Beyond the Booth: Coda’s 3 Key Insights from ChinaJoy 2025

ChinaJoy 2025 was bigger than ever, and Coda was at the heart of it all. We brought our growth solution suite to life on the show floor, with real-time demos of payment and distribution solutions at the core. While visitors cooled off with our ice-cold tea, we were focused on something hotter: front-row seats to trends driving global monetization forward. 

Here are the three themes that mattered most for publishers looking to grow globally.

1. AI Moves From Hype to Real-World Impact

AI was at the heart of ChinaJoy – on billboards, demo booths, and in conversations across the floor. But beyond the branding, real breakthroughs emerged. Century Huatong Group’s real-time AI tools for generating dialogue, visuals, and debug scripts drew major attention, while the inaugural Digiloong Cup showcased groundbreaking AI-powered games and apps.

What stood out? AI isn’t a future concept. The real story? It’s already embedded itself across the entire gaming ecosystem.

• In-game: Smarter NPCs and dynamic storylines promise personalized player experiences
• Marketing: AI-driven targeting is optimizing ad spend like never before
• Operations: Chatbots, instant translation, and 3D rendering tools are cutting production timelines dramatically

It’s clear from our observations at ChinaJoy, AI is already driving gaming monetization. At Coda, we’re leveraging it today for smarter fraud detection and seamless localization, with even more game-changing applications on the way to help our partners accelerate speed to market.

2. Payment Conversion Drives Global Growth 

For Chinese publishers going global, payment conversion isn’t just a metric; it’s a factor directly driving decisions around payment providers.

At ChinaJoy, industry-leading publishers told us they track performance at every stage of the payment funnel and demand total transparency: “Good coverage with weak performance is the same as no coverage,” one executive shared.

Markets like MENA, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are especially complex. Publishers need high-performing local methods like Mada and STC Pay in Saudi Arabia, Easypaisa in Pakistan, and GoPay or GCash across Southeast Asia. A few percentage points of conversion improvement can directly accelerate global expansion.

Even small conversion gains in these regions can unlock meaningful growth. That’s why payment providers must go beyond providing access; they need to deliver performance, transparency, and results.

3. Distribution Demands Scale and Control 

At ChinaJoy, publishers shared a clear signal: they want to access reach through centralized distribution, but not at the cost of control. While the reach of local agents, influencers, and community sellers to convert players in regions like MENA, LATAM, South Asia, and Southeast Asia is pivotal, managing these hyperlocal networks is resource-intensive: visibility drops, price control weakens, and performance becomes harder to track. 

Coda Distribution helps publishers overcome these hurdles by serving as both a payments partner and a distribution infrastructure provider. With 100+ trusted partners and access to 800M+ players across web, app, and offline channels, Coda enables voucher programs, multi-channel marketing, and a low-risk, pay-for-performance model.

The results speak for themselves: some AAA publishers have achieved 150–300% incremental revenue, with up to 30% of total revenue driven by Coda’s network.

Partner With Coda to Power Your Global Growth

ChinaJoy 2025 made it clear: AI, payment optimization, and centralized distribution are the forces reshaping global gaming monetization.

With Coda’s payment and distribution expertise, publishers can lean into these opportunities and scale into new markets faster, smarter, and with lower risk.

Ready to grow globally? Partner with us to monetize smarter.