3 ways Asia-Pacific developers are creating global success

Asia-Pacific is home to a vibrant developer community. The creative apps and games they’ve built reflects the region's diverse cultures, tech skills and avid love for gaming — making them a major force in Google Play’s ever-evolving offerings.

Here are three ways Asia-Pacific’s developers are changing the game for Play.

Championing local cultures

Asia-Pacific developers have a knack for weaving local traditions, stories, food and art into their apps - proudly celebrating their unique heritage and sharing the region's vibrant diversity with the world.

Indigemoji, for example, offers a sticker set of Indigenous Australian emojis that allow indigenous communities to express themselves in their own languages. As the co-founders put it: "Emojis are the world’s newest language. Many Indigenous kids text almost exclusively in emojis. English is often a third or fourth language, and texting is hard." They're just one of 50 inspiring Australian app and game creators who featured in #WeArePlayAustralia, where we showcase the diversity and scale of developers using Google Play to grow their business and solve important challenges, resulting in a positive impact on their business or local economies.

Similarly, India-based Niku Games has crafted a game that spotlights India’s rich customs and history. "The Palace on the Hill” takes players on a journey through a 1990s rural Indian village, where they can explore ancient ruins or create art inspired by Indian miniature paintings. Niku Games was among 25 Asia-Pacific studios that completed Google Play's flagship Indie Games Accelerator (IGA), which provides mentorship, training and resources to help promising small indie games studios grow their games.

Cultivating loyal fan bases

In Japan, manga has a huge following. Manga creators and publishers engage heavily with their fans through social media, fan events and even by addressing reader feedback when crafting their stories. We wanted comic lovers in Japan to have a more convenient way to find and enjoy their favorite mangas and webtoons — so we recently launched a new space on Google Play in Japan purely dedicated to comics, which offers first-chapter previews of thousands of manga and webtoons, live events, anime trailers, and soon, fan reviews and discussions. Japanese developers get a boost with increased visibility and a new way to reach tons of comic enthusiasts with their apps like Sunday Webry and LINE Manga, where people can read beloved comics like “Inuyasha” and “Case Closed”.

Lunarite, a Korean game developer and a graduate from Google Play’s IGA program, also embodies this community-focused approach. By actively listening to player feedback, they've created a dedicated fanbase who feel like they’re contributors to the game creation process. As a result, their game "Wasteland Story: Survival RPG" has now amassed over a million gamers worldwide, who are drawn in by its challenging gameplay, dark art style and the thrill of battling imaginatively dreadful enemies.

Creating experiences that speak to a global audience

Asia-Pacific developers have a good pulse on what resonates with global audiences. Dreams Studio, an Indonesian indie game studio, is making a splash with their cat adventure game "Cat Legends." The game garnered an impressive 200,000 pre-registrations worldwide before its official Google Play launch. Dreams Studio says: “We know cats are loved everywhere. Our goal is to tell stories and create characters that bring joy and curiosity to players all over the world.”

These are just a few examples of how Asia-Pacific’s developers are making waves around the world. We're proud to support their ingenuity and can't wait to see what they'll create next!