Haroldo Jacobovicz on the Technical Demands Driving Gaming’s Growth in Brazil

Brazil is home to over 103 million gamers, making it one of the largest gaming markets on the planet.

Haroldo Jacobovicz, a Brazilian entrepreneur who has spent decades building technology companies that address infrastructure gaps, saw this as an obvious next chapter.

In this interview, he discusses the technical requirements shaping Brazil’s gaming sector and identifies some opportunities for technology providers.

What drew your attention to gaming infrastructure as a new business focus after selling your telecommunications company?

After the sale, I had already taken the decision to begin a business in computer virtualization. I knew that the product concept was still too innovative for the individual consumer. For that reason, I started first, focusing on the corporate and governmental sectors. And before launching virtual computing to the retail market, I spent time examining which technology sectors demanded most precise engineering. Gaming stood out immediately. The technical requirements are unforgiving. When I built telecommunications infrastructure, we measured success in reliability and coverage. Gaming adds another dimension entirely: time sensitivity measured in milliseconds. That precision pointed out that this consumer’s target could also be more open to innovation and better prepared to co-create a solution with us, giving suggestions and criticisms. I’ve always been drawn to problems that push existing solutions to their limits. And so, I started offering virtual machines to gamers.

Brazil’s gaming market has grown significantly in recent years. What factors do you see driving that expansion?

Several forces converged. Internet access spread dramatically, smartphone ownership increased, and we have a young population that grew up with interactive entertainment as part of daily life. Nearly three-quarters of Brazilians now play some form of online game. Women make up close to half of all players, which tells you this stopped being a niche hobby long ago. Government support through recent legislation providing tax incentives has accelerated things further.

Gaming has technical demands that differ from typical business applications, particularly around latency. Can you explain why those millisecond differences matter so much?

Think about pressing a button and waiting for something to happen on screen. In a spreadsheet, a slight delay annoys you. In a multiplayer game, that same delay means being eliminated from the match. Cloud gaming services typically need latency under 80 milliseconds from data centers. Competitive players often require responses between 20 and 50 milliseconds. Your brain notices these gaps even when you cannot promptly identify them. Players leave platforms that cannot deliver that responsiveness.

You’ve noted that most cloud infrastructure was not built for gaming’s specific requirements. What does that mismatch look like in practice?

Most cloud systems were designed for predictable business workloads. Someone processes invoices, runs reports, sends emails. The demand stays relatively steady. Gaming creates completely different patterns. You might have stable usage for weeks, then a major update drops and player numbers multiply tenfold overnight. Traditional infrastructure struggles with those spikes. Either you overprovision and waste resources, or you underprovision and players experience degraded performance exactly when excitement peaks.

You’ve described gaming as one of the most compelling infrastructure and integration challenges you’ve encountered. What makes it more demanding than the telecommunications work you did previously?

Telecommunications requires intensive investment in external network and maintenance to offer reliability across vast geographic areas. That presents real complexity. But gaming combines multiple difficult problems simultaneously. You need low latency, scalability, robust security for financial transactions, and you must deliver all of this while players expect seamless experiences. One weakness anywhere in that chain and satisfaction drops. The integration challenge comes from making these different systems work together without any single component becoming a bottleneck.

Brazil recently passed legislation specifically designed to support the video game industry. How do you see that regulatory environment affecting the sector’s growth?

The 2024 legislation provided cultural recognition alongside tax incentives. That matters more than people realize. When government treats gaming as a legitimate cultural and economic force rather than a frivolous pastime, investment follows. Studios can plan with greater certainty. International companies see Brazil as a stable market worth entering seriously. The regulatory clarity signals maturity.

Scalability is a major challenge in gaming because player numbers can spike dramatically with updates or events. How should infrastructure providers think about meeting that demand?

You have to build for the peak while operating efficiently during normal periods. That sounds obvious but requires architectural decisions most providers avoid because they add complexity. Edge computing helps tremendously. Placing processing power at key network points rather than centralizing everything reduces the distance data travels and allows you to scale regionally rather than globally. The providers who succeed will be those who design specifically for irregular demand patterns rather than treating gaming like any other workload.

Security has become increasingly important as gaming ecosystems handle real currency transactions. What are the particular security challenges facing the gaming sector?

Virtual economies now process actual money. Account compromises affect people financially. Players expect protection without friction. Nobody wants to enter authentication codes while their teammates wait to start a match. Gaming also faces integrity challenges that other sectors do not. Cheating undermines the entire value proposition. Security solutions must address financial protection, data privacy, and competitive fairness simultaneously. Few existing solutions handle all three adequately.

You’ve suggested that tech companies can position themselves as strategic partners rather than only suppliers to the gaming industry. What does that distinction mean in practice?

Suppliers provide capacity. Partners understand context. When you work closely with game developers and publishers to understand their specific difficulties, you develop solutions tailored to their reality rather than generic offerings they must adapt. That relationship creates mutual dependency. They rely on your expertise; you gain insight into emerging needs before competitors. The gaming industry moves quickly. Companies embedded within that ecosystem spot opportunities that outside observers miss entirely.

You’ve identified several opportunities for tech companies in the gaming sector, including edge computing, data analytics, and security. Which of these do you see as most urgent given where the Latin American market is today?

Edge computing networks deserve immediate attention. Latin America still lacks sufficient distributed infrastructure to deliver the latency performance serious gamers require. Companies that deploy computing resources at strategic network points throughout the region will capture significant demand. Data analytics follows closely. Developers need platforms capable of processing enormous real-time data volumes to understand player behavior and guide decisions. Artificial intelligence capabilities have reached the point where this becomes genuinely actionable rather than theoretical.

Key Takeaways:

• Gaming infrastructure demands millisecond-level latency, with competitive games requiring responses between 20 and 50 milliseconds
• Traditional cloud infrastructure struggles with gamers’ unpredictable demand spikes, which can multiply tenfold overnight
• Brazil’s 2024 legislation provided tax incentives and cultural recognition for the gaming industry
• Nearly three-quarters of Brazilians now play online games, with women representing close to half of all players
• Edge computing networks represent the most urgent infrastructure opportunity in Latin America
• Security solutions must address financial protection, data privacy, and competitive integrity simultaneously
• Tech companies that embed themselves within the gaming ecosystem gain insight into emerging needs before competitors