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The Latin American video game market has been rapidly growing since the early 2010's. In 2016, the market had already overtaken those in music, magazines and radio. [1]
Latin Americans are one of fastest growing groups of video gamers consumers in the global market. [1] In 2022, there were 316 million gamers in Latin America. [2] With the Latin American game market being worth $8.4 billion in 2022, [2] video games have become a widely dispersed, active hobby for many Latin Americans. Despite the growing populations of Latin America, their games market only represents 5% of the global market in 2022, 1% ahead of the other emerging regions of the Middle East and Africa. [2]
Even though North and South America have a huge population of gamers, Hispanic or Latin American characters are seldom the main characters in games. However, there are some popular characters with more Latin American influence: King from Tekken Series, Isabela Keyes from Dead Rising, Dominic Santiago from Gears Of War. [3]
The study of Ludology, or game studies, is important to understanding the cultural impacts of video games on developing countries. The work of Phillip Penix-Tadsen has contributed greatly to this field in Latin America. His work separates these Latin American inspired games into 3 different groups; Contras, which depict Latin America as an antagonistic force to the American war-hero. Tomb Raiders, in which Latin American cultural imagery and symbols are used simply as a background to the player’s mission to plunder whatever they can; Finally, Luchadores, which represents both the Mexican wrestling phenomenon, as well as games that fail to sufficiently represent the cultures to which they contain elements of. [4]
While certain video games have been used to mobilize political activity and suppress dissenters, [5] video games have become an integral part of Latin American culture. Despite this, many representations of Latin American places and people in video games contain the influences of colonialism, which creates another dimension of social and economic impact. [6] One video game that accurately depicts the time and culture of Latin America is Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Parts of the game depict the Caribbean with historically accurate locations, people, and events, as well as the horrors of the slave trade and sugar plantations. [7]
The population of people who play video games is very diverse in Latin America. Additionally, children are not the only ones drawn to video games. There are many adults who play video games. Surveys found that 88.1% of male and 87.23% of female participants played mobile games. While 18–24 years olds were more likely to be mobile gamers than 25-34, they both had a higher share than those aged 45+. 41% of respondents reported spending an hour or more playing mobile games. [8] This is a sizeable amount, as 50% of the Global Games Market revenue came from mobile games in 2022. [2] Overall, this shows a strong desire for gaming not only among the traditional audiences, but to anyone with a mobile device.
There are two games most females Latin Americans play more than males, that is Super Mario Brothers and Candy Crush. [9] Core players have slightly more males with 52 percent. But the 70 percent of professional gamers are also men.
As the demand for video games in Latin America increased, the desires for Latin American developers to create their own games has increased as well. Games such as Kingdom Rush developed by Ironhide Game Studio became popular beyond the Latin America market by appealing to larger Western audiences. At launch, the game was multilingual and set in the fantasy genre, incorporating elements from American popular culture, such as The Lord of the Rings . This appeal to the preferences of wider audiences was very successful, yet other developers found success in authentically representing their roots and heritage. [10]
An important aspect of game design is the changes the games undergo to appeal to specific audiences around the globe, known as localization. While these changes can increase the chances of a positive reception in certain cultures, true representation of Latin American culture comes from considering the history, religion, cultural cleavages, and location-based issues of the culture in the beginning of developing a game. [11] Game developers in periphery countries also face the difficulties associated in participating in a global market largely dominated by Japan and the West, leading them to adopt the strategies and popular genres of the core market to stay competitive. [12] Video games also show potential as effective learning tools, if they met the thresholds set by a benefits, costs, and feasibility analysis. [13]
Moreover, video games can function as an outlet for the developer's political or social commentary. Therefore, Mexican developer KaraOkulta created a game called Trumpéalo, which is a game that involves throwing items like rotten fruit at former president Trump to make him leave the stage. [14]
In 2016, in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico alone, $4.1 billion was spent on video games. This is the second highest region in the world for video games. For phones, $1.4 billion will be reached by the end of 2017. [15] The gaming industry in Latin America is rapidly growing, with a growth of 10% year-over-year all the way through 2028. Nearly 80% of individuals who play videos games spent money on those games in Latin America and the Caribbean. [16] Latin Americans spent over $8.8 Billion USD on physical and digital games in 2023. [2]
See also
The video game industry is the tertiary and quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the development, marketing, distribution, monetization and consumer feedback of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.
