Filipino developers are leveling up to become creators of original intellectual property (IP) creations and “indie” games from being mere outsourced service providers.
This will be the highlight of this year’s Philippine GameDev Expo (PGDX) set for July 25 to 27 at the SMX Convention Center, the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) said.
The group said in a statement over the weekend, “For its 2025 edition, the expo will focus on addressing the gaps in the industry in terms of education, training, and awareness by offering workshops, mentorship sessions, and learning forums. This is part of GDAP’s mission to shift the narrative from Filipino game development talent as mere outsourced service providers to creators of original IPs and indie games.”
The group said the Philippines is fast becoming a hub for originals protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs), digital exports, and creative collaborations with a vibrant ecosystem of indie developers, established studios, outsourcing partners and tech innovators.
The plan for a drastic shift is validated by the Philippine IT-BPM industry roadmap developed by the Everest Group, a global consulting and research company.
GDAP said some of its members work with game platforms Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation but have also shown capability to develop their own. PGDX is poised to highlight indie games such as Water Delivery, Craggenrock, Oh, Crops!, Icarus, Stranded on a Raft, among others.
“Major services offered by the Philippine game
development industry include game programming, game art development, animation, motion capture cleanup, quality assurance, testing, among others. There exists potential to further accelerate growth by developing more original IP games, venturing into pre-production services, and capturing global mobile gaming market,” the roadmap stated.
Statistics on the performance of the industry last year were not available but based on the roadmap, revenues of game developers are expected to reach $130 million to $180 million by 2028 from a base figure of $70 to $80 million in 2022.
Full-time employees are projected to reach 8,000 to 10,900 in 2028 from about 5,100 in 2022.
CREATE Philippines, organizer of PGDX, said last year’s expo welcomed more than 50 exhibitors and more than 25,000 attendees, including visitors from Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the US.
