The Canary Islands video game industry takes another leap in its international projection with its participation in Tokyo Game Show 2026, one of the major global events in the video game industry, which brings together studios, developers, investors, and major companies from one of the technological and creative sectors with the greatest global reach in Japan.
Participation in Tokyo Game Show constitutes the main business milestone of the mission that the Government of the Canary Islands, through PROEXCA and under the brand Canary Islands Games, is carrying out this week in Japan. The delegation will face the Business Days this Thursday and Friday, the two days of the fair reserved for professionals, with an agenda focused on B2B meetings, generation of commercial contacts, and attraction of investment.
This year's edition also coincides with the 30th anniversary of Tokyo Game Show, three decades of trajectory for an event that has become one of the major international showcases for the evolution of video games and new industry trends.
The Vice-Minister of the Presidency and President of Proexca, Alfonso Cabello, highlighted that “The Canary Islands want to occupy their space in a global industry that moves talent, investment, and knowledge, and we are in Tokyo to ensure that a part of these projects is developed from the islands.”
Cabello pointed out that “We have come with companies, with talent, and with a concrete proposal to present to those who are making decisions in this industry. We want them to know what is already happening in the Canary Islands, but, above all, to discover the opportunities the islands offer for investing, developing projects, and growing from a European territory connected to three continents.”
Meetings to explain the benefits of the Canary Islands
The agenda for this Thursday and Friday will have a strong business focus. The Canarian delegation is registered on the professional platform MeetToMatch and arrives at Tokyo Game Show with 20 meetings already confirmed for the first two days of networking, with the aim of reaching at least 25 high-level meetings and generating qualified contacts with real interest and potential.
The objective is to take advantage of the concentration of key industry players in Tokyo to directly connect Canarian companies with potential partners, publishers, and investors, and at the same time, to present the archipelago as a competitive destination for the establishment and development of new projects.
Canarias arrives at these meetings with a proposal that combines differentiated taxation, institutional support, qualified talent and specialized training, quality of life and tricontinental connectivity, elements that PROEXCA has been using in its strategy to attract audiovisual and video game companies to the islands. Japan is part of the priority markets for this strategy, along with the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, and Singapore, among others.
Cabello explained that "internationalization must work in both directions: we want to help our companies to go out, find partners, financing, and new markets, but we also want international talent, capital, and projects to find conditions in the Canary Islands to establish themselves and generate activity and qualified employment."
"That is the purpose of being here. It is not just about gaining visibility, but about turning that visibility into business relationships and those relationships into real projects for the Canary Islands," he added.
A delegation that showcases the Canarian ecosystem
The mission includes a broad representation of the business and sectoral ecosystem of the islands. Participants include Luca Contato, from Rising Pixel; Artamy Rodríguez Plata, from the Fundación Canaria C.D. Tenerife; Eduardo González García, from Proyecto Foxter SL; David Carmona Ballester, from the Asociación Canaria de Desarrolladores de Videojuego (ACADEVI); Sergio Prieto, from Quantum Box Games; Fernando Yeray Sánchez Escobar, from the Fundación Canaria UD Las Palmas; Luis Torres García, from Drakhar Studio SL; Dácil Afonso González, from A1M Gamesports SL; Ángel Gabriel González Gaspar, from Studios Demanzon; Pablo Lorenzo González-Moro, from Daimonia Project; Alessandro Ferrari, from Cherrytree Studio; and Zulay Rodríguez, from the Asociación Regional Canaria para el Avance de los Deportes Electrónicos y Videojuegos (ARCADEV).
The business presence allows for the showcasing of the diversity of the ecosystem being developed on the islands in Tokyo and, above all, allows its protagonists to present their projects, establish commercial relationships, and explore new avenues for collaboration in one of the main international video game markets.
Likewise, the Canary presence at Tokyo Game Show has also allowed for the social dimension of video games and eSports to be showcased through the work carried out by the foundations of UD Las Palmas and CD Tenerife. Both entities promote initiatives such as Al Golpito and Desafío, together with the Government of the Canary Islands, which connect football, eSports, and inclusion, and use sports and new forms of digital competition as tools to generate opportunities and foster the participation of people with disabilities.
Canary Islands reinforces its position in a global industry
Participation in Tokyo Game Show represents the third consecutive presence of the Canary Islands at the fair and is part of a sustained strategy to reinforce the archipelago's positioning in the Asian market, establish new commercial alliances, and consolidate the islands as a destination for the video game industry.
The strategy combines support for the internationalization of Canary Islands companies with attracting foreign investment. As a result of the actions developed by PROEXCA, the video game sector represented 12.1% of the 74 projects established in the Canary Islands in 2023 through its investment attraction efforts, and 3.5% of the more than 100 million euros in estimated investment associated with all these projects.
For Cabello, the challenge now is to "continue strengthening what we are already building. The Canary Islands has shown that it can generate an ecosystem linked to video games and digital industries. The next step is to connect it more and more with major international decision-making centers and ensure that this connection translates into more companies, more projects, and more professional opportunities in the islands."
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