“The centre of the game industry isn’t moving from West to East it’s dissolving entirely”: The Mobile Mavens on gaming’s global power shift

• “I don’t fully buy the idea that the centre of the games industry is simply shifting from West to East. There is no single Eastern model replacing a Western one.” - Wenfeng Yang.
• “I don’t see this as a “West vs. East” power shift - it’s really a redistribution of opportunity across a much more global map.” - Kate Edwards.
• “Asian companies are bringing strong execution, fresh creative perspectives and new approaches to scaling, all of which raise the bar globally.” - Alex Verbitsky.

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The global games industry has long been shaped by Western development, but momentum across Eastern markets has been growing. 

Strong engagement, as well as rising revenues and increased M&A across these regions have prompted debate over whether industry power is shifting East. Some urge that the change reflects not a replacement of one region by another but a more interconnected market. 

We asked our Mobile Mavens whether the games industry is undergoing a West to East power shift and what it could mean for the industry. Here's what they had to say.

Alex Verbitsky

Managing director at The Raine Group

We are seeing significant innovation and momentum coming from Asian studios, especially in China and Vietnam, and that is increasingly influencing the global games landscape. We see this directly through our global footprint across Asia and major Western hubs.

At the same time, we would be cautious about framing this as a simple West-versus-East dynamic. The player base, monetisation base and many of the largest commercial end markets are still concentrated in the West today.

Western markets also continue to produce exceptional companies and products, with Turkey emerging recently as a particularly exciting example. The bigger story is that the industry is becoming more global, more interconnected and more competitive.

That is ultimately a positive for the games industry. Asian companies are bringing strong execution, fresh creative perspectives and new approaches to scaling, all of which raise the bar globally. Over time, that should help expand the market, diversify content and accelerate the evolution of business models across the industry.

Kate Edwards

CEO at Geogrify

From my perspective as a 33+ year game industry veteran and as a geographer who's been performing culturalization on over 300 games, here's how I see this issue.

I don’t see this as a “West vs. East” power shift - it’s really a redistribution of opportunity across a much more global map. The industry is decentralising. Talent, investment, and player growth are emerging from everywhere - Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa - not just traditional hubs in the West or East.

What we’re seeing isn’t one region replacing another, but capital and attention following where growth and creativity are happening. Lower barriers to entry - through digital distribution, accessible tools, and remote collaboration - have enabled more regions to participate meaningfully in game development.

From a business standpoint, this is forcing more flexible, regionally aware models. A one-size-fits-all global strategy no longer works. Culturally, this shift is expanding the range of voices and perspectives in games, which is incredibly positive - but it also increases the need for thoughtful and more intentional culturalization.

It’s no longer just about adapting Western content outward; it’s about ensuring content from anywhere can resonate globally without missteps.

Ultimately, the “centre” of the game industry isn’t moving from West to East; it’s dissolving entirely. It’s everywhere now, and success depends on understanding that complexity.

Wenfeng Yang

Founder at Big Bang Accelerator

I don’t fully buy the idea that the centre of the games industry is simply shifting from West to East. There is no single Eastern model replacing a Western one. What is actually happening is that the old Western monopoly on power is breaking apart with the high cost of AAA games production, and different parts of the industry are being reallocated to different regional hubs.

• China has become the clearest example of industrialised execution at scale. Its advantage is not radical creative disruption, but large teams, structured pipelines, and the ability to keep pushing mobile and AA products forward through disciplined, step-by-step iteration. In many ways, China is showing what happens when game development becomes a true large-scale production system.

• Turkey represents almost the opposite dynamic. It is less about scale and more about speed, efficiency, and product instinct. Turkish studios have become very good at creating new gameplay experiences with small teams and fast cycles - a kind of entrepreneurial creativity that we used to associate more with Northern Europe.

• Saudi Arabia is a different force altogether. It is not yet a major creative centre, but it is becoming an increasingly important capital centre. Through investment and acquisitions, it is using financial power to accelerate its rise as a global entertainment hub. At the same time, that capital is likely to amplify business models built around stronger monetisation, including pay-to-win logic in certain segments. And that matters, because capital does not just support the industry - over time, it helps decide which parts of the industry scale faster than others.

• Japan and Korea, meanwhile, have always been much more focused on IP. Personally, I strongly believe in that model. In the content industry, IP is the real long-term asset, and games are only one part of a much bigger value chain. The game may be the entry point, but the ultimate opportunity lies in building characters, worlds, and stories that can extend into animation, film, merchandise, music, offline experiences, and broader cultural influence. In that sense, Japan and Korea are not just producing games - they are producing cultural assets that can travel across formats and across generations.

• Vietnam is another important piece of this story. It is not trying to out-China China on scale. It is competing through a cheaper labour  base, more flexible regional economics, and a policy environment that still wants digital industries to grow. Vietnam’s ICT push has been explicitly framed around moving from outsourcing toward higher-value product creation, and Southeast Asia’s games sector is increasingly attracting foreign investment as a cost-competitive co-development and original-content base.

So I do not think this is about one unified “East” replacing the West. What the West is facing is not one wolf from the East, but a pack of wolves. What the West is facing is not the rise of a single challenger, but pressure from multiple Eastern forces at once.

