Apex Brazil Agency Seeks To Promote Video Games In Russia - Official

Apex-Brasil, the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, is seeking to promote Brazilian-made video games in Russia, the company's head of the Eurasia office, Almir Ribeiro Americo, told Sputnik on the sidelines of the Army 2020 defense industry forum, which is taking place outside Moscow

PATRIOT PARK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th August, 2020) Apex-Brasil, the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, is seeking to promote Brazilian-made video games in Russia, the company's head of the Eurasia office, Almir Ribeiro Americo, told Sputnik on the sidelines of the Army 2020 defense industry forum, which is taking place outside Moscow.

"Russia is one of the most advanced video game distribution platforms in the world. Brazil itself does not publish, does not distribute. But we make games," Americo said, adding that Apex-Brasil wants to promote video games in Russia.

He recalled that in 2019, the representatives of Russian internet company Mail.ru Group and online social media and social networking service Vkontakte visited Brazil. He noted that the representatives were very interested in the Brazilian video games industry.

"[And] Brazilian video game studios fell in love with Russia," he said.

Yet, this summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a virtual festival which was joined by Brazilian and Russian companies.

GAMES WRITTEN LITERARILY IN GARAGE

The Brazilian companies that create video games are mainly small independent developers, Arsen Sogoyan, an analyst from Apex Brasil Eurasia Office told Sputnik. For comparison, there are many international studios with a gigantic scale in terms of profit and volume.

They make games that everyone knows, like Counter-Strike and Half-Life, he said.

"And the Brazilians, for the most part, are independent developers. Just two guys got together in a garage and wrote a game. And they began to develop it, because [someone expressed their interested in their products]. So they started to develop the game, they receive investments, hire more people. [the production of the game] literally comes from the garage," he said.

He added that Apex Brasil participates in business to business events.

"We didn't need to promote Brazilian games among the game players because without such promotion we would do just fine. Our task is for the game to reach the Russian game player, someone needs to adapt it, someone translates it," he explained.

The company is focusing on market trends, and, according to him, the majority of the games are on mobile phones.

"We support Russian companies that may be interested in Brazilian games in order to adapt it for the Russian market," he explained.

The Army 2020 international defense industry forum is being held from August 23-29 at the Patriot convention and exhibition center of Russia's Armed Forces, the Alabino training ground and the Kubinka airfield just outside Moscow.