The rise of smaller, independent game developers presents an unprecedented cultural and economic opportunity for the Global South, prompting the establishment of a domestic gaming industry landscape.
This essay is part of the series: World Creativity and Innovation Day 2026: Sparks and Shields
Despite humble beginnings catering to a limited audience, the gaming industry has witnessed a phenomenal growth in recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, wherein it provided an accessible avenue of escape and socialising in an otherwise isolated lockdown-ridden world. This monumental rise in gaming across the globe has catapulted it into the position of being one of the fastest-growing sectors within the Global Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry, firmly cementing gaming as one of the key pillars upholding the modern global digital economy.
With the rapid progress in computing hardware, including processors, memory, and graphical processing units, accompanied by the steady advancement of gaming engines such as Unity and the Unreal Engine, gaming has evolved significantly over the preceding decades.
In this context, the growing trend of smaller and independent game developers should serve as a clear sign for the Global South to take notice and start investing in developing its own, as of yet underexplored and underdeveloped, gaming industry landscape. Furthermore, gaming can provide a major source of employment for the Global South’s already well-established IT sector while serving as a major platform for showcasing artistic creativity and innovation from a growing demographic dividend, in addition to constituting a major potential future tenet for enhancing digital cooperation.
With the rapid progress in computing hardware, including processors, memory, and graphical processing units, accompanied by the steady advancement of gaming engines such as Unity and the Unreal Engine, gaming has evolved significantly over the preceding decades. What was once a niche industry serving a tiny, albeit dedicated, community of gamers has grown into a massive global enterprise amassing almost US$200 billion in annual revenue in 2025.
Figure 1: A Comparison Between King's Quest (1983) vs. Crimson Desert (2026)
Source: IGN and Rock Paper Shotgun
In addition to significant improvements in graphics and gameplay, gaming has witnessed a similar major advancements in terms of themes, storytelling, and music, which were earlier severely handicapped by technological limitations, leading to a massive global cultural and economic footprint being created by major franchises such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Grand Theft Auto, Fortnite, and Minecraft, all of which have acquired the status of multi-billion dollar intellectual property, far outpacing peers and competitors from the M&E industry. However, the gaming industry landscape has historically been dominated by massive “AAA” developers and publishers such as Rockstar Games, Activision, Ubisoft, and Valve, with occasional remarkable success stories of relatively smaller developers such as Poland’s CD Projekt Red serving as exceptions rather than the norm.
In recent years, the gaming industry has been gradually witnessing the rise of smaller, indie, and non-Western developers. For instance, in 2025, out of the top 10 best-selling games on Steam, two were developed by indie developers, a recurring trend from previous years. Moreover, two recent examples serve to exemplify this seismic shift within the overall gaming industry landscape.
In 2024, a Chinese indie studio, Game Science, released Black Myth: Wukong, an action role-playing game (RPG) with a story and setting inspired by Chinese Mythology, based largely on Wu Cheng’en’s 16th century novel, Journey to the West. The game ended up winning numerous gaming accolades as well as becoming one of the best-selling games of 2024, with over 25 million units sold as of January 2025.
Figure 2: Black Myth: Wukong (2024)
Source: GameTyrant
On the other hand, in 2025, a small first-time indie developer from France, Sandfall Interactive, released Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a turn-based RPG with a story deeply rooted in French culture and philosophy, serving as an ode to existentialism and artistic plight. It has sold over 5 million copies worldwide while receiving virtually every Game of the Year award, as well as recognition from the French Ministry of Culture for its cultural contribution to society. Moreover, the game’s development process represents how enhanced digital connectivity in the form of social media platforms and forums has ignited a democratisation within the gaming industry. For instance, the lead writer and composer for the game were hired through Reddit and SoundCloud, respectively.
Figure 3: The Sandfall Interactive Team Awarded Knighthoods in L’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture
Source: Polygon
As such, the massive success of both titles represents landmark moments in the history of the gaming industry. While Black Myth embodies a global appetite for culturally diverse storytelling, representing a shift from largely Western-driven themes and developers, Clair Obscur manifests a shift towards more mature and philosophical themes within gaming while employing relatively inexperienced, but passionate, talent through unorthodox and innovative hiring approaches. Furthermore, both cases prove that gaming is ultimately dependent on an entertaining and rewarding core gameplay loop, free from microtransactions and other inconveniences, which both games amply provided despite relatively smaller budgets and teams.
Despite being one of the largest contributors to the global M&E industry, the domestic gaming industry still remains relatively underdeveloped in the Global South, being largely reliant on Western developers and titles. As such, the opportunity presents itself for the Global South to not only tap into a predominantly Western-driven cultural zeitgeist but also as a potential shot in the arm for its growing digital economy.
The aforementioned examples of relatively unknown, indie developers clearly demonstrate that the gaming industry is no longer the prerogative of a handful of giant corporations and does not necessarily require large investments or massive teams of employees to reap significant returns.
With the current trends within the gaming industry, the writing is on the wall. The aforementioned examples of relatively unknown, indie developers clearly demonstrate that the gaming industry is no longer the prerogative of a handful of giant corporations and does not necessarily require large investments or massive teams of employees to reap significant returns. Rather, it is passion, creativity, innovation, as well as culturally and ideologically diverse narratives that can pay maximal dividends, even within a highly competitive landscape.
In addition to boosting their respective digital economies, the gaming sector offers substantial employment opportunities for a growing demographic dividend in countries like India and multiple African nations such as Kenya and Ghana, which also possess a sizeable proportion of global IT professionals and remote workers. Furthermore, gaming can also serve as an important avenue for furthering digital cooperation and cultural cohesion amongst Global South nations through the pursuit of joint development initiatives and ventures.
Gaming has evolved. Far from the days of blindingly gunning down enemies in pixelated corridor shooters or paddling ping-pong balls, video games have metamorphosed into full-fledged works of art, featuring sublime artwork and environmental design, riveting storytelling, and sprawling orchestral compositions and soundtracks. While serving as a major source of employment for hundreds of thousands of IT professionals around the world, they simultaneously embody a novel and groundbreaking platform for artistic expression, whether it be acting, writing, artwork, direction, music, or a plethora of other creative endeavours.
Gaming offers a digital haven for modern communion, a means for promoting cultural unity and harmony in an otherwise increasingly fractured and conflict-ridden world.
In addition to serving as engines of creativity, the gaming industry can also prove to be a harbinger of substantial digital and economic growth for the Global South while providing a major source of employment for a digitally skilled labour workforce, as well as a major potential pivot for enhancing digital collaboration. Moreover, gaming offers a digital haven for modern communion, a means for promoting cultural unity and harmony in an otherwise increasingly fractured and conflict-ridden world.
Prateek Tripathi is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology (CSST) at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Prateek Tripathi is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology. His work focuses on an emerging technologies and deep tech including quantum ...
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