Brazilian Independent Games Festival 2015 Breaks Attendance Record by 4,600

It is clear now: Latin America's gaming culture is growing rapidly. Just recently, the third annual Brazil's Independent Games Festival, otherwise known as BIG and the largest independent games festival in Latin America, has broken the attendance record as it ended yesterday, July 7, after a full 10 days.

Wait, 10 days? That's longer than any convention in North America, that's for sure. Either way, the attendance record has been broken in comparison to last year, in both business and exhibition.

Held in São Paulo Capital City, BIG counted 12,600 attendees, which is 4,600 more than last year -- there were also 1,600 participants in the business forum and "more than 600 scheduled business meetings between Brazilian developers and national and international buyers.

Not going to lie, that is a lot of scheduled meetings.

The festival this year also expanded to Rio de Janeiro, at Frijan, for lectures and presentations. Known developers that attended the festival were David Brevik, creator of Diablo 1 and 2, and Marvel Heroes 2015, and Ina Jang, who is the CEO of Smilegate Games and the developer of Crossfire.

There was also a competition held at BIG amongst games -- the winners were This War of Mine, which won Best Game and People's Choice, Toren, which won the Brazilian Revelation award, Relic Hunters Zero, winner of Best Entertainment Game, and Fofuuu, winner of Best Educational Game. The last two were also winners of the BIG Starter, which is an initiative for in-development projects, and they won R$ 20,000 each.

Congratulations to the winners, and also congratulations to BIG for the impressive growth. Hopefully next year, the number could grow to 10,000 more than this year?