The Brazilian Independent Games Festival (BIG Festival), the biggest indie games expo in Latin America, will feature tournaments of four non-conventional games in esports: Minecraft, Brawl Stars, Fall Guys, and the recently released Suspects: Survive and Escape the Mansion, made for mobile by the Brazilian studio Wildlife. The event will be held online on May 3-9 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even though it is more focused on fun for amateur players, there is a $14K BRL (roughly $2.45K USD) prize pool on the table. Part of the prize pool is an investment by Wildlife to promote its game’s tournament.
The Esports Observer spoke to BIG Festival’s Director Gustavo Steinberg, who said that the competitions are meant to bring more attention to the event, which features games from different independent producers around the globe. “We want to get the audience to discover new things,” he said.
The choice of the games chosen for the event were initially created as independent titles like Fall Guys, which is now owned by Epic Games, and Minecraft, now a property of Microsoft, which will have an in-game building competition featured on BIG.
Steinberg also said that esports were already part of previous BIG Festival editions with a focus on B2B relations, which continues to be a feature of the event. “We expect to bring these amateur players closer to the scene, so they can get to know the industry behind the games and become professionals in it, not only as pro-players or something, but also as designers, journalists, etc.” The new approach to esports is also reflected in the casting of hosts for the event, which includes local esports personalities such as Barbara Gutierrez, Luiz Gustavo Queiroga, and Nyvi Estephan.
Although the esports initiative does not have special sponsors, BIG Festival is partners with global brands like Google and Epic Games. The games will be broadcast through YouTube and also via Huya-owned streaming platform Nimo TV, which enters the festival as a media partner. BIG will also have a platform during the event to facilitate the audience to play the games featured in the Festival.
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