Phantasy Star

East Meets South: The Creative Appropriation of Nintendo and Sega Videogames in Brazil

The document examines the creative appropriation of Japanese videogames, specifically Nintendo and Sega titles, within the Brazilian game industry during the protectionist policies of the 1980s and 1990s.

• The paper argues that Brazilian localizations of Japanese and American games during the protectionist era (roughly 1984–1992 and after) illustrate five Latin American forms of appropriation, ordered from least to most radical: baroque infiltration, in-betweenness, creolization, cannibalism, and cultural anthropophagy.
• Nintendo's Brazilian arrangement with Playtronic, a joint venture of Gradiente and Estrela, was tightly controlled, with translation sent to Japan or the United States and only a handful of titles localized.
• The Sega partnership with TecToy was far less restrictive, producing more than 500 titles from the late 1980s to 2000 and allowing Brazilian staff to alter on-screen text, sprites, and backgrounds.