Malaysia’s Games Industry Targets RM9 Billion by 2030 — LEVEL UP KL 2026 Marks a New Growth Phase

Malaysia’s games industry has been building quietly for roughly a decade. LEVEL UP KL 2026, held on 16 October 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, is the clearest signal yet that the industry is moving from a foundation-building phase into active, target-driven expansion. The numbers attached to that expansion — RM9 billion in digital creative revenue, RM6 billion in exports and 10,000 high-value jobs by 2030 — make this a business story worth following beyond the event itself.

A Foundation Twelve Years in the Making

LEVEL UP KL began approximately twelve years ago as a gathering for game developers and has since grown into a regional platform covering business opportunities, international collaboration and talent development. The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), which organises the event, reports that Malaysia’s digital content ecosystem now includes approximately 300 companies with Malaysia Digital status, of which around 100 are involved in game development — spanning both development services and original intellectual property (IP) creation. These figures are drawn from preliminary MDEC data as of October 2026.

That base did not emerge by accident. Government support, the presence of international studios drawn by competitive costs and a growing pool of local creative talent all contributed. The industry, however, reached this point at a difficult moment for the global games sector.

The Growth Problem: Global Headwinds Meet a Domestic Opportunity

The wider industry context at LEVEL UP KL 2026 is not straightforward. Global game development costs have risen sharply since the pandemic era, project financing has contracted and studio closures have followed the over-expansion of 2020–2022. Malaysian studios are not immune to these pressures. MDEC acknowledged at the event that the challenges highlight the need to build more resilient local studios, support sustainable business growth and widen access to international partnerships and investment.

The risk is that Malaysian developers remain locked in lower-margin services work — producing for foreign IP owners — rather than building their own globally competitive properties. Moving up that value chain requires capital, skills and market access that most small and mid-sized local studios do not yet have in full.

The Actions Taken: Policy, Technology and Talent Development

Malaysia’s response operates on three levels simultaneously.

Policy framework. The Ministry of Digital and MDEC are implementing the Digital Creative Ecosystem Roadmap, which sets the 2030 targets for revenue, exports, investment and jobs cited above. The roadmap is designed to position Malaysia as a global digital creative hub, not just a cost-competitive outsourcing location.

Technology access. MDEC Chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah highlighted artificial intelligence as a practical productivity lever, noting that AI tools can reduce production costs and accelerate development cycles. MDEC is exploring how the National AI Compute Exchange (NACX) could give local studios access to AI computing resources — potentially lowering the technological barriers to faster prototyping and more efficient workflows. Ganesh was clear, however, that technology is a means rather than an end: “Creativity, imagination and storytelling remain essential,” he said at the event, attributed to him directly in the MDEC press release dated 16 October 2026.

Talent development. LEVEL UP KL 2026 included a dedicated Talent Hub offering mentorship, portfolio reviews and career guidance delivered by industry practitioners and educational institutions. MDEC also stated it is continuing to engage game studios beyond the event to understand changing skills requirements and plan investment accordingly.

Expansion: What LEVEL UP KL 2026 Is Built to Deliver

This year’s edition of LEVEL UP KL is the most ambitious to date in measurable terms. The programme targets:

• 400 business meetings
• RM120 million in export opportunities
• RM100 million in investment opportunities
• 100 businesses expected to benefit from industry engagement programmes

The programme itself spans more than 50 speakers, 25 conference topics, five partner events and two masterclass workshops. Highlights include the Game UX Summit — making its Asian debut at this edition — alongside Games for Change, Xsolla Connect KL, Nintendo and PlayStation industry sessions, Unreal Engine training, a Women in Games networking session and an expanded independent games showcase. The SEA Game Awards Show, recognising creativity, innovation and technical excellence among Southeast Asian developers, is also part of the programme.

The combination of deal-making targets and programme depth reflects a deliberate shift: LEVEL UP KL is no longer simply a showcase. It is structured as a business-development platform with accountability metrics.

The Result So Far: A Clearer Value Proposition for International Partners

The outcomes most directly attributable to LEVEL UP KL 2026 itself — how many of those 400 meetings converted, how much of the RM120 million in export targets was realised — are not available in the supplied sources, as the retrieval date is 2 November 2026 and the event only concluded in mid-October. What the sources do confirm is the institutional direction.

Deputy Minister of Digital Datuk Wilson Ugak anak Kumbong framed the shift at the event: the goal is no longer simply to attract studios to Malaysia on cost grounds, but to develop a proposition competitive on quality, innovation and productivity. That distinction matters for the type of investment and partnership Malaysia will attract going forward. As Ganesh Kumar Bangah noted in remarks attributed to him in the MDEC press release, the aim is for Malaysian developers to “compete not just on cost, but increasingly on quality, innovation and productivity.”

What to Watch: The Path to the 2030 Targets

The Digital Creative Ecosystem Roadmap’s targets — RM9 billion in revenue, RM6 billion in exports, RM6 billion in strategic investments and 10,000 high-value jobs by 2030 — are specific enough to be tracked. The credibility of those numbers will depend on several things the current evidence does not yet resolve: how quickly Malaysian studios can convert services work into original IP; whether the NACX delivers accessible AI computing to small studios rather than only to larger players; and whether the international deal flow generated at LEVEL UP KL 2026 produces durable commercial relationships or one-off contacts.

Malaysia enters this next phase with a stronger platform than it had at the start of the previous decade. Whether the growth turns out to be structural or cyclical will be visible in whether those 100 games-linked Malaysia Digital companies grow in number and — more importantly — in value of output. LEVEL UP KL 2026 set the direction; the 2030 metrics will say whether the industry kept moving.