Gamescom Latam: "With no E3, we're the biggest games event in the Americas"

The first ever Gamescom Latam is off to a strong start in São Paulo, Brazil, with over 100,000 consumers and some of the biggest companies in games in attendance.

Announced earlier this year, the event is the result of a merger between Gamescom and the long-running Brazil Indie Games Festival (or BIG Festival). It opened with a business-only day yesterday (Wednesday, June 26) and runs through Sunday, July 30.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the show today, Gamescom Latam CEO Gustavo Steinberg said the show has already doubled in size compared to its predecessor; while around 50,000 people attended last year, the organisers expect more than 100,000 players to visit the São Paulo Expo Centre this week.

Steinberg added that this is also the first time more than 1,000 companies have attended, including Nintendo, Xbox (via its ID@Xbox division), Ubisoft, Warner Bros, Epic Games, Roblox - plus a BIG Festival area exhibiting a wide range of indie games.

Even PlayStation has a presence here with Sega, Plaion and Square Enix exhibiting their games on official PS5 booths. This is no small feat given that both Nintendo and PlayStation are skipping the main Gamescom event in Cologne this August.

"Except for Pocket Gamer, which is a niche event, we are the only global games event [in South America]," Steinberg says.

"Technically, now that E3 is no more, we are the biggest event in the Americas."

The CEO adds that these publishers' presence shows they recognise the importance of the Brazilian games market.

"We're one of the biggest player markets in the world," he says, citing reports by trade body Abragames that show Brazil is the fifth largest games market in the world in terms of players, and tenth in terms of games spending.

"We have a population of more than 200 million people and 70% of them plays games. We're the biggest country in the Southern hemisphere so we're a major force in the industry. So why wouldn’t they have a booth here?"

He continues: "The industry has received the announcement of Gamescom Latam pretty well, but there is still some education to be made to the general audience here. We have to show them what it feels like to be part of Gamescom in their own region. The really hardcore gamers and fans, they know what Gamescom is, but not everyone in Brazil does, so there is lots of marketing to invest in.

"The most important thing, and what gives us confidence that everything is going to be fine, is that the industry understands what it is. If the content is here, the audience will be here too."

We'll be running our full interview with Steinberg, including future plans for Gamescom Latam, next week.