Walking through Gamescom, the massive, eye‑catching booths are usually attached to household names – Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a sizable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is occupied by a company most visitors will not recognize: 4Divinity. “It’s huge by any measure,” says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint.
The firm is presenting six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of which will appear in the adjacent trailer showcases, and four games will be displayed on the public floor across two separate stands. The larger of those stands covers roughly 800 square metres. 4Divinity is not only betting on space but also on spectacle. “We’ve hired one of the top booth builders at Gamescom,” Doust explains.
“No expense has been spared.” One of the most striking displays belongs to the 80s‑inspired RPG *Showa American Story*. The set recreates the Hollywood Hills – renamed Neo Yokohama Hills in the game’s alternate timeline where Japan rules the United States. “We built a seven‑metre‑tall Golden Gate Bridge adorned with Japanese lanterns,” Doust adds.
“There’s a diner you can walk into to start playing. It’s a fully immersive experience.” When Doust says no expense was spared, he means it.
“I can’t quote exact numbers – that would be crass – but we’re talking millions of dollars of investment,” he says. “The size of our footprint alone shows we’re committing resources at that level. It reflects how seriously we’re taking the Western market, something not every Chinese‑based company understands or attempts.” The reason many have never heard of a firm that can afford such a spend is that 4Divinity is part of a larger Singapore‑based conglomerate, GCL Global Holdings, which also owns an imitation‑diamond jewellery business.
GCL’s roots lie in physical game distribution through Epicsoft, a company that has been operating for nearly two decades. While physical distribution remains a significant revenue stream – “as long as Sony continues to produce discs,” Doust notes – the market is contracting, prompting GCL to pivot toward digital publishing. 4Divinity was launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia. Doust recounts the early success: “We managed to get *Atomic Heart* into China, which turned out to be a massive market for that title, and we repeated the feat with *Stalker 2*.
Those were outliers, though.” The company realized that occasional hits would not fuel the growth required of a Nasdaq‑listed group. “From a growth perspective, we needed a truly global publishing model,” Doust says. The shift led 4Divinity to start signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. By the time Doust joined in late 2024, the portfolio already included a few indie titles and the ambitious *Showa American Story*.
Today, the slate has expanded to eight games slated for release over the next two years, marking a period of rapid expansion. All of the titles share common traits: they are primarily single‑player experiences, lasting 15‑20 hours, and priced in the mid‑tier range. This focus on the “squeezed middle” of the market mirrors strategies employed by other independent publishers such as ProbablyMonsters.
Doust believes this segment captures current player desire: “People don’t have time for 200‑hour live‑service games. An $80 blockbuster is reserved for a handful of titles, but many gamers are willing to spend $40‑$50 on a well‑crafted single‑player adventure.” Developing such games is costly – typically $5‑$20 million per title – regardless of whether the studio is in China or the West. “You need to sell roughly a million copies just to break even, and that’s a tough target given discoverability challenges,” Doust warns.
Targeting the AA tier therefore requires a nuanced approach. 4Divinity’s strategy also diverges in its emphasis on new intellectual property. “Everything you’ll see from us at Gamescom is brand‑new IP.
Even in China, these are fresh titles, and they’re entirely new to Western audiences as well,” he says. Larger publishers are increasingly risk‑averse, focusing on established franchises rather than betting on multiple new IPs. The rising cost of AAA development has turned many studios into franchise machines, leaving space for smaller publishers to fill the gap with fresh concepts. The turning point for 4Divinity’s global ambitions, according to Doust, was the success of *Black Myth: Wukong*.
GCL handled the game’s physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as the publisher in Taiwan. Because the developer, Game Science, is a Chinese studio, navigating international logistics was challenging, and 4Divinity’s Singapore base proved invaluable. The triumph of *Wukong* highlighted a broader opportunity: after China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese developers who had been working abroad returned home and began creating console‑ready games. Doust notes that development costs in China are substantially lower – the game reportedly cost about 300 million yuan (≈ $44.6 million) yet sold 30 million copies, delivering a massive profit margin.
Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive, which shaped 4Divinity’s regional strategy. By offering high‑quality, reasonably priced experiences, the publisher can test titles in China and then export them to the West, where demand for such mid‑budget, narrative‑driven games remains strong.
Doust describes his mission as linking Western appetite for “new experiences that don’t break the bank” with Chinese studios capable of delivering them efficiently. He adds, “My thesis, when I started working with Jacky Choo, GCL’s chairman, was to find common themes that resonate across East and West – loyalty, revenge, defiance. You market the same game with different cultural lenses, but the core message stays the same.
No one has done this effectively yet.” Even without a dedicated cross‑border push, games tend to travel. Doust calls that the “do‑nothing” model: the publisher markets primarily in China, and a ripple effect generates sales abroad, typically an 80/20 split. *Wukong* followed that pattern, selling about 20 million copies in China and 3‑4 million elsewhere.
4Divinity hopes to shift that ratio to 60/40 through coordinated marketing in both regions – a modest but meaningful improvement. The company is already testing this two‑way approach.
Its only non‑Chinese title, *Guns of Eschaton*, comes from a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee. After announcing the game, 4Divinity took it to Bilibili World, Shanghai’s massive anime and pop‑culture expo, a move no Western publisher typically makes so early in a campaign. The early buzz elevated China to the second‑largest wishlist market for the title, behind the United States, demonstrating the potential of a bidirectional strategy.
Thus, the massive Gamescom presence is a physical manifestation of that strategy. By showcasing the portfolio in Cologne shortly after a ChinaJoy debut in Shanghai, 4Divinity aims to generate simultaneous traction in both markets rather than chasing a delayed Western wave after a Chinese breakout. Gamescom serves as the publisher’s Western coming‑out party, consolidating multiple game campaigns into a single, high‑impact event. As Doust puts it, “If this is a 4Divinity portfolio play, introducing our games and ourselves to the West, why not go big?”