G-Smash hopes to bring VR developers together and grow the Japanese market for everyone

G-Smash hopes to bring VR developers together and grow the Japanese market for everyone

At a time when VR is showing signs of vulnerability and instability globally, the Japanese industry has fared somewhat better than most. It may still be small, but being wary of producing high-risk, high-reward titles has helped them weather the storm, leaving the studio mired in underperformance. There are other social factors that can help these teams, at least, weather the storm.

Japan offers an entertainment and attractions industry that is happy to fund VR experiences for theme parks and corporate applications, while successful titles from its top developers with games like Ruinsmagus and Exit 8 VR keep the industry stable by spotlighting talent in the country. The sense of camaraderie between VR studios is also a factor, not just a group nationality, but a shared interest, and more recently, a new G-Smash initiative focused on advocating on their behalf and presenting a united and diverse face to the industry, which can attract new players to the medium and technology.

Japan’s largest indie gaming event, BitSummit, drew 68,000 people to the country’s ancient capital of Kyoto for days to celebrate indie developers and small creators. However, the largest booth does not belong to console manufacturers such as Nintendo or PlayStation, nor to major publishers of indie games both inside and outside of Japan. Instead, it belongs to G-Smash, not just a sponsored VR-focused game jam, but a shared space for 15 developers from inside and outside of Japan to present their games in a united front, showcasing the scale and breadth of what’s possible within the medium.

The initiative is relatively recent, launched by founder Shun Harashima just before last year’s BitSummit event, before spending months securing support from manufacturers like Meta and Pico. G-Smash was founded with the mission of bringing developers together, connecting them with companies that can provide funding to bring their games to life, and most importantly, introduce VR to millions who are still skeptical or have yet to try the medium for themselves. Much of it was inspired by his own childhood, where, after moving from Japan to America at age five, Pokemon fever led him to become a popular kid from abroad and make friends in a new country.

That appreciation led him to the Japanese entertainment industry after a stint at toy manufacturer Takara Tomy, and then to a broader fascination with the medium. “VR has always been my thing,” he explains. “Japan has always felt ahead of other countries, with open VR exhibition spaces, etc [now-closed] Shinjuku VR Zone or Bandai Namco’s location-based entertainment experiences. I started working in VR for real when I joined Konami in 2018, helping launch their first VR game, which led me to connect with Meta and then join them. There, I got to meet many developers. Unfortunately, sometimes companies take the lead and Japan is not always the first priority, whereas my interest has always been here. I wanted to do more to it.

Like all gaming the VR industry has had a turbulent few years, it’s no secret that VR has seen a lot of seriousness within VR due to the tight budgets and fine margins that many developers in the industry have always faced. While Sony hasn’t completely abandoned VR — they co-sponsored G-Smash’s XR Yokocho booth with Meta and Pico, the first time the three companies came together to sponsor a joint VR showcase — the PlayStation VR2’s lackluster performance has made it harder to reach new players, and sales of some titles have declined. All sites.

Regular news of closures like metro awakening studio Vertigo Studios Amsterdam highlights how far even the biggest teams are from these challenges. For all of the industry’s share of successes, many people get nervous knowing that this can be enough to send a company into crisis, or a sudden change in direction, like meta.

But Shun says this is precisely what makes G-Smash’s united front so important. “The first XR Yokocho event at PitchSummit 2025 was my first action with G-Smash, but I had to put it together in two months after leaving the meta, and I used all my severance package