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 will be dominated by a company most visitors probably haven’t heard of: 4Divinity. "It’s huge by any standard," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint. The company will present six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of those in the accompanying trailer showcases, and four on the public show‑floor across two separate stands, the larger of which covers roughly 800 square metres.
The ambition goes beyond sheer size; Doust stresses that the company has hired one of the most reputable booth builders at the fair and spared no expense in the design. One of the showcases, for the 1980s‑inspired 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 governs the United States. "We built a seven‑metre‑high Golden Gate Bridge fitted with Japanese lanterns, and a diner you can walk into to start playing.
It’s meant to be an immersive, experiential space," Doust explains. When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact number, calling it "crass" to do so, but confirms that the investment runs into the millions.
"The scale of our footprint alone shows we are committing that level of money. It reflects how seriously we are taking the Western market – something not every Chinese‑based publisher is willing or able to do." The reason many people have never encountered 4Divinity is that it is part of a larger conglomerate, Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, which also owns a jewellery‑making subsidiary. GCL’s roots lie in a physical‑distribution business called Epicsoft, which has been operating for nearly two decades. While physical distribution remains a component of the group’s revenue – and will continue as long as Sony produces discs – Doust acknowledges that the model is in decline and the company needed a digital‑focused growth engine.
Enter 4Divinity, launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia. Doust notes that finding a Western title that performs well in China is exceptionally difficult. The company succeeded with *Atomic Heart*, which saw strong Chinese sales, and later with *Stalker 2*.
However, those successes were outliers rather than a sustainable growth path. For a Nasdaq‑listed group like GCL, a broader, global publishing strategy was essential.
4Divinity therefore began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. By the time Doust arrived in late 2024, the firm already had a handful of titles – a couple of indie projects and the ambitious *Showa American Story* – and the pipeline has since expanded to eight games slated for launch over the next two years. The emerging portfolio shares common traits: all titles are primarily single‑player experiences, lasting roughly 15‑20 hours, and priced in the mid‑tier range.
This focus was not pre‑planned but evolved into a clear strategic direction aimed at the “squeezed middle” of the market – a segment also being explored by US‑based ProbablyMonsters. Doust believes this is exactly what many gamers currently crave: they lack the time for 200‑hour live‑service games, and while $80‑plus AAA titles are reserved for a few blockbuster franchises, players are willing to spend $40‑$50 on a well‑crafted single‑player adventure. Developing such games is costly, typically requiring $5‑$20 million in production budgets, regardless of whether the studio is based in China or the West. With additional operating expenses, a title must sell around a million copies just to break even, a target that is increasingly hard to hit given discoverability challenges.
4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its emphasis on new intellectual property. Every game on display at Gamescom is a fresh IP, both for Chinese and Western audiences. Larger publishers are hesitant to gamble on untested IPs, especially after the soaring costs of AAA development have turned many studios into franchise‑centric operations. Only a few emerging Chinese companies are still willing to take that risk.
The turning point for 4Divinity, according to Doust, was the handling of *Black Myth: Wukong*. GCL managed the game’s physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as publisher in Taiwan, leveraging its Singapore base to bridge the gap for the Chinese developer Game Science. The success of *Wukong* highlighted a broader opportunity: since China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese studios that had been working abroad have returned home, forming new console and PC development houses.
*Wukong* reportedly cost just over 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million) to develop, yet it sold 30 million copies, generating a massive profit margin. Development costs in China remain lower than in the West, and Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive. This dynamic shaped 4Divinity’s regional strategy and informed Doust’s belief that, while major Western publishers have retreated from mid‑budget, single‑player games for financial reasons, player demand for such experiences has not vanished – creating a “massive drought of supply.” Doust’s mission is to connect Western appetite for affordable, novel experiences with the supply side that Chinese developers can deliver efficiently. He describes his thesis, formed with GCL chairman Jacky Choo, as finding universal themes – loyalty, trust, defiance, revenge – that resonate across cultures, then marketing the same assets with tailored messaging for each market.
He argues that few have executed this cross‑cultural approach effectively. Even without intensive marketing, games tend to cross borders. Doust calls this the “do‑nothing” model: the publisher focuses on Chinese promotion, and a ripple effect generates sales elsewhere, typically an 80/20 split (80 % of revenue from China, 20 % from the rest). *Wukong* followed that pattern, selling about 20 million copies in China and 3‑4 million internationally.
Doust hopes to shift the balance to a 60/40 split through more coordinated cross‑border campaigns, which could dramatically increase overall unit sales. The company is already testing this two‑way flow. Its only non‑Chinese title, *Guns Of Eschaton*, developed by a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee, was first promoted at Bilibili World in Shanghai – an early‑stage move no Western publisher typically makes.
The early buzz propelled China to become the game’s second‑largest wish‑list market after the United States, demonstrating that the strategy works both east‑to‑west and west‑to‑east. Thus, the massive Gamescom presence mirrors this dual‑market ambition. 4Divinity’s titles will appear in Cologne shortly after a showcase at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, allowing simultaneous exposure rather than a delayed, China‑first rollout followed by a catch‑up in the West. Gamescom also serves as the publisher’s western debut, consolidating multiple game launches into a single, high‑impact event.
As Doust puts it, "If we’re presenting an entire portfolio to the West, why not go big?"