This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 9, 2026 – March 15, 2026
It started, as these things often do in Kuala Lumpur, with rain that felt both theatrical and mildly inconvenient.
This was a long overdue catch-up with a close friend who happens to be a senior executive of a multinational video game company. He insisted we do it properly after work at a burger joint he swore was among the best in the city and told me not to argue.
Then, as the rain poured and the fries arrived, the conversation slipped into something more familiar.
He was an 80s kid. I was a 90s kid. We both grew up in a time when playing video games was a social ritual that required physical presence. You went to a friend’s house, sat too close to the TV and fought over controllers with real intensity. The community was the living room and the scoreboard was whoever could witness your win.
The old era was finite and tactile. You bought a game, finished a game and traded a game. The new era is a long relationship with a living world. Games now live as services and communities, refreshed by updates, seasons, competitive ecosystems and monetisation systems that depend on time and belonging as much as they depend on gameplay.
The question is whether Southeast Asia can turn talent and audience scale into a bigger share of the value created by the video games economy.
From cartridges to an end-to-end video game economy
Scale is the story here.
Southeast Asia’s broader digital tailwinds help explain why. Regional estimates suggest the digital economy is poised to surpass US$300 billion in gross merchandise vlaue (GMV) in 2025. Demographics reinforce that momentum. Over 60% of Asean’s population is under the age of 35.
In gaming terms, mobile access has broadened the funnel. Free-to-play and social play have embedded gaming into mainstream culture. At the same time, deep PC communities and competitive ecosystems continue to shape taste and ambition across the region while consoles remain smaller in volume but influential in prestige and capability-building. Southeast Asia today is a global consumption powerhouse.
The numbers underline the momentum of this shift. Niko Partners estimates the Southeast Asia video games market will be at US$5.47 billion in 2025 and will grow to roughly US$6.47 billion by 2029, with gamer numbers of around 290 million in 2025.
The exact edges of the box can be debated but the size of the box cannot. For policymakers and investors, this is no longer a niche pastime but a strategic slice of the creative and digital economy.
Malaysia has drawn major international names with real signalling power. PlayStation Studios has a studio in Kuala Lumpur and EA (Electronic Arts Inc) operates a major presence through its racing game Codemasters team there. Singapore has also become a key hub, with Ubisoft Singapore describing itself as the largest AAA studio in Southeast Asia and Riot Games housing its Asia-Pacific headquarters and development capabilities in the city.
Big companies do not build real teams in places they expect to remain purely consumption-led. They build where they believe capability and future value can grow.
Esports has also pushed gaming into the public square, turning what once lived in bedrooms and cybercafés into spectator culture with fan rituals, celebrity players and brand money. Dota 2’s The International 2021 offered a prize pool of about US$40 million, a reminder that competitive play now sits as a serious entertainment business. The spillover is real, from content careers to event production to sponsorship ecosystems that now sit beside the wider entertainment economy.
There is another reason this matter is video games are not a standalone vertical. A healthy games ecosystem tends to lift design, animation, illustration, music and virtual production. It also feeds the wider digital economy through online payments, creator monetisation, cross-border platform revenue and the investment infrastructure that follows high-growth creative-tech sectors.
Between what is and what could be
Southeast Asia already has the audience, the energy and the digital rails that have made video games a mainstream cultural and economic force. Right now, the region is a powerful market for global titles. What it could become is a place that produces more titles the world lines up to play. The missing bridge is the original intellectual property (IP) with global pull.
That is why a large share of top-tier franchise value and AAA success still sits elsewhere. We have been exceptional at embracing global worlds. The next leap is to build more of our own.
Culture is one of the most obvious starting advantages. Southeast Asia has a deep reserve of stories that remain underused in global-scale video game universes. History, epics, maritime lore, city myths, indigenous cosmologies and modern urban narratives can anchor original characters and settings that feel fresh without feeling forced.
The talent gap is about depth across the ecosystem. Southeast Asia has growing capability but still needs more experienced strength in the roles that turn good studios into durable ones. Building that layer requires industry-aligned education and clearer pathways into advanced skills such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, engine programming and complex system design, supported by regional talent exchange.
Capital is the next fault line. Today, funding often nudges studios towards safer service work. Tomorrow’s ambition requires a capital stack that understands high-iteration development and long timelines, with smoother movement of money across the region.
A Filipino studio should be able to raise from a Singapore-based investor and monetise at scale in Indonesia without unnecessary friction. With established co-development players such as Agate and Streamline Studios, the region already has a platform to move from support work into stronger original IP and scale.
But value in games is not captured by development alone. The region also needs stronger publishing capability, the muscle that turns good games into enduring franchises. That includes user acquisition, community building, monetisation design, analytics and global distribution. Southeast Asia already has early signals of this in regional champions with publishing and platform experience, including Singapore-based Garena, which shows how regional reach and operational scale can be built alongside global competition.
Policy is the enabling layer. Fragmented ratings and compliance still slow regional releases and add costs for studios trying to scale across Asean. Policy harmonisation, with clear baseline standards and predictable processes, would strengthen consumer protection while making regional growth simpler and more investable.
By the time we left the burger joint, the rain had softened into something more polite. The city looked rinsed and reset. We said we would not leave it so long before the next catch-up, which is the kind of lie adults tell each other with good intentions.
But our conversation stayed with me.
Southeast Asia is already one of the world’s most important video game markets. The broader call to action is to move from being a consumer base to unlocking the full potential of the region’s video games industry by strengthening original IP, building talent depth, expanding early-stage capital that understands creative risk, building stronger publishing capability and aligning policy to make regional scale easier.
Ahmad Azuar Zainuddin is an educator, entrepreneur and CEO of Satu Creative, a consultancy working on advancing social innovation and creative economy growth across Asean
