Walking the bustling corridors of 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 sizeable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is dominated by a company most attendees probably haven’t heard of before: 4Divinity. "It’s massive by any metric," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint. The company is fielding six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of which will appear in dedicated trailer showcases, and four will be displayed on the public floor across two separate stands.
The larger of those stands occupies roughly 800 square metres. But the scale is not limited to square footage – the spectacle is equally ambitious. "We’ve hired one of the top booth builders at Gamescom and spared no expense," Doust adds.
One of the most striking installations is for the 1980s‑inspired RPG Showa American Story. The booth features a re‑imagined Hollywood Hills – renamed Neo Yokohama Hills in the game’s alternate timeline where Japan rules the United States. A seven‑metre‑high replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, festooned with Japanese lanterns, spans the set, and a fully stocked diner invites visitors to step inside and start playing.
The whole experience is designed to be immersive and tactile. When Doust says no expense was spared, he clarifies, "I can’t disclose exact numbers – that would be crass – but we’re talking millions of dollars of investment. The sheer size of our footprint demonstrates the level of commitment.
It reflects how seriously we are taking the Western market, something not every Chinese‑based company appreciates or attempts. The reason many have never heard of 4Divinity despite such spending lies in its corporate lineage. 4Divinity is one of several gaming subsidiaries owned by Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, a conglomerate that also dabbles in an imitation‑diamond jewellery business. GCL’s roots are in physical distribution through a company called Epicsoft, a business that has operated for almost two decades.
That model is increasingly precarious in an era when console manufacturers like Sony are scaling back disc production. "Physical distribution remains a significant part of our group’s revenue, and we’ll continue it as long as Sony supports disc releases," Doust explains. "But we recognise the trend is downward, so we needed a digital‑centric growth engine.
Enter 4Divinity, launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia. Doust notes, "Finding a Western title that performs well in China is extremely difficult. We succeeded with Atomic Heart – China was a huge market for that game – and then repeated the formula with Stalker 2. Those successes were outliers, however.
For a Nasdaq‑listed parent like GCL, isolated wins weren’t enough. "From a growth perspective we needed a truly global publishing platform," Doust says. The company therefore began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. This effort started before Doust joined in late 2024, with a handful of indie titles 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 titles share common characteristics: they are primarily single‑player experiences lasting 15–20 hours, 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 sentiment: "People don’t have time for 200‑hour live‑service games. The $80 AAA blockbuster is reserved for a few titles, but many gamers are willing to spend $40–$50 on a polished 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.
With additional operating expenses, a game often needs to sell a million copies just to break even, a target that is increasingly hard to achieve given discoverability challenges. 4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its commitment to new intellectual property. "Everything you’ll see at Gamescom is brand‑new IP," Doust says.
"Even in China, these are fresh concepts, and in the West they’re completely untested. Larger publishers shy away from betting on a single new IP, let alone six, because development costs have risen and AAA studios have become risk‑averse, focusing on established franchises." The catalyst for 4Divinity’s global pivot, according to Doust, was the success of Black Myth: Wukong. GCL handled the game’s physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as publisher in Taiwan.
Because the developer, Game Science, is a Chinese studio, it lacked the infrastructure to manage global logistics, and 4Divinity filled that gap from its Singapore base. Wukong’s triumph highlighted a broader opportunity. Since China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese developers who had been working abroad returned home and formed console‑focused studios.
Wukong was one of the first high‑profile releases, and more are emerging. With two offices in China, GCL now has direct access to this burgeoning talent pool.
Cost structures in China are markedly lower. A Chinese tax filing suggests Wukong’s development budget exceeded 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million). The game sold roughly 30 million copies, delivering a substantial profit margin.
Doust notes, "Development is cheaper in China, and Chinese gamers are very price‑sensitive. That shaped our strategy: we can produce affordable, high‑quality experiences and test them in other markets.
He argues that while major publishers have retreated from this segment for financial reasons, player appetite for well‑crafted single‑player games remains strong – creating a "massive drought of supply." 4Divinity aims to bridge that gap by matching Western demand for fresh, reasonably priced experiences with Chinese developers’ ability to deliver them efficiently. "My thesis, when I started working with Jacky Choo, GCL’s chairman, was ‘what if we can find common themes between East and West?’" Doust says.
He believes universal narratives – loyalty, trust, defiance, revenge – can be marketed with the same assets but tailored messaging for each region, a practice he feels is underutilised. Even without an aggressive marketing push, games will cross borders organically.
Doust calls this the "do‑nothing" model: the publisher markets primarily in China, which creates a ripple effect abroad, typically resulting in an 80/20 sales split (80 % in China, 20 % elsewhere). Wukong exemplified this, selling 20 million units in China and about three to four million internationally. 4Divinity hopes to shift that ratio to a more balanced 60/40 split, which would significantly boost total unit sales. Doust muses that if Wukong had achieved such a split, it could have become the best‑selling game of all time relative to its development cost, an intriguing prospect.
The company is pursuing a two‑way Silk Road strategy: promoting Chinese titles in the West and Western titles in China. Currently, its only non‑Chinese game is Guns of Eschaton, developed by Eschatology Entertainment, a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee. The marketing campaign for that title began at Bilibili World, China’s massive anime and pop‑culture expo in Shanghai – a move no Western publisher typically makes so early in a launch cycle.
The early exposure propelled China to become the game’s second‑largest wishlist market after the United States. The colossal Gamescom presence mirrors this dual‑market approach. 4Divinity’s games will appear in Cologne shortly after a showcase at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, ensuring simultaneous visibility in both regions rather than waiting for Chinese traction to create a lagging Western push. Beyond individual game promotion, Gamescom serves as 4Divinity’s western coming‑out party.
"We could run separate campaigns for each title, and we do to some extent, but Gamescom lets us consolidate everything into one major impact event," Doust explains. "We haven’t done much in the West yet, so this is our chance to make a lot of noise.
If this is a portfolio play, why not go big?"