Brazil's federal government published on Thursday, in the official gazette, Decree 13,138, signed the day before, implementing the Legal Framework for the Electronic Games Industry — Law 14,852, enacted in May 2024. Until now the law existed without application rules; the decree is what makes it operative, and it takes effect on the date of publication.
The text treats video games as interactive audiovisual works and cultural products, and the most concrete part of the measure follows from that definition.
The money: Ancine and the sector fund
Article 6 gives the Agência Nacional do Cinema (Ancine, the national film agency) the task of setting how the sector accesses the incentive mechanisms of the Lei do Audiovisual (Audiovisual Law, Law 8,685/1993). The agency must also propose the criteria for submitting game projects to the Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual (Audiovisual Sector Fund), whose executive secretariat it runs, and define what counts as an independent Brazilian game.
In practice, this is the sector's way into the public calls and tax incentives that already finance film and television in the country — something game studios had been asking for since the law passed. The decree also provides for simplifying imports of tools considered essential to development.
Game Brasil, a repository and a training network
Articles 8 and 9 create Game Brasil, described in the decree as a free public platform to catalogue, publicise and promote Brazilian video games, coordinated by the Ministério da Cultura (Ministry of Culture). The platform may host a repository of games financed with public money, available to public education, research and health institutions, with copyright and industrial property rights respected.
The ministry may also set up a voluntary national network of spaces for training, experimentation and research, open to universities, laboratories, studios, museums, incubators and technology parks, and offer training through the Escola Solano Trindade. The Ministério da Educação (Ministry of Education) is to support courses, research and outreach, including through the Pronatec vocational training programme, prioritising access and completion for socially vulnerable or under-represented groups.
Esports join the national sports system
Articles 18 and 19 recognise esports as a competitive sporting activity, played individually or in teams. Organisations in the field may join the Sistema Nacional do Esporte (Sinesp, the national sports system), subject to sports legislation, and the Ministério do Esporte (Ministry of Sport) is charged with folding the discipline into policies on athlete development, competitions, research, integrity, inclusion and accessibility.
Health, training and child protection
Articles 16 and 17 give the Ministério da Saúde (Ministry of Health) the power to regulate therapeutic uses of games, covering purposes, usage parameters and technical and sanitary requirements. Games used for simulation-based training will have to meet minimum criteria for simulation fidelity, instructional design, technical performance, usability and accessibility, security and privacy, personal data protection, appropriate usage time and human supervision proportionate to risk.
Implementation must observe child and adolescent protection rules, and providers must adopt universal design and accessibility measures in games and in their official communities.
The sector's numbers
At the signing, Culture Minister Margareth Menezes summed up the decree's premise in one line: "Game é cultura, game é audiovisual" — games are culture, games are audiovisual. She said the country has some 115 million players and that the market turns over between R$12 billion and R$13 billion a year, placing Brazil among the world's largest by consumption.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva read the same figure the other way round: "Brazil cannot limit itself to being a large consumer market for games created in other countries." That is the decree's bet — the gap between a large consumer market and an exporting industry does not close through legal recognition alone, but without access to funding it does not begin to close either.
The 2024 law covers games for computers, consoles, mobile phones and online platforms, including virtual and augmented reality, and does not apply to sports betting, gambling or other formats with cash prizes.
With information from the Planalto presidential palace (text of Decree 13,138/2026), Agência Brasil and the Ministério da Cultura.
