Lula goes from blaming video games for school violence in 2023 to regulating Brazil’s games sector in 2026

Three years after tying electronic games to school attacks, Brazil’s president signed the decree regulating the country’s video game industry and used the ceremony at the Palácio do Planalto to mock the same logic he had once pushed. For PSPs, lenders, and media-rights providers around high-risk gaming, the relevant part is not the personal whiplash; it is that Brazil is now putting money, credit, and university programs behind a sector it used to frame as a problem.

1. On 18 April 2023, in a meeting with ministers, governors, and representatives of the three branches of government after the attack on a daycare center in Blumenau (SC), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva blamed video games for school violence. He said there was “no game talking about love” or “education,” only “game teaching kids how to kill,” and claimed children were spending nights gaming with people from other countries, which he said led to violence.
2. The reaction was immediate. Abragames, the association of Brazilian developers, called the statement mistaken and reckless, noting that the sector directly employed more than 12,4 thousand professionals across more than one thousand studios in Brazil. An open letter from teachers, researchers, and developers collected more than 70 signatures asking Lula to reconsider, and even his youngest son, Luís Cláudio, publicly defended games as art and entertainment.
3. Three and a half years later, Lula signed the decree regulating the Marco Legal da Indústria de Jogos Eletrônicos, Law 14.852, which he himself sanctioned in 2024. The law began as a bill from deputy Kim Kataguiri, and the ceremony at the Palácio do Planalto marked a full reversal in tone: the same president who called the earlier argument “loucura” was now presenting the sector as something the state should actively support.
4. The policy package was not symbolic. Finep will publish a R$ 200 million call for companies and startups in the sector, five federal universities will open undergraduate game programs with 230 places, and companies will gain access to financing through the Audiovisual Law and the Rouanet Law. The government also plans to lower sector credit from TR plus 2% to TR plus 0,5% a year and cut the minimum loan amount from R$ 500 mil to R$ 150 mil.
5. Lula also said the government could finance courses abroad if needed, “because we do not want to be inferior to Korean, Japanese, Chinese or American” competitors. Before the ceremony, he tried a game called “Arida,” inspired by Canudos, which tells you the administration wanted the optics of industrial policy, not just a signature on a decree.