The West has the capital but has “exhausted” hero and plot resources, Anantarupa Studios CEO Ivan Chen has said
The Global South’s rich culture and history could help shape the future gaming industry, Indonesian gaming executive Ivan Chen has told RT.
The interactive media innovator is CEO and founder of Anantarupa Studios, a pioneering Indonesian developer established in 2011 and known for Lokapala, the country’s first locally made eSports MOBA game.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Inventing the Future: Plots and Stories’ forum at the National Center RUSSIA on Saturday, Chen said the West dominates gaming with capital and infrastructure but has largely “exhausted” its hero and plot resources, often repeating the same characters across products. Game studios in Asia, the Middle East, and South America, by contrast, hold vast untapped troves of myths and stories.
“Our history and culture is very rich. We have 1,300 ethnic groups – so we have a lot of stories to begin with,” he said, noting that Western firms increasingly draw on well-known Asian stories, but “we still have a lot of stories that haven’t been told.”
Chen acknowledged funding and infrastructure remain major hurdles for turning the Global South’s cultural wealth into games but said collaboration with Western counterparts could bridge the gap.
“We can meet in the middle. We have the stories, and the Western part of the world has the capital and framework… We are going to just learn about how they do it and they will create a path for us to tell our story as well,” he said, stressing, however, that respect for national cultural values in cooperation will be “non-negotiable.”
Speaking at a panel on stories in cinema and gaming, Chen said games let nations tell their stories, connect cultures, and drive social impact across other sectors. He predicted the video game market will keep expanding, having already outpaced the film industry fourfold over the past five years.
The ‘Inventing the Future: Plots and Stories’ forum is an initiative of the National Center RUSSIA and forms part of the II International Symposium ‘Inventing the Future.’ The III symposium will take place in November 2026 and will focus on global cooperation in science, culture, and art.
