Xbox Showcases Global Expansion Work in Southeast Asia at Gamescom Asia

October is usually an incredibly intense month for the Southeast Asia game dev community, with back-to-back industry events taking place across the region - from Level Up KL in Malaysia, Indonesia Game Developer Exchange (IGDX) in Indonesia, Thailand Game Show in Thailand, and Gamescom Asia in Singapore. Not to mention the countless game jams and community-led events going on in between and throughout.

Team Xbox recently participated in IGDX and Gamescom Asia to support developer communities there and to celebrate nearly three years of Xbox Global Expansion’s efforts in Southeast Asia. Every day, it’s becoming clearer that we are witnessing the rise of the Southeast Asian game development scene in real time.

Indonesia Game Developer Exchange (IGDX), Oct 10 - 13th, 2024

The Indonesia Game Developer Exchange (IGDX) this year at Bali, Indonesia was a particularly high watermark moment for the Indonesia game dev community. 

They have more games today than ever finding international acclaim and attention like Coral Island (Stairway Games), DreadHaunt (Digital Happiness), Agni (Sepuruh Interactive), Kriegsfront Tactics (Toge Productions) and Acts of Blood (Eksil Team), and a healthy mix of new and veteran teams in attendance at the event, all showing such diverse and vibrant experiences that I’m so excited for the future of the Indonesia games scene.

It was also heartening to see that in Indonesia’s latest country-wide survey conducted by the Indonesia Games Association (AGI), the share of developers that are developing on Xbox has increased by 26% since 2021. Cipto Adiguno, former president of AGI attributes Xbox’s growth to our work as Global Expansion in Indonesia since 2022 - continually engaging with developer communities where they are at, and on what they need the most. In that same survey, Steam/PC game development has gone up dramatically for Indonesian devs since 2021 from 23.8% to 53.6% - and Xbox is very much positioned to support game developers in reaching PC audiences through our platform.

This year alone, we’ve seen a number of incredible Indonesia-made games launch on Xbox  including My Lovely Empress (GameChanger Studio, Neon Doctrine), DreadHaunt (Digital Happiness), and Petit Island (Xelo Games, Soedesco).

The most important takeaway is that the Indonesian game dev community has all the components necessary to find their own global success for their teams and games: a strong community to collectively help one another, the ambition and hunger to learn and grow, and most importantly, talented teams continually making creatively delightful games. 

“Thank you for your never-ending support for Indonesian game developers and IGDX. It really means a lot to us,” - Shafiq Husein, Head of Gambir Studios, President of the Indonesia Games Association.

Gamescom Asia, Oct 15 - 20th, 2024

This was the largest Gamescom Asia in Singapore yet, with over 40 thousand attendees, nearly 5 thousand business visitors and more exhibitors and country pavilions than before. It was also our largest showing as Xbox at the event yet. 

We hosted an Xbox Discovery Day and Women in Games Asia event which was attended by over 100 game developers and industry professionals from across the region and was an amazing opportunity for us to share our latest platform updates with partners new and existing alike, and connect with many of them in-person.

We are also honoured to be Women in Game Asia (WIGA)’s partner to support DEI efforts and the women in games community across the region. Annette Gonzalez Porter, Senior Program Manager on the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program, delivered the opening keynote at the WIGA Mentorship Program kickoff call in September, and then at Gamescom Asia, we were happy to provide the space and resources for women leaders and allies in the Southeast Asia games community to come together to share and connect. Agnes Kim, Head of Strategic Markets at Xbox, delivered the opening address at the WIGA event.

“The turnout was more than I ever expected… and I’m super happy about how engaged the attendees were. Thanks so much to Xbox for supporting the event!” - Nissie Arcega, Women in Games Asia Community Manager. 

Agnes took to the stage at Gamescom Asia’s conference to speak about our Global Expansion efforts in the region to date as we come up to three years in the region - from the numerous games released on Xbox from Southeast Asia, some that have been supported through initiatives like the Developer Acceleration Program, over fifty industry events and projects supported and attended by our team, and all the collaborations to date with associations and community leaders. We were proud to leverage the moment at Gamescom Asia to look back at all this incredible work achieved with the community, and also look ahead at what’s next.

To close out the panel, Agnes shared a sizzle video featuring all the games released and coming soon to Xbox from East, South and Southeast Asia. This includes titles like Gigabash (Passion Republic Games), Cat Quest 3 (GentleBros, Kepler Interactive), Nine Sols (Red Candle Games), Let’s Build a Dungeon (Springloaded) and so much more.  You can watch that video on the Xbox Southeast Asia Twitter account.

Players and the developer community alike were incredibly excited and proud to see the sheer number of games coming from the region and is a testament for how exciting Southeast Asia is right now. 

“Big thanks to ID@Xbox for showcasing games from Southeast Asia at Gamescom Asia” - Hollie Hughes, Springloaded.

We were also excited to support Gamescom Asia through Indie Wavemakers which featured over 50 indie games from around the region on the show floor, providing an opportunity for their games to be played and exposed to event attendees in-person and through online channels.

Many of the international publishing partners we spoke with, in attendance at both IGDX and Gamescom Asia including Raw Fury, Neon Doctrine and Chorus Worldwide observed that the quality of games and global mindedness of developers from the Southeast Asia region has improved dramatically, even over just last year’s conferences.

As Xbox, we have been privileged to both have front row seats and to have contributed to Southeast Asia’s incredibly accelerated growth as a games ecosystem, with the number of industry events, more developers and games surfacing, and more interest from local, regional and global parties to invest in the region. The momentum is with Southeast Asia, and we can’t wait to see and be a part of what’s next.