Latin America becomes the third-largest region on the TGA jury

The record turnover of the 2026 jury at The Game Awards has redrawn the map of who will pick the winners of the video game industry's biggest celebration in December. No region grew as much as Latin America.

The jury as a whole gained six seats from 2025 to 2026. The Latin American bloc gained eight, reaching 34 outlets, or one in every five voters. The region has overtaken North America and moved into third place among regional blocs, behind Europe and Asia.

How much of the jury does the region hold?

Latin America has 34 of the 160 outlets on the 2026 jury, or 21.3% of the total. In 2025, it had 26 of 154 (16.9%). The eight additional voters are the region's biggest gain in a single edition.

Its presence began in 2015, with Mexico's Level Up and Brazil's UOL Jogos. Through 2016, the region had only those two voters, about 7% of the jury. Its share reached 15% in 2019 and spent the next six years between 12.5% and 17%, even as the jury doubled in size.

In other words, Latin America was growing at the same pace as the awards without gaining ground in relative terms. In 2026, for the first time, its share topped 20%.

Latin America and the other regions

Europe still has the largest bloc, 60 outlets (37.5%). Next come Asia (35), Latin America (34) and North America (24, of which 17 are from the United States and 7 from Canada). Oceania (4) and Africa (3) round out the jury.

The shift came from both sides. Latin America gained eight seats and Europe five, while North America lost five and Asia two.

The region returns to third place. It was the third-largest bloc from 2015 to 2018 and tied with Asia in 2019, with 12 outlets each. It fell to fourth in 2020, when Asia went from 12 to 22 outlets, and stayed there through 2025.

The chart also shows how the awards' center of gravity has shifted. In 2014, North America had two of every three voters (19 of 28). Today it has 15%, less than Latin America and Asia.

The 34 Latin American voters come from seven countries. Europe's outlets come from 16 identified countries, plus one Benelux outlet with no confirmed home country. Asia's, from 13 identified countries, plus one pan-Arab outlet with no confirmed headquarters.

Who makes up the bloc?

Brazil is the region's largest country, with 14 outlets, and ranks third among all countries on the jury, behind the United States and the United Kingdom (17 each). Next come Mexico (7), Argentina (4), Chile (4), Colombia (2), Peru (2) and the Dominican Republic (1).

Brazil and Mexico account for 21 of the 34 Latin American voters (62%). That proportion has barely changed since 2019, staying between 58% and 68%. The other countries arrived gradually: Argentina in 2017, Peru in 2018, Chile in 2019, Colombia in 2022 and the Dominican Republic now.

Ten outlets joined the bloc in 2026 and two left. In Brazil, Adrenaline, O Vício and Veja came in, and TechTudo returned after a year away. In Argentina, Clarín and La Voz del Interior made their debut; in Chile, La Tercera, La Cuarta and Pisapapeles; in the Dominican Republic, GamersRD. Chile's ETC TV and BioBioTV left the list.

Of the 34, 24 are specialist outlets covering games or geek culture and 10 are general-interest outlets, which cover games alongside politics, culture or entertainment. By origin, 17 are websites or portals, 9 come from traditional media (newspapers, magazines and TV channels) and 8 are content-creator projects, such as Nautilus, Jogabilidade and Mexico's BRCDEvg.

No other region has as many general-interest outlets proportionally: 29% of the Latin American bloc, compared with 23% of the European bloc, 17% of the North American bloc and 3% of the Asian bloc.

The Caribbean debuts

GamersRD is the first outlet from a Caribbean country on the TGA jury. The awards list it under the Dominican Republic, which becomes the seventh Latin American country in the vote.

The site publishes news, game and hardware reviews, opinion pieces and podcasts, and its reviews are included in the Metacritic aggregator. According to its own About page, it was founded in March 2015.

The Dominican Republic is one of three countries joining the jury for the first time in 2026, along with Austria and Israel. With them, the jury now includes outlets from 41 countries.

General-interest outlets and the US departures

The shift also changed who, within the jury, writes about games for readers who don't follow specialist sites. General-interest outlets account for 30 of the 160 voters, almost the same as in 2025 (31). What changed was where they come from: those from the United States fell from nine to two, while those from Latin America rose from seven to ten.

Out went Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, Inverse, Pride.com and Wirecutter, from The New York Times. Only NPR and Variety remained. The most symbolic departure is Entertainment Weekly, which had been on the jury since 2014 and was one of eight outlets present in every edition through 2025.

The US also lost WIRED and GamesBeat and gained three specialist outlets: ComicBook.com, DualShockers and Noisy Pixel. The US contingent fell from 23 to 17 outlets, and North America's from 29 to 24. Latin America, with 34, overtook that region for the first time.

Of the 12 general-interest outlets that debuted in 2026, five are Latin American, five are British (Daily Star, Empire, GQ, NME and Radio Times) and two are Spanish (El País and La Vanguardia).

Behind the Latin American mastheads are bylined games writers. At Veja, the Visão de Jogo column is written by Claudio Prandoni, who in October interviewed Devon Pritchard, president of Nintendo of America, on her first visit to Brazil. At Clarín, the reviews are by Hernán Mármol; at La Voz del Interior, by Sebastián Roggero, who reviewed the Argentine game Dreamcore. In Chile, Claudio Portilla writes for the Mouse section of La Tercera and for La Cuarta, a mass-market tabloid from the same group. Grupo Clarín controls La Voz, and Copesa publishes both Chilean papers.

From the jury to the stage

The jury accounts for 90% of the weight in choosing the winners. From 2014 to 2025, Latin American outlets held 141 of the 1,010 voting seats (14%). Over the same period, none of the 68 Game of the Year finalists was developed by a studio from the region.

Outside the main category, the region has some presence, but it is sporadic. In 2023, two Brazilian games competed for Best Fighting Game: Pocket Bravery, from Statera Studio, and God of Rock, from Modus Studio Brazil. Both lost to Street Fighter 6.

Pocket Bravery: EVO 2022 trailer

Playing this video loads it from YouTube.

What could change?

Latin America has never had so much weight in the vote, and part of that weight now comes from newspapers and magazines that speak to a general audience.

Whether this changes the votes is impossible to know: individual ballots are not public, and the TGA does not explain why it adds or removes outlets.

A more Latin American jury expands the region's role in the selection, but it does not guarantee nominations or trophies for games made in the region.