Walking the bustling corridors of 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 sizable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is occupied by a brand that most visitors probably haven’t heard of: 4Divinity. "It’s massive by any standard," explains Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, when describing the company’s Gamescom footprint. The publisher is showcasing six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of which will appear in the accompanying trailer showcases, and four will be displayed on the public show 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 visual 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 belongs to the 1980s‑style RPG *Showa American Story*.
The booth recreates a Hollywood‑Hills‑inspired landscape that, in the game’s alternate timeline, has been renamed Neo‑Yokohama Hills, a place where Japan governs the United States. "We built a seven‑metre‑tall 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 creating an immersive experience," Doust says. When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact figure, calling it "crass" to disclose, but confirms it runs into the millions.
"The sheer size of our presence tells you we’re investing at that level. It reflects how seriously we’re taking the western market—a commitment not all Chinese firms share or even understand." The reason this relatively unknown company can afford such a lavish showcase lies in its corporate parent, Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, which owns a collection of businesses ranging from gaming to an imitation‑diamond jewellery line. GCL’s roots trace back to a physical‑distribution operation called Epicsoft, a business that has been running for almost two decades. While physical distribution remains a component of the group—"as long as Sony continues to produce discs, we’ll keep supporting it"—Doust acknowledges the sector is in decline and that the group needed a digital‑focused growth engine.
Enter 4Divinity, launched in 2022 initially as a co‑publisher helping western developers bring their games to Southeast Asia. Doust notes that finding a western title that resonates in China is a tall order. The company succeeded with *Atomic Heart*, which performed strongly in the Chinese market, and later replicated that success with *Stalker 2*.
However, those titles were outliers rather than a sustainable growth model. For a Nasdaq‑listed entity like GCL, the next step had to be global publishing.
4Divinity therefore began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. By the time Doust joined in late 2024, the firm already had a handful of titles, including the ambitious *Showa American Story*.
Today the portfolio has expanded to eight games slated for release over the next two years, marking a rapid growth phase. The common thread among these titles is clear: 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 an organic strategy that aligns with what Doust calls “the squeezed middle” of the market—a niche also being explored by U.S. studio ProbablyMonsters.
"Players today don’t want to invest 200 hours into a live‑service game, nor can they justify spending $80 on a single title. A $40‑$50 price point for a solid single‑player experience hits the sweet spot," he explains. 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.
Doust points out that to break even, a game must sell roughly a million copies—a daunting target given today’s discoverability challenges. 4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its emphasis on new intellectual property.
Every title on display at Gamescom is a fresh IP, both for Chinese and western audiences. Larger publishers are increasingly risk‑averse, focusing on established franchises because development costs have ballooned.
By contrast, 4Divinity is willing to gamble on multiple new IPs simultaneously. The catalyst for this 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, a gap that GCL filled 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 set up console and PC studios. *Black Myth* was among the first to break out, and more are following.
Development costs in China remain comparatively low; a tax filing suggests Wukong cost around 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million) to produce, yet it sold 30 million copies, generating substantial profit. Doust emphasizes that Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive, which shapes 4Divinity’s pricing strategy. He believes there is a “massive drought of supply” for affordable, high‑quality single‑player games in the West, a gap the publisher aims to fill. His overarching mission is to bridge western demand for fresh, reasonably priced experiences with the supply of Chinese developers who can deliver them efficiently.
"When I started working with Jacky Choo, GCL’s chairman, I asked: what common themes can we find between East and West? Loyalty, trust, defiance, revenge—these universal ideas let us market the same game with different cultural lenses," Doust says. He argues that few have executed this cross‑cultural marketing effectively.
Even without a concerted effort, games will cross borders, but Doust calls the passive approach the “do‑nothing business”: marketing only in China and hoping for a ripple effect abroad. That model yielded an 80/20 split for *Wukong*—20 million copies sold in China, three‑four million elsewhere. 4Divinity hopes to shift that balance to a 60/40 split, which would dramatically increase total unit sales and potentially create one of the best‑selling games of all time relative to its development cost.
The company is already testing the reverse flow. Its sole non‑Chinese title, *Guns Of Eschaton*, developed by Cyprus‑based Eschatology Entertainment, was first promoted at Bilibili World, Asia’s massive anime and pop‑culture convention in Shanghai—a move no western studio typically makes so early in a campaign. The early exposure propelled China to become the game’s second‑largest wishlist market after the United States. Thus, the colossal Gamescom presence mirrors 4Divinity’s dual‑market strategy: launching games in China and the West almost simultaneously, rather than waiting for one market to generate momentum before entering the other.
Doust sees Gamescom as a western coming‑out party, a chance to consolidate multiple game launches into a single, high‑impact event. "If we’re presenting an entire portfolio to the West, why not go big?" he concludes.