Game studies, also known as ludology, is the study of games, the act of playing them, and the players and cultures surrounding them. It is a field of cultural studies that deals with all types of games throughout history. This field of research utilizes the tactics of, at least, folkloristics and cultural heritage, sociology and psychology, while examining aspects of the design of the game, the players in the game, and the role the game plays in its society or culture. Game studies is oftentimes confused with the study of video games, but this is only one area of focus; in reality game studies encompasses all types of gaming, including sports, board games, etc.
Video game development is the process of creating a video game. It is a multidisciplinary practice, involving programming, design, art, audio, user interface, and writing. Each of those may be made up of more specialized skills; art includes 3D modeling of objects, character modeling, animation, visual effects, and so on. Development is supported by project management, production, and quality assurance. Teams can be many hundreds of people, a small group, or even a single person.
A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone, tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability. The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.
A personal computer game, also known as a computer game or abbreviated PC game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC).
Japanese popular culture includes Japanese cinema, cuisine, television programs, anime, manga, video games, music, and doujinshi, all of which retain older artistic and literary traditions; many of their themes and styles of presentation can be traced to traditional art forms. Contemporary forms of popular culture, much like the traditional forms, are not only forms of entertainment but also factors that distinguish contemporary Japan from the rest of the modern world. There is a large industry of music, films, and the products of a huge comic book industry, among other forms of entertainment. Game centers, bowling alleys, and karaoke parlors are well-known hangout places for teens while older people may play shogi or go in specialized parlors. Since the end of the US occupation of Japan in 1952, Japanese popular culture has been influenced by American media. However, rather than being dominated by American products, Japan localised these influences by appropriating and absorbing foreign influences into local media industries. Today, Japanese popular culture stands as one of the most prominent and influential popular cultures around the world.
The video game industry in Mainland China currently is one of the major markets for the global video game industry, where more than half a billion people play video games. Revenues from China make up around 25% of the nearly US$100 billion global video game industry as of 2018, and since 2015 has exceeded the contribution to the global market from the United States. Because of its market size, China has been described as the "Games Industry Capital of the World" and is home to some of the largest video game companies. China has also been a major factor in the growth of esports, both in player talent and in revenue.
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Brazil is the 10th-largest video game market in the world as of 2022, and the largest in Latin America, with a revenue of 2.6 billion US dollars. Video games were not permitted for import into Brazil until the 1990s, and were then heavily taxed as non-essential goods. As a result, a grey market developed around pirating games, driven by the lack of official channels for purchasing games. Many game companies avoided expansion into the country for these reasons until 2009. An exception was Sega, which retained a strong foothold in the country with the Master System and Mega Drive. Blaming high tariffs, Nintendo officially left the market in 2015, but returned in 2017, though Nintendo actually returned in 2020 with Nintendo Switch. In a three-episode series named Red Bull Parallels, Red Bull explored the country's relation with gaming.
The United Kingdom has the largest video game sector in Europe. By revenue, the UK had the second-largest video game market in Europe in 2022 after Germany, and the sixth-largest globally. By sales, it is Europe's largest market, having overtaken Germany in 2022. The UK video game market was worth £7.16 billion in 2021, a 2% increase over the previous year.
The video game industry in Australia is worth $4.21 billion annually as of 2022, inclusive of traditional retail and digital sales. A report in 2022 by Austrade estimated that 3,228 Australians worked in the video game industry. In the fiscal year 2016–17, revenue from Australian game developers was approximately $118.5 million, 80 percent of which was from overseas sales.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
Video gaming in India is an emerging market since India is experiencing strong growth in online gaming, making it one of the top gaming markets in the world. Over the past few decades, the Indian gaming industry has gone from close to nonexistent in the 1990s to one of the top markets globally in the late 2010s. In 2019, the online gaming market in India was estimated at ₹6,200 crore (US$740 million) with an estimated 300 million gamers, a 41.6% increase from 2018. As of 2021, it is one of the top five mobile gaming markets in the world. By the third quarter of 2020 there were more than 7.4 billion mobile game downloads. According to the "State of India Gaming Report," released by venture capital firm Lumikai with Google, as of November 2023, there were 568 million gamers in India. Additionally, it was reported that in FY23, 41% of gamers were female and 66% were from non-metros, with each user on average spending 10–12 hours per week on video games.
ironSource Ltd. is an Israeli software company that focuses on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy.
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