How a game made at home reaches other countries

How does a game published in Brazil reach other countries?

Through the store. You put the game in the store once and select the countries where it appears. The store shows the game to people who live there, charges players in their own currency and pays out your share¹².

You do not have to mail anything or open a company in each country. The store is the bridge: Google Play, on Android phones, and Steam, the biggest store for PC games. This page uses both as examples, with what the official pages said in October 2026.

What the store does not do is tell the world your game exists. The story of Among Us shows that difference well.

How did Among Us reach players all over the world?

Slowly, and through the people who played it. Among Us came out for phones on June 15, 2018, made by three people, according to the company itself, Innersloth⁷⁸. The game was in the stores from launch, but the wave of players only came two years later⁸.

By January 2020, the team already considered the game complete⁷. Then, in mid-2020, it became a craze, and the first spark came from far away: video creators in South Korea and Brazil started showing the game online⁸. One of the creators, Marcus Bromander, said the game was more popular in Mexico, Brazil and South Korea than in the United States, according to Wikipedia⁸. In November 2020, according to the company, almost 500 million people played in the month⁷.

Among Us is from 2018 and was not made with AI. It is one case that worked out among many that did not, and it is no promise. The full story is in famous games that started small.

In our reading, the lesson is that the game had been in the store since 2018, and what changed was that people in other countries started talking about it.

In how many countries does Google Play distribute a game?

In Google Play's official list, in the version published on September 28, 2026, we counted 177 countries and regions with their own row. There is also an option called "Rest of world", which includes another 48 places at once¹. The count is ours, done on the open page.

For each place, the list says three things: whether people can download free games, whether they can buy, and which currency they pay in¹. It is not the same everywhere. In five countries on the list (China, Cuba, Iran, Russia and Sudan), people can download free games but cannot buy through the store¹.

You decide where the game appears, in the store's dashboard for publishers, the Play Console. You can add or remove countries later². A detail that catches many people: what counts is the country where the player's store account is registered, not where they are at that moment². To the store, a Brazilian on vacation in Portugal is still from Brazil.

The step-by-step for putting the game in the Android store, with the account, the test and the forms, is in how to publish a game on Google Play.

Who charges the player abroad, and in what currency?

The store does, in the currency the player sees. In most places on Google Play's list, it is the local currency; in some, the price appears in dollars or euros¹. In Brazil, a game or an in-game purchase can cost from R$ 0.30 to R$ 5,200, in Brazilian reais¹.

You do not have to work out the price in each currency. On Google Play, when a paid game gets a new country, that country's prices are added automatically, and you can change them if you want².

On Steam, prices exist in 37 currencies⁶. Valve, the company that runs the store, suggests a price in each currency based on the price you set in dollars, and you accept or change it⁶. One of the conversion methods the store offers takes into account people's purchasing power in each country, not just the exchange rate⁶. Valve says the pricing decision is entirely yours⁶.

In our reading, this matters for anyone living in Brazil: a price that looks low in dollars can be high in reais, and the other way around. Looking at the suggested price in each currency before launch avoids surprises.

Do I need to translate the game to sell in other countries?

It is not required, but it helps a lot. Translating the game and the store page, which in the industry is called localization, lets someone abroad understand what they are buying.

On Google Play, you can write the game's page in other languages yourself, buy professional translation through the dashboard, or use the store's machine translation at no cost³. Professional translation cost US$0.07 per word, ready in seven days, in October 2026³. Anyone who opens the page in a language you translated sees the translated version³. If you did not translate it, the person may see a machine translation, with a notice at the top³. Google itself warns that these machine translations are not reviewed by professionals³.

The store also offers to translate the text inside the game with Gemini, Google's AI, at no cost³.

On Steam, translation has two separate parts: the store page (description, images and videos) and the game itself, with subtitles, on-screen text or full audio⁴. The language that counts as "supported" is the game's, not the page's⁴. Valve says more than 60% of people use Steam in a language other than English, and that the store favors translated products⁴.

Steam's monthly survey shows which languages people use. In September 2026, English had 34.2%; Simplified Chinese, 31.4%; Russian, 9.1%; Spanish from Spain, 4.1%; and Brazilian Portuguese, 3.7%⁵. These numbers change a lot from one month to the next: Simplified Chinese rose more than 7 points compared with the previous month⁵.

In our reading, the cheapest way to start is to translate the store page first into the languages where you want to appear, and ask someone who speaks the language to check it. If language worries you when making the game, see whether you need to speak English to make a game with AI.

How does the money from sales abroad reach you?

Through the store, once a month. On Google Play, what was sold from the 1st to the last day of a month is paid around the 15th of the following month, and the bank may take a few days to credit it⁹.

The money goes into a bank account you register in your payments profile. The account must be in the same country where your seller account is registered, and use the country's currency or US dollars, depending on the place¹⁰. In some countries, Google pays in dollars by international wire transfer, and then the minimum balance to get paid is US$100; for those paid in local currency, the minimum is US$1⁹¹¹.

Each country may have its own requirements. To sell in Brazil through Google Play, the store may ask for details about the business and the people in charge, and Brazilian companies also send their CPF and CNPJ, the Brazilian tax ID numbers¹².

Receiving money from abroad may come with tax rules, and this page does not cover them. Before your first payment, talk to an accountant.

Why isn't being in another country's store enough?

Because the store shows the game to people who search, but it does not make anyone search. Among Us spent almost two years in the store before people abroad started talking about it⁷⁸.

Selling abroad is already a large part of the business for game makers in Brazil. According to Abragames, the association of Brazilian game companies, 55% of Brazilian studios' revenue already comes from foreign markets, in data released in August 2026¹³¹⁴. This number has a limit, because it is about studios, which are companies with teams, and it says nothing about how much a game made by one person at home sells.

In our reading, what changes for beginners is the order of the questions. Before "how many countries will the game be in" comes "how will someone out there know it exists". A short video of the game, the translated page and the Steam wishlist are ways to start. The store is already packed with games, as we show in are there too many games already?.

The other side

Putting the game in 177 countries does not bring players from 177 countries. Most games sell little, in any store, and nobody can promise that yours will sell at home or abroad. Translating costs time or money, and machine translation without review can leave mistakes on the page. The rules of each store and each country change: Google Play's list has a version and a date, and the requirements to get paid also change. And money from abroad brings obligations this page does not cover: take your situation to an accountant.

Your action plan

Check off what you've done. It's saved on this device, so you can pick up where you left off.

1. Open Google Play's official list of countries and see where people can download, where they can buy, and in which currency.
2. Decide whether your first game goes to every country or only to some.
3. Write the game's name and short description in simple sentences that are easy to translate.
4. Translate the store page into at least one language besides your own and ask someone who speaks it to check.
5. Look at Steam's monthly survey to see which languages people use most, if your game is for computers.
6. Gather the details of a bank account in your name, in the same country as your seller account.
7. Schedule a conversation with an accountant before your first payment from abroad.
8. Record a short video of the game that can be understood without reading.