Between 1271 and 1295, Marco Polo completed an approximately 24,000-kilometer trip from Venice to China to discover many treasures that were previously hidden from the Western world. 730 years later, W4 Games also just completed a more than 24,000- kilometer trip around the world to discover emerging trends in the largest video game market in the world: Asia. Rather than simply impacting Asia, these trends are transforming the global video game industry.
World’s Largest Video Game Market Set for Exponential Growth
Asia’s video game market, which already generates more than US $100 billion a year, is set to grow exponentially due to several factors, including:
- decreasing smartphone costs and increasing Internet penetration rates, particularly in countries such as India and Indonesia, is causing an explosion in mobile video gaming;
- the rapid growth of hyper-casual games which are particularly popular on mobile devices; and
- increasing localized content which is strengthening user engagement.
General Asia Trip Observations
To understand these trends up close, two of our team members, Darin Bifani and Clay John, recently visited two key Asian video game markets, Japan and China. Some general observations:
- the Asian video game market is at a key inflection point where Asian video game demand, development and technology will shape the video game market outside of Asia;
- as barriers to video game development continue to fall, there has been strong growth in the Indie game segment;
- due to the flexibility of its licensing terms, free cost and extensive set of user friendly video game development tools, there is very large interest in the Godot game engine;
- the video game community is increasingly exploring how video game technology can be used for industry solutions, such as in engineering and construction; and
- there is very strong interest in educational materials that can help developers understand the potential of Godot. The creation of country-specific educational materials, written in local languages, will have a major impact on Godot engine adoption rates.
Japan
In Japan, we attended Bit Summit and CEDEC, participated in a UK government trade mission, attended a Godot Japan community event and were interviewed by the Japanese video game media outlet Gamemakers. ゲームづくりの最新情報やアイデアを紹介！｜ゲームメーカーズ
At Bit Summit, over 120 games from around the world were showcased, illustrating the creative depth, dynamism of and interest in Indie games. The video game Ratatan, which is a rhythm roguelike action game, won the prestigious Vermilion Gate Award. We also met with the video game developer Quail Button whose game, A Week in the Life of Anti-social Giraffe, won in the international category. A Week in the Life of Asocial Giraffe on Steam
At CEDEC, we had the opportunity to deliver a speech regarding the power of Godot to give game developers more control over their own technology and creative freedom, which is difficult with closed source models .
We had the opportunity to attend the Godot Japan meetup event at the amazing Shibuya Scramble building. Godot Japan is a highly dynamic community with a community of 1,900 members on Discord and a dedicated Github page. GitHub - godot-jp/godot-jp.github.io: Godot Japan User Community
In addition to giving two speeches regarding W4 Consoles and helpful rendering techniques, we had the chance to learn about many incredible projects and initiatives related to Godot, from traditional video games to industrial applications of Godot technology. A video of speeches from the event is found here. Godot Meetup Tokyo Vol.5 Darin Bifani’s speech starts at 4:40 of the video and Clay John’s speech starts at 54:41 of the video.
We also had the opportunity, along with Godot executive director Emilio Coppola, to participate in an interview and roundtable discussion with the Japanese video game media outlet Gamemaker. There, we had a wide ranging discussion about Godot, W4 Games and opportunities for increased engagement and growth in Japan in the future.
A particularly exciting project that we saw up close was the Action Game Maker by GotchaGotchaGames, which uses the power and flexibility of Godot to provide users with a lower barrier-to-entry game engine that includes more out of the box features than Godot, including visual scripting. ACTION GAME MAKER – Godot Engine This will give many developers who prefer visual scripting over traditional coding the opportunity to use the power and flexibility of Godot.
We also had the opportunity to meet with Marvelous and learn more about two amazing programs they are involved in to support Indie video game growth in Japan. One is the iGi game incubator トップページ - iGi. The other is the So Fu initiative, run by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is a video game accelerator. This year, two of the games that were accepted into the So Fu initiative were made with Godot. 創風 ゲーム部門 One of the games is “I Saw a Flying Saucer” 採択クリエイター | 創風第2期 ゲーム部門and the other is “RX10-40” 採択クリエイター | 創風第2期 ゲーム部門
China
In China, we attended China Joy and the China Developer’s Game Conference. This year, China Joy brought together 743 exhibitors, including 237 from overseas, representing 37 countries. The conference marks a time of sharp growth in the Chinese video game sector. During the first half of the year, Chinese video game market sales rose more than 14% YoY to more than US $23 billion. ChinaJoy 2025: Tencent, Huawei and smaller studios leverage AI to boost video gaming | South China Morning Post Nearly 700 million people play video games in China. ChinaJoy 2025 kicks off in Shanghai as domestic games go global - City News Service
Some highlights from ChinaJoy are:
- growth of games featuring traditional Chinese culture and martial arts
- the showcasing of Huawei Technology’s HarmonyOS operating system, an Android alternative. More than 6,500 games have reportedly been released on HarmonyOS so far.
- AI tools for video games that are capable of generating dialogue, creating visuals and debugging scripts
At the China Developer’s Game Conference we gave a speech about Godot and its growth possibilities in China given China’s strong embrace of open source technology. discussed the particularly strong fit between Godot and China due to China’s strong commitment to open source technology.
Interest in Godot continues to grow in China. Recently we learned that Chinese visitors to the Godot website are the second highest in the world. This interest should increase significantly as more people in China become aware of Godot and its capabilities.
Next Stop - Gamescom!
As our trip to Asia ends, another trip is about to begin. We will next be at Gamescom, which will be take place in Cologne, Germany from August 20-24. We look forward to seeing everyone there!