Last week, an estimated 131,800 people — many of them dressed as their favorite video game characters — turned out for the Gamescom Latam Big Festival gaming event in São Paulo, Brazil.
It was the biggest fan and business-to-business (B2B) gaming event in Latin America’s history, happening amid a difficult time for the video game world. For the second year in a row, I paid a visit to the largest gaming event in the Americas and I came back with interviews, impressions and good vibes. This time, the floor space more than doubled to 50,000 square meters in the new location of the Anhembi Convention Center, the oldest such venue in São Paulo.
Gustavo Steinberg, CEO of Gamescom Latam, said in an interview that the game economy in Brazil continues to adapt as the industry becomes more efficient and competitive. It’s in a rare position as a country now, as much of the gaming industry in the rest of the world has suffered through 2.5 years of layoffs. In fact, while North America grew 0.1% in 2024, Brazil grew 6.2%, market researcher Newzoo said.
A lot of this comes down to Brazilian fans, who are a passionate bunch. There are 2.6 times more of them showing up at Gamescom Latam than there were at the BIG Festival just a couple of years ago, and they’re coming to see global speakers like Shuhei Yoshida, who was at Sony’s PlayStation division for 31 years, and Henk Rogers, the Tetris entrepreneur who was on a book tour in Brazil.
Gustavo Steinberg is CEO of Gamescom Latam.
“We’re sti …