLY) small population and very low coefficient of cultural influence in the region (which is weird, if you ask me), the percentage of programmers, and other high-tech jobs, per capita is just staggering! My deepest desire is to see Israel influencing the global gaming community not directly, but through high quality intellectual export of technologies, philosophies, ideas, and general game-related methodologies.
This episode was quite good (as often). Just some info are a little off dated, but it was generally great. Steam was available here for quite some time and recently has open the possibility for us to buy games with our currency. And we have a "steam-like" service. Sure, way smaller, but we do ! =]
And what Delcast said is true: by being the only country in LA that was not a Spanish colony, we're kinda separated from the rest of the LA. But we're quite friendly.. =P
Mainstream acceptance of acquiring games legitimately has grown a LOT lately, here. Some years ago poorer people would think you're stupid for buying games. Nowadays we can see some people going "oh, but if you pirate it you can't play it online" and stuff.
And theres Moacyr Alves: https://twitter.com/Moacyralves
"Chairman of eletronics and digital games for government in Brazil" (from his Twitter)
You should do a episode on Indonesian they have some weird third party consoles there.
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http://www.nuuvem.com.br/
It's a Steam-like store in Brazil. Actually...when you purchase a game there, you usually get a Steam-key. There are exceptions, but when Steam didn't allow us to pay in BRL or by using non-international credit card, that was a good way of doing it.
Keep up the great work guys!
PC games, even at retail, are way cheaper than console games. I bought Empire: Total War on retail cheper than at Steam. And, speaking of Steam, they recently launched a brazilian version, complete with local currency and this is something that you should have adressed in the episode.
Most of brazilian gamers that don't buy pirate games either buy from Steam/eShop/XBLA(you can make a US account)/PSN (the same) or import from Play-Asia, eStarland, CDUniverse, so on.... When we really, really, really want a game as soon as possible, we buy at local retailers, because today games don't cost 120~160 dollars, but rather 80~100 dollars. The situation is getting better, even with the current legislation.
I think that if the consoles were cheaper, even if the games remain at the same price, the market would grow like crazy. Want proof? Microsoft started making Xbox 360 here, the price dropped and now the Xbox 360 is, like, 85% of the market and that is without any kind of mod that allows pirate games. A Xbox 360 today can cost around 400 USD, which is pretty nice.
Well, this is getting big. So, what I wanted to say is: being a gamer in Brazil is hard, but things are getting better and, when you get the hardware, you have plenty of ways to buy games legally within a nice price range.
Oh, and one last point: Brazil is a country so big and diverse that it's like many countries into one. Go see some of our movies and you'll get the point. What this can do for the games industry...
That brings us the following problem: they control big part of mass entertainment available in Brazil. Brazilian cinema cannot soar higher because if you want your movie to have a chance, you'll need it to be distributed by Globo Filmes, which will suck your profit dry.That's not different for music and even theater plays. Although they don't deal with games, they narrow the perceptions of the Brazilians on what are available because most people don't know what there is besides what they offer. I think the government is like that too, thinking if games were really important we would already have an industry. And it's good for those groups to keep things this way because games would compete with their products.
Also, let's say a studio in Brazil makes a violent game on local favelas. Media could make it a scandal to sell papers and magazines. It would take just a conservative and autoritarian judge to ban the game or a likewise politician to present to the congress a project to ban it. It would be nothing new. This already happened because of a Counter Strike MAP!! And that's not the only case either.
Summarizing, media in Brazil is a closed club. A very powerful one.