Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show has announced that id Software co-founder John Romero will headline the business area conference of this year’s event in Bangkok, with a keynote entitled “Why We Still Make Games” about “a lifetime of building games, overcoming setbacks and navigating decades of industry change.”
Previously announced speakers include Nick Herman and Dennis Lenart, co-founders of Dispatch developer AdHoc Studio; Roblox VP and Head of International Zhen Fang; Jane Lau, Head of Creative Production at Tencent; Emilio Coppola, Executive Director at Godot and Yoan Fanise, creative director and founder of indie developer DigixArt. The event runs from October 29th to November 1st in Bangkok.
Romero currently runs Romero Games with his wife Brenda, who told GamesIndustry.biz that “the industry’s in a really horrible place” at a Game Republic event in Wakefield earlier this year. The firm was forced to lay off staff after an unnamed publisher, widely reported to be Microsoft, pulled funding for a big-budget FPS in 2025; it has since refocused on to work on a smaller indie shooter.
Gamescom Asia partnered with Thailand Game Show in 2025, after taking place in Singapore for the first four years of its existence. This year’s show will increase floor space by 20% to 35,000 square metres, the organisers said, following a successful first year that attracted 206,169 attendees. Confirmed exhibitors include Nintendo, Capcom, Sega, the Pokémon Company, Bandai Namco and AMD.
“Last year we proved that Bangkok is ready to host a world-class gaming event at scale,” said Prakash Ramajillu, General Manager of Asia-Pacific, Koelnmesse. “This year we are raising that bar in every direction — more space, more brands, more experiences, and one of the most iconic figures in gaming history taking the stage. The response from the industry has been extraordinary, and we are only just getting started.”
