“The Playstation 4 produced in Brazil cost 4000 reais.”

November 22, 2017 10:26 AM

Brazil's Video Game Gray Markets [YouTube] “Brazil’s video game market is strange. A military dictatorship ruled the country from 1964 to 1985 and enforced strict protectionist economic laws. During the period, Brasília eschewed imports and attempted to manufacture everything it could within its country’s borders. That led to an odd hodgepodge of cloned systems, strange cartridges, and pirated games that are still with the country today. Drew Scanlon of Clothmap recently traveled to Brazil where he explored the strange gray markets that make up the country’s video game culture. He sees a combo Mortal Kombat/ Street Fighter II cartridge made to run on an NES, strange consoles of questionable legality, and learns what happens when the local games store learn the cops are coming to raid the place.” [via: Motherboard] [Previously.]
posted by Fizz (6 comments total)

I've lost count to the number of games I've sold to Brazilians who were working here and wanted to send something back home to their kids because for the price of one game there they could easily buy a handful of them.

As far as black market stuff goes, one of my favourite things were the fully modded PS2 Pro Evolution Soccer games with Brazilian teams. Kinda wish I got one when I had the chance.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:51 PM on November 22, 2017

Some time ago Nintendo stopped selling games and consoles in Brazil all together, citing high tarrif costs. I can't imagine this hasn't all hurt Brazil's economy
posted by Twain Device at 1:23 PM on November 22, 2017

Redbull (yes, that Redbull) also produced a three part series of videos covering the history of video games in Brazil.
posted by zabuni at 1:45 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Redbull (yes, that Redbull)

Their sponsorship and advertising is diverse, and though focused on sports (and "alternative" sports to a great degree), Red Bull Music Academy is almost 20 years old now, so they've definitely been involved with a diverse range of promotional venues.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:24 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

So Brazil has an extensive software development industry dedicated to producing new games for 10-20-year-old platforms, adapting titles to older platforms, and such. Which suggests that there are a lot of programmers there who are experts in 16-bit assembly language, vintage hardware sprite graphics, FM sound synthesizer chips and such, and who have probably mastered those to a level that the first world didn't bother with, moving on to OpenGL, C++ and such.

I've seen various cheap video games at markets and discount shops in Europe and elsewhere; their boxes show screenshots of games that look from the vintage of the Sega Master System/SNES or so, but not like any specific titles. I'm wondering whether or not those could be coded in Brazil, either for the domestic market or contracted by whoever has a contract with a company somewhere in China or Vietnam or somewhere that still makes 6502s and AY8910s and needs some classic, old-time video games with no licensing issues to go with them.
posted by acb at 4:09 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Brazil is where Lua comes from, which makes total sense knowing this about the market.
posted by Space Coyote at 8:17 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]