Nova Zen started its activities in 1995 focused on the gaming sector. Before even launching the magazine, Carlos Cardama, CEO of Games Magazine, worked in partnership with Ángel Vicente in the development of Pirâmide, the first and at the time the only company that supplied bingo cards from all over Brazil, an activity that started its steps in the country with the opening of the first room, in 1994. The entrepreneurial spirit led Cardama to hire a study on the activity and detected, among other things, that the sector lacked consistent information and that there was no channel for publicizing the gaming houses. "This made us decide to launch Games Magazine, the first publication about bingo, automatic and casinos in Brazil," he says. The “0” edition came out in early 1997 and the launch cocktail brought together the most important players in the gaming industry in the country and several American, European and South American entrepreneurs.
The magazine started to be distributed every two months and besides covering the opening of new gaming halls, it also featured interviews with the main international suppliers of the market, artists, sportsmen and many other personalities that stood out in the national and international jet set. The coverage of the main trade shows in the sector has also had space since the beginning of Games Magazine. ICE, G2E, SAGSE, FADJA. To give a more complete overview, in each edition the magazine presented a tourism article highlighting a destination, in Brazil or abroad, which was complemented with interviews with local personalities.
"The gaming market has always been a tool for the tourism industry and Games Magazine has adopted this agenda, bringing the shine of so many fantastic places in Brazil and abroad, with its culture, history, leisure activities and much more," recalls Cardama.
Among the cities visited by the Games Magazine’s team, those that hosted industry events, such as Las Vegas, London, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Madrid, Rome, and others with their specific attractions, such as Florianópolis, Belo Horizonte, Recife, São Luís, Fortaleza, Manaus, just to name a few places in Brazil. Abroad, the team traveled to Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, France, Spain, Italy and many other beautiful tourist destinations.
The strong vocation of the Games Magazine team and the leadership of Carlos Cardama broke through Brazil's borders and within a few years there were already local editions in Italy, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina. And not just physical boundaries have been broken. In 2000, Games Magazine launched a weekly radio show, in which it addressed some of the themes of the printed magazine and a lot of variety, with interviews, music, sport and culture.
“In these 25 years of history, we have seen the emergence of bingos in Brazil, the decree of their extinction and the struggle of serious and valuable businessmen and lawyers defending the sector as an important economic activity that generates jobs and taxes,” comments Cardama.
In the almost six thousand pages of Games Magazine, more than one hundred bingo openings were published, coverage of 300 fairs and events, tourist portrait of 70 national and international destinations and interviews with hundreds of personalities. Here are some of these people: Zico, Pelé, Galvão Bueno, Nelsinho Piquet, Carlos Alberto Parreira, Sorín, Zanetti, Mascherano, Tévis, Helô Pinheiro, Maitê Proença, Lula, Marta Suplicy, Ciro Batelli, Jô Soares, Chitãozinho and Xororó, Bianchi, Washington Olivetto, Nelson Sardelli, Mário Covas, Geraldo Alckmin, Raí, Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi, from the film Karate Kid), Amauri Jr., Oscar Goodman (former Las Vegas mayor and mobster lawyer in the 1980s) , Lorraine Hunt (vice governor of Nevada), etc.
With the closure of bingos in Brazil, the team remained united, working behind the scenes of the sector and collaborating so that all types of games reached the long-awaited regulation. Advances have taken place and today the segment is seen as a strong economic activity. If before the subject was the casino, bingo and jogo do bicho, today the sector has new and vibrant verticals, such as sports betting and eSports, which are added to the fight in search of a regulatory framework for the activity.
With the GMB news outlet, the dream that was born 25 years ago continues to shine the eyes of the entire team and placing the Brazilian gaming sector in global prominence as the main frontier to be reached for the country to become one of the main of the world. We just hope that the government sees the strength of activity and consistently regulates an economic sector with a strong social reach.
From paper to the web: Games Magazine Brasil goes online in 2016
In 2016, Games Magazine Brasil launched its digital version as a daily news outlet in Portuguese and English to respond to a local and international market eager to receive quality information and almost in real time on the latest developments in the legalization of this "sleeping giant" . Carlos Cardama was joined, as partners and editors, by Sergio Maglio (co-founder of Yogonet and former collaborator of Games Magazine) and Fabian Tetelboim (journalist with extensive experience in the media) to contribute their knowledge of the web and upgrade the media to its new platform.
The role of the physical version gave way to a website that quickly established itself in the industry thanks to rigorous content, independence of opinion, exclusive coverage of events, permanent update and presence on social networks. Along with this, almost 3,000 businessmen, legislators, regulators, associations and specialist lawyers from Brazil and abroad receive our newsletter every day, which has already become mandatory reading for those who want to be updated on the progress of the Brazilian market.
In these years, GMB was the official media for the main industry events organized in the country such as the Brazilian Gaming Congress (BgC), Sao Paulo Affiliate Congress (SPAC) and Online Gaming Summit (OGS). In addition, in a year as special and different as 2020, GMB launched its LiveSeries division with a cycle of live webinars on casinos, sports betting and lotteries that brought together great market leaders to share knowledge and exchange opinions. In the same line, the specialized journalist Gildo Mazza returned to Games Magazine Brasil to launch his cycle of video interviews "GMB One-on-One" where he dialogues with industry leading figures in an unmissable head-to-head.
GMB recently changed its original logo, just the first step of a complete redesign that the site promises to present very soon to enter 2021 with a renewed “face” according to current times. New content, more sections, exclusive columnists, larger spaces for our advertisers and an AMP version of agile reading on mobiles are just some of the changes that are coming in Games Magazine Brasil, the site about the gaming industry leader in audience in the country.
