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Press release:
São Paulo, Brazil, February 15, 2023.
Best International Games (BIG) Festival, the largest international games, creation, business and networking event in Latin America, has announced that award submissions are now live for this year’s annual celebration taking place June 28 to July 2, online and on-site at the São Paulo Expo in São Paulo, Brazil.

With an estimated audience of over 50,000 attendees, this year’s BIG Festival Awards will honor developers based around the world, with cash prizes offered to the winners of distinct categories. Award submissions will close on February 28, 2023 at 11:59PM, Brazil time (GMT-3).

Brazil Games (the Brazilian Games Export Program), a partnership between the Brazilian Game Companies Association, ABRAGAMES, and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, ApexBrasil, is proud to work with BIG Festival for this year’s event.

For over a decade, the festival has shown off games from some of the world’s most globally renowned companies. At the same time, it’s offered a place for valuable meetings and lectures to take place among the world’s leading game publishers, professionals, and investors.

Submit your nominations for the BIG Festival Awards 2023 via BIG Festival’s official website.

Any game on any platform, published or unpublished, is eligible for submission. Note that submitted titles must be playable by the BIG Festival Selection Committee. Games that have commercially launched within two years of the festival’s start date will also be accepted.

Last year, the BIG Festival Awards received a total of 538 game submissions. Among them, 92 were selected for the competition.

Winners were announced at an award ceremony and included the following titles:

Grand Prize Award — Gamedec
Best Brazilian Game — No Place For Bravery
Best Game: Latin America Award — The Eternal Cylinder by ACE Team
Innovation Award — One Hand Clapping by Bad Dream Games
Best Multiplayer Award — DAVIGO by Davigo Studio
Best Mobile Game Award — Wish Me Luck by Black Moluska
BIG Impact: Best Game Diversity Award — Unpacking by Witch Beam
BIG Impact: Best Educational Game Award — Flying Bunk by Plot Kids
BIG Impact: Best Social Questions Game Award — Train to Sachsenhausen by Charles Games
Best Sound Award — Inua: A Story in Ice and Team by ARTE France
Best XR/VR Award — Goliath: Playing with Reality by Anagram
Best Game BIG Brands Award — Jorel’s Brother and the Most Important of the Galaxy! By Double Dash Studios/Copa Studios
Best Student Game Award— Lysfangha by Daphné DELOFFRE – Baptiste MARSAC
Best Narrative Award — The Forgotten City by Modern Storyteller
Best Gameplay Award — Dodgeball Academy by Pocket Trap

“Our team is thrilled to once again partner with the most influential and important gaming event in Latin America,” says Eliana Russi, Director of Operations at Brazil Games.

“Last year’s festival surpassed all of our expectations. With gaming’s popularity showing no signs of slowing down in the region, we anticipate this year’s show will be the biggest and best iteration to date.”

BIG Festival 2022 broke records last July with around 30,000 visitors, more than 300 million social media interactions among partners, around 6,000 scheduled business meetings, and 669 companies in attendance, with 429 originating from Brazil. More than 1,300 games industry professionals attended BIG Festival 2022, and the event spurred an estimated $100 million in new business for gaming companies attending the event.

Conferences will be another integral part of BIG Festival, as a number of notable national and globally based games industry leaders have discussed compelling topics relevant to the contemporary market in the past. To speak at BIG Festival 2023, please submit an application via the event’s official website. The deadline for speaker applications and award submissions is February 28, 2023 at 11:59PM, Brazil time (GMT-3).

For more information on BIG Festival, visit the event’s official website, subscribe to the event’s YouTube channel, “like” the event on Facebook, and follow the event on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

About Brazil Games
The Brazil Games Export Program was created by the Brazilian Game Companies Association, ABRAGAMES, in partnership with ApexBrasil, the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency. Our goal is to promote the Brazilian games industry internationally, developing new business opportunities for our companies. The Brazil Games Export Program also promotes Brazil as a hub for business in Latin America and invites buyers, investors and publishers on behalf of BIG Festival, Brazil’s Independent Games Festival, the most important international indie games event and hub for international business in Latin America.

About ABRAGAMES (Brazilian Game Companies Association)
ABRAGAMES, the Brazilian Game Companies Association, was founded in 2004 and represents Brazilian studios developing titles for a variety of different platforms. The Association aims to promote Brazilian creativity abroad by catalyzing game production within the country through training and marketing insight.

About ApexBrasil
The Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil) works to promote Brazilian products and services abroad, and to attract foreign investment to strategic sectors of the Brazilian economy. The Agency supports more than 12,000 companies from 80 different industries, which in turn export to 200 markets. Apex-Brasil also plays a key role in attracting foreign direct investment to Brazil, working to detect business opportunities, promote strategic events and provide support to foreign investors interested in allocating resources in Brazil.