China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Korea are each playing very different games, with very different strengths. This is not a lone wolf story. It is more like the West is being challenged by a pack.

Nicholas Lovell

Director at Gamesbrief

The shift away from the West, and more specifically from the US, is well underway. The centre of gravity is inexorably shifting towards China. The US may be able to regain its importance, but I think it will get much weaker before it gets stronger again.

In many ways, the US was insulated from the pressures that forced the rest of the world to adapt over the past five years. It is no longer insulated.

For a long time, China was seen as a cost-effective outsourcing territory. But China used its outsourcing era to build strong creative expertise. It turned that expertise first to making games for its domestic market, and now to selling games with a strong Asian sensibility to Western consumers. The US lost its hold on “cost-effective” development a long time ago. Now its hold on “making the games that Western consumers want” is also threatened.

As I’ve argued before, there is no such thing as the games industry. There are at least 4 (AAA, forever games, mobile, indie). For a long time, Asia was most competitive in forever games and mobile, while the US dominated AAA. Indie was much more fragmented. But by conceding ground on two growth areas – forever games, mobile – the US also conceded cultural relevance with a new audience of gamers. Asian developers have started moving into AAA, and with its cost structures built on assumptions of hugely successful games and a historical dominance of consoles as gaming platforms, the US has been left behind.

I don’t see a way back in the next decade. Development costs in the US are just too high in a post-Covid world where remote development and outsourcing works so well. The expertise in huge games, with 5+ years of development is less valuable in a rapidly changing world. And politically, the US no longer dominates the cultural zeitgeist in a way it once did.

I would never count the US out. But I think it will be tough for many years.

Rebecca Liao

CEO and co-founder at Saga

As with most cases of explosive regional growth, global capital may shift as a result, but the products themselves don't always become successful exports. Asia now accounts for over 50% of top-line revenue in the gaming industry, off the back of regulatory reforms, increased consumer spending and e-sports.

These are conditions made possible by scale and high-growth macro environments. Of course capital that finds its way to Asian games, studios and e-sports teams will find attractive returns. That leads to less capital available in other gaming markets, but that does not mean developers outside Asia can simply shift their focus to the local market for original or even adapted games, and the opposite is also true.

Breakout hits usually make it closer to home before expanding elsewhere. That was true for Genshin Impact, PUBG, Free Fire, Black Myth Wukong, etc., and the same will be true for GTA 6. For studios that are looking to take advantage of the Asian market, the best strategy is to hire a local team to either adapt original titles or build entirely new ones. 

One area in which Asia's dominance will absolutely impact the rest of the world is the changing business models for studios. There won't be a noticeable effect for most players, but studios will be forced to cut costs, adopt AI more broadly, as they have in Asia, and adopt more creative measures for user acquisition.

In addition, I anticipate the role of streamers and influencers in the West will only grow to meet the position their peers enjoy in Asia, especially as discoverability grows even more difficult for new games. 

Jared Steffes

Co-founder at Muxy

It’s no longer a "prediction" or a "trend", largely due to the sheer population and the advanced stage of the mobile adoption curve in the East.

They didn’t just win on volume; they won on the evolution of the craft. They leaned into monetisation shifts like gacha mechanics that, love them or hate them, have created a level of consistent "dry powder" capital that Western studios can only dream of right now. They successfully brought high-quality PC and console experiences, such as PUBG and Genshin Impact, to mobile devices and figured out how to make them sing on mobile without losing the soul of the game.

In contrast, the West has struggled to deliver as steadily as capital for content-related plays has dried up since 2018. Investors have increasingly viewed these projects as high-risk, forcing studio owners to seek new funding sources. That vacuum is being filled by the likes of Tencent and NetEase, who are increasingly acting as the "lenders of last resort" for Western talent. Even the Middle East has stopped just being a silent partner; with the massive PIF-backed moves we’re seeing this year, Riyadh is positioning itself as the new B2B bridge for the entire industry.

Then there’s the "elephant in the room": AI.

We’re past the early hype and into the actual utility phase. I’m seeing studios today that are significantly cranking up their output with tiny teams by leaning into "AI agent flows." In theory, if AI handles the heavy lifting of production, we get to spend more time on actual creative innovation. That’s the dream, anyway. I believe more creative people exist in game development than currently share their creativity within it, and this will un-cap an incredible leap in innovation for experiences. That's my hope!

But as a developer, I have to be honest: I have questions. I look at technology like DLSS 5 and I genuinely wonder what it does to the creator’s original intention. When an algorithm is "re-imagining" my frames to hit a performance target, is the player even seeing the game I built?

We’re at a point where I believe we’ll see tech before the year is out that allows prompts to directly modify or change a game on the fly in live production. We’re moving toward a "prompt-to-play" reality, and as the industry’s centre of gravity continues its slide Eastward, the question isn’t just who is making the games, but how much of the original human vision actually survives the pipeline. What is the prediction for who wins this race?

For more on rising Eastern influence we spoke with Savvy Games Group CEO Brian Ward who discusses how regions like China and the Middle East are bringing their own history and lore into games.