India Showcases Homegrown Games
Developers from India and Brazil are using Gamescom in Cologne to push home-grown games, local stories and new voices onto the global stage of an industry worth more than $200 billion.
Footage from Friday shows visitors crowding booths and testing games across multiple screens as developers showcase their work at the Indian gaming and Brazilian Indie pavilions.
India’s indie scene is attracting growing international attention, with Nodding Heads Games’ Avichal Singh pointing to the 40 titles featured in this year’s India Games Showcase.
“India is getting hot. There were 40 titles on the India Game Showcase. These are very promising, top-quality indie titles […] One of the most common comments we see is, ‘Hey, I didn’t know that was being made in India.’ […] It’s only going to get better from here,” Singh said.
Funding Remains Major Challenge
For developers from emerging gaming markets, the challenge is turning huge audiences into sustainable local studios with the funding and distribution needed to compete internationally.
Nodding Heads is taking Indian stories to that audience with Raji: Kaliyuga, an action-adventure title rooted in Indian mythology.
Capermint’s Vishal Jariwala said Indian studios are not looking to compete with established gaming nations but want their work to receive the same international attention.
“There is so much talent and so many really good, engaging games coming out of India. We want the world to look at them […] in the same way that other games are being perceived,” Jariwala said.
But Singh said access to money remains one of the biggest obstacles, with few domestic publishers and many studios looking overseas for backing.
“There is a lack of funding […] there are barely any publishers in India. International publishers are getting more and more interested in the Indian market. The faster that happens, the better,” he continued.
“We need grants, we need some support […] even small amounts of grants, so they can at least make the prototype or vertical slice, which can then be taken to publishers,” Singh added.
Brazil Brings Cultural Stories
Brazil has brought one of its largest delegations to Gamescom this year, with 78 studios and companies represented and 35 games appearing at the event’s first dedicated Brazilian Indie Pavilion.
Developers there are drawing on the country’s cultural and geographical diversity to bring stories rarely seen in mainstream international games to a wider audience.
“Indie games have done a good job of bringing greater representation and diversity […] One of our goals is to celebrate and showcase Brazilian culture to the world,” Sue the Real’s Jose Wilson said.
Gamescom also gives studios from emerging markets a chance to meet publishers and investors while sharing experiences with developers facing many of the same obstacles.
“Developing countries always kind of have a similar story about the hardship of developing games […] We always try to give tips to each other, help each other out and make connections,” Felipe Drude of Split Studio said.
The global games industry generated 201.6 billion USD (174 billion EUR) in 2025, according to Newzoo, with Asia-Pacific accounting for 47 per cent of revenue.
The Middle East and Africa recorded the fastest regional revenue growth at 15 per cent.
Gaming audiences are also heavily concentrated outside North America and Europe. Newzoo’s 2025 estimates put the number of players at around 1.5 billion in Asia-Pacific, 595 million in the Middle East and Africa and 372 million in Latin America.
North America and Europe together accounted for around one-fifth of the world’s players but a far greater share of global spending, underlining the commercial gap developers from emerging markets are trying to close.
Article by Viory
