Brazil's Game Studios Shift From Outsourcing to Original IP Creation

The Brazilian game development scene has quietly transformed from an emerging market into one of the industry's most closely watched creative ecosystems. With more than 1,000 studios operating across the country and increasing international investment, Brazilian developers are becoming an increasingly influential presence across indie, co-development, mobile, XR, and experimental game spaces.

This shift represents something more substantial than typical regional growth. According to 80 Level's interview with ABRAGAMES representatives, the ecosystem has matured in ways that matter to publishers and investors who previously viewed Brazil as simply a cost-effective outsourcing destination.

Patricia Sato, Program Executive Manager at ABRAGAMES, describes the current state as growing steadily and in very interesting ways. Rodrigo Terra, President of the organization, notes that ten years ago international players saw potential in Brazil. Today, they see maturity. And not just from a handful of studios, but from a growing proportion of the more than 1,000 studios across the country.

The numbers support this assessment. Research from 2024 found Brazil had over 1,000 studios, a figure expected to grow to around 1,200 this year. The maturity pyramid, as Sato puts it, mostly looks like a pin. There are lots of talented smaller studios doing some crazy, really fun stuff, then there are some intermediate and international companies. Some recognizable studios include Epic Games Brazil (formerly Aquiris), Wildlife Studios, IzyPlay, Behold Studios, Tapps Games, and Clap Clap Games.

What distinguishes this growth is the focus on original intellectual property. A Game Brasil survey shows that 93% of Brazilian studios work on their own IP. This stands in contrast to the traditional outsourcing model that dominated the region for years. The Videogames Legal Framework approved in May 2024 gave the industry a more solid institutional foundation, allowing it to gain access to cultural funding programs.

The Brazil Games Accelerator has entered its first year, welcoming 40 studios looking to build their businesses. The program lasts for around nine months, with the accelerator accepting 40 studios for the business planning phase before being whittled down to 10 companies by the final phase. These 10 receive support with resource allocation and investment fundraising, providing them with access to a network of investors and publishers, as well as participation at international events.

Effectively, the scheme supports founders with the business side of game development (which is often where creative teams stumble, frankly). You can see the first cohort on the Brazil Games website.

Cultural export represents another critical dimension of this strategy. Sato says that Brazilian culture is now being exported in a more complex, sensible manner to the rest of the world. For every country, wouldn't it be awesome if we have a more clear communication of our culture and have this showcased to the world in a very sensible manner. I want to know more about the UK, but I want to know more about the UK through your eyes, not the stereotypes.

We like to say Brazil is not only football or the summer Carnival. Of course we are all those things, they are awesome and amazing, but we also have so much more. This philosophy extends beyond surface-level folklore. Brazilian influence in games goes well beyond surface-level folklore. It's literal in some cases, but it's also infused and embedded in game design, art, and original approaches. Even the way we code influences the final product.

Concrete examples demonstrate this cultural integration. Hermit Crab Game Studio, a Brazilian independent game studio with a team of 80 people, announced Sportia back in October. The game is working in partnership with Ubisoft and offers players a wide variety of characters with different skill levels and shapes, allowing them to play in a wide range of sports like street soccer.

The gameplay is very easy and arcade style, said Vitor Leães, head of product and creative director of Sportia. The team started developing on Unity, and last year they decided to change to Unreal. So right now they have this build with football community and another build with the RPG single player campaign of the game on Unreal.

Regional development hubs represent another structural change. São Paulo is the largest, but far from the only one. Looking at where studios are located throughout Brazil, the largest number are in the largest cities, such as São Paulo (302), Rio de Janeiro (107), and Rio Grande do Sul (69). There are strong ecosystems in the South and Northeast, and rapidly growing communities across the whole country.

This is a movement with no turning back, especially after the Videogames Legal Framework was approved in May 2024, which gave the industry a more solid institutional foundation. The framework allows studios to access cultural funding programs and innovation grants, creating a more sustainable environment for original IP development.

International partnerships are accelerating this transition. According to PocketGamer.biz reporting from Gamescom LATAM, the Brazilian Federal Government pays expenses for media and publishers to head to Gamescom LATAM to help gain industry exposure and get its developers in front of decision makers for potential deals.

The balance between co-development and original IP creation is not really a trend in isolation. It's part of the entrepreneurship journey that studios go through to find a sustainable business model. It reflects degrees of maturity in the gaming business here in Brazil. That said, there are real risks. Teams tailored for co-dev and services are shaped by a method and delivery cadence that is very different from what original IP development demands.

When you try to do both under the same roof, it can reflect internal clashes and different expectations. Team building from leadership becomes crucial to achieve success in either direction. Some studios can afford to have different teams or even different companies under the same umbrella, but that's not the reality for most. What I can say is that more and more studios are learning to do this balance well, and they can deliver.

Market data provides context for this growth. With over 103 million gamers and revenues expected to hit USD 2.52 billion by 2025, Brazil is leading the charge in Latin America. The fifth largest country in the world by area and seventh largest by population, Brazil is the largest country in South America and Latin America by both territory and population. It's also the only Portuguese-speaking country in the entire Americas.

Looking at the technologies adopted by Brazilian studios, 80% use Unity to develop their games and 25% use the Unreal engine (indicating that some studios may be using both). 70% of Brazilian studios work remotely, 16% choose a hybrid system, and only 14% work in offices. This distributed model allows talent to emerge from regional hubs beyond the traditional centers.

International markets represent the real test. About half of the studios doing international business derived more than 70% of their revenues from overseas. Also, the number of partnerships with Western Europe is gradually increasing: 54% of Brazilian game studios did business with this region in 2024, up from 49% in 2023. The rest of Latin America and the United States are Brazil's largest commercial partners in games.

Game studios are exporters by nature. When you self-publish a game on a third-party platform that reaches beyond Brazil, you are already exporting. The real question is always: is your studio ready to pursue the international market professionally? That's where the internationalization journey of our games and companies truly starts.

The Brazil Games event (formerly BIG Festival) serves as a key platform for this internationalization. The event has grown significantly, with the 2025 edition expecting 15,000 attendees. It includes the Brazil Games Accelerator, which has been operating for a short time, with the first stage now in progress. Training programs are taking shape.

Looking ahead, the trajectory appears clear. The number of gamers in Brazil is expected to grow to 87.4 million users by 2030. Gaming penetration is projected to reach 36.1% in 2025, increasing to 39.0% by 2030. These figures suggest sustained growth in both domestic consumption and international export potential.

What matters most is execution. Studios need to balance creative vision with commercial viability, navigate international markets professionally, and leverage the new institutional support without becoming dependent on it. The infrastructure is in place. The talent exists. Now comes the work of building sustainable businesses that can compete globally while maintaining their distinctive cultural identity.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn