Walking through Gamescom, you’ll quickly notice that the most expansive and eye‑catching booths belong to household names—Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a sizable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is dominated by a brand most visitors will not recognize: 4Divinity.
"It’s massive by any measure," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the company’s Gamescom footprint. The publisher is presenting six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of them featured in dedicated trailer showcases, and four titles on the public B2C floor across two separate stands.
The larger of those stands covers roughly 800 square metres. Doust stresses that the scale is not limited to square footage; the company has also invested heavily in the visual spectacle.
"We’ve hired one of the top booth builders at Gamescom and spared no expense," he explains. One of the highlighted experiences is the showcase for the 1980s‑inspired RPG *Showa American Story*.
The booth recreates a Hollywood‑Hills‑style set that, in the game’s alternate timeline, has been renamed Neo Yokohama Hills, a world where Japan governs the United States. "We built a seven‑metre‑high Golden Gate Bridge adorned with Japanese lanterns, and a fully stocked diner that visitors can walk into to try the game. It’s all about immersion," Doust adds. When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact number, calling it "crass" to do so, but he confirms that the investment runs into the millions.
"The sheer size of our footprint makes it clear we’re committing resources at that level. It shows how seriously we’re taking the Western market—something not all Chinese‑origin firms are prepared to do or even understand." The reason many have never heard of 4Divinity, despite its ability to spend such sums, lies in its corporate lineage.
The publisher is part of Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, a conglomerate that also owns an imitation‑diamond jewellery business. GCL’s core business originated nearly two decades ago with Epicsoft, a physical‑distribution company that still supplies discs for Sony consoles as long as the platform permits. Doust acknowledges that disc distribution is a declining revenue stream, but it remains a vital component of the group’s overall portfolio while the market still supports it. Recognising the need to pivot toward digital, GCL launched 4Divinity in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia.
Doust cites the success of *Atomic Heart*—which performed strongly in China—as a proof point, followed by *Stalker 2*. However, those titles were outliers rather than a sustainable growth engine.
"From a Nasdaq‑listed company’s perspective, we needed a globally scalable publishing model," Doust says. The answer was to start signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. Before Doust joined in late 2024, the team had already secured a handful of titles, including a couple of indie projects and the ambitious *Showa American Story*. Since then the portfolio has swelled to eight games slated for release over the next two years, marking a period of rapid expansion.
All of the announced titles share common characteristics: they are primarily single‑player experiences lasting 15‑20 hours, positioned at a mid‑tier price point. This focus was not pre‑planned but emerged as a coherent strategy aimed at the “squeezed middle” of the market—a segment also targeted by U.S. studio ProbablyMonsters.
Doust believes this is where player demand currently resides. "People don’t have the time for 200‑hour live‑service games, and the $80 AAA price tag is reserved for a few blockbuster franchises. Yet many gamers are willing to spend $40‑$50 on a polished, single‑player adventure." Developing such games is costly, typically requiring budgets between $5 million and $20 million regardless of whether the studio is in China or the West.
Doust notes that a title must sell roughly a million copies just to break even, a challenging target given today’s discoverability hurdles. 4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its emphasis on new intellectual property.
Every title displayed at Gamescom is a fresh IP, many of which are debut releases in both China and the West. Larger publishers are increasingly risk‑averse, focusing on established franchises because development costs have ballooned.
"AAA has become a franchise business; unless you already own a franchise, you’re rarely given a chance," Doust observes, adding that only a few emerging Chinese studios are breaking that mold. The catalyst for the company’s global shift, according to Doust, was the distribution of *Black Myth: Wukong*. GCL handled the physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as publisher for the Taiwanese market.
Because the developer, Game Science, is based in China, it lacked the infrastructure to manage global logistics, creating an opening for 4Divinity’s Singapore hub. *Wukong*’s triumph highlighted a broader opportunity. Since China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese developers who had been working for Western studios returned home and formed their own console and PC studios. *Black Myth* was among the first to break out, and more are following.
Doust explains that development costs in China are markedly lower, and Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive, which shapes 4Divinity’s pricing and marketing tactics. Financial disclosures suggest *Wukong* cost around 300 million yuan (approximately $44.6 million) to produce, yet by June it had sold 30 million copies—a staggering profit margin. Doust argues that this cost‑efficiency, combined with strong demand for affordable, narrative‑driven games, creates a “massive drought of supply” that 4Divinity aims to fill.
His mission is to bridge Western appetite for fresh, reasonably priced experiences with the supply of Chinese developers who can deliver them. "When I started working with Jacky Choo, the GCL chairman, I asked: what if we could find common themes between East and West?
Themes like loyalty, trust, defiance, revenge are universal. We can market the same game with different cultural lenses, something few have done successfully." Even without an aggressive marketing push, games tend to cross borders. Doust describes this as the company’s “do‑nothing” business model: they market primarily in China, and a ripple effect generates sales abroad, typically an 80/20 split.
*Wukong* followed that pattern, selling 20 million copies in China and 3‑4 million elsewhere. Doust hopes to shift that balance to a 60/40 split through coordinated cross‑regional campaigns, which would dramatically increase overall unit sales.
The publisher is already testing the reverse flow—West‑to‑East. Its sole non‑Chinese title, *Guns Of Eschaton*, developed by Cyprus‑based Eschatology Entertainment, was first promoted at Bilibili World, a massive anime and pop‑culture expo in Shanghai. No Western studio typically launches a game at such an event so early in the campaign. The exposure made China the second‑largest wish‑list market for the title after the United States, a promising sign of the strategy’s viability.
Thus, the colossal Gamescom presence is a physical manifestation of this dual‑market approach. 4Divinity plans to roll out its games in Cologne shortly after showcasing them at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, ensuring simultaneous momentum in both territories rather than waiting for a Chinese hit to trickle westward.
Gamescom also serves as the company’s debut party in the West. While individual game campaigns continue, the trade show allows 4Divinity to consolidate its messaging and generate a splash that would be impossible through isolated efforts. "If this is a portfolio play to introduce our games and our brand to Western audiences, why not go big?" Doust concludes.