Walking through Gamescom, you’ll quickly notice that the most eye‑catching booths belong to household names—Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a substantial portion of Halls 6 and 7 is dominated by a company many attendees probably don’t recognize: 4Divinity.
"It’s massive 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 associated trailer showcases, and four will be displayed on the public floor across two separate stands. The larger of those stands covers roughly 800 square metres. But the scale isn’t limited to square footage; the spectacle is equally ambitious.
"We’ve hired one of the top booth‑construction firms at Gamescom," Doust explains. "No expense has been spared." One of the showcases, for the 80s‑style pop‑culture RPG *Showa American Story*, features a full‑scale recreation of the Hollywood Hills—rebranded as the Neo‑Yokohama Hills in the game’s alternate timeline where Japan rules the United States. "We built a seven‑metre‑high Golden Gate Bridge adorned with Japanese lanterns," Doust adds.
"There’s also a diner that visitors can walk into to start playing. It’s a completely immersive experience." When Doust says no expense was spared, he clarifies, "I can’t quote exact numbers—it would be crass—but we’re talking millions of dollars of investment. The sheer size of our footprint should make it clear we’re committing at that level.
It reflects how seriously we’re taking the Western market, something not every Chinese‑owned company does or even knows how to do." That comment hints at why many have never heard of a company capable of such spending. 4Divinity is one of several gaming entities owned by Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, a conglomerate that also includes an imitation‑diamond jewellery business.
GCL’s roots lie in a physical‑distribution operation called Epicsoft, a business that has been running for nearly two decades. "Physical distribution is still a significant part of our group’s revenue, and we’ll keep it as long as Sony continues to support disc production," Doust says. "But we recognise that the market is shrinking, so we needed a digital‑focused growth engine." Enter 4Divinity, launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring their games to Southeast Asia.
"Finding a Western title that performs well in China is incredibly difficult," Doust notes. The company succeeded with *Atomic Heart*, which saw strong sales in China, and later replicated that success with *Stalker 2*. However, those titles were outliers rather than a sustainable growth path.
For a Nasdaq‑listed group like GCL, a broader, global publishing model became essential. "From a growth perspective we had to go global," Doust says. Consequently, 4Divinity began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. The effort started before Doust joined in late 2024; at that point the roster already included a few indie projects and the ambitious *Showa American Story*.
Since then the portfolio 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, priced in the mid‑tier range. This wasn’t a pre‑planned formula but rather a natural convergence that now forms the core of the company’s strategy—targeting the “squeezed middle” of the market, a niche also being explored by U.S. studio ProbablyMonsters.
"People don’t want to invest 200 hours into a live‑service game," Doust explains. "The $80‑plus AAA titles are reserved for a handful of franchises. But gamers are willing to spend $40‑$50 on a well‑crafted single‑player adventure." Developing such games is costly regardless of geography.
"These projects typically require $5‑$20 million in development funds," Doust says. "To break even you need to sell roughly a million copies, which is a tall order given today’s discoverability challenges." 4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its emphasis on new intellectual property. "Everything you’ll see from us at Gamescom is brand‑new IP," he says.
"Even in China, these are fresh titles, and in the West they’re completely unknown. Larger publishers shy away from betting on a single new IP, let alone six, because development costs have driven AAA studios toward franchise‑centric models." The catalyst for the publisher’s global pivot, according to Doust, was *Black Myth: Wukong*.
GCL handled the game’s physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as the publisher in Taiwan. "Game Science, the Chinese studio behind Wukong, doesn’t have the infrastructure to manage global distribution, so we stepped in from Singapore," Doust explains.
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‑ and PC‑focused studios. "Wukong was one of the first successes, but now there’s a growing pipeline of high‑quality Chinese games," Doust says.
The title reportedly cost about 300 million yuan (roughly $44.6 million) to develop and sold 30 million copies, delivering a substantial profit margin. Lower development costs in China, combined with price‑sensitive consumers, shape 4Divinity’s regional strategy. "Chinese players are extremely price‑conscious, which means we can test games at lower price points and still achieve healthy margins," Doust notes. He believes many major Western publishers have retreated from this segment for financial reasons, yet player appetite for affordable, narrative‑driven experiences remains strong—a supply gap 4Divinity aims to fill.
Doust’s mission is to bridge Western demand for “new experiences that don’t cost the earth” with the supply that Chinese studios are uniquely positioned to provide. "My thesis, when I started working with Jacky Choo, the GCL chairman, was to find common themes between East and West—loyalty, trust, defiance, revenge. Those universal ideas let us market the same game with different cultural lenses," he says. He believes few have executed this cross‑cultural marketing effectively.
Even without a concerted effort, games will cross borders, but 4Divinity wants to make the process intentional. Doust calls the passive approach a "do‑nothing" business: you market only in China, a ripple effect reaches the West, resulting in an 80/20 sales split—exactly what happened with Wukong (20 million copies in China, 3‑4 million elsewhere). He aims to shift that balance to a 60/40 split, which would dramatically increase overall unit sales and could potentially make a title one of the best‑selling games ever relative to its modest budget.
The company is pursuing this two‑way flow like a modern Silk Road. Currently, its only non‑Chinese‑developed game is *Guns Of Eschaton*, created by Eschatology Entertainment, a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee.
The marketing push for that title began in China: "The first thing we did after announcing the game was to showcase it at Bilibili World in Shanghai—no Western publisher does that so early," Doust says. The exposure made China the second‑largest wishlist market behind the United States, confirming the viability of the strategy. Thus, the massive Gamescom presence is a direct reflection of this approach.
The games will appear in Cologne shortly after a showing at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, allowing simultaneous exposure in both markets rather than waiting for Chinese traction to build before chasing Western attention. Doust explains, "Gamescom is our western coming‑out party.
We could run individual campaigns for each title, but consolidating everything into one high‑impact event lets us make a bigger splash. If this is a portfolio play to introduce our games and our brand to the West, why not go big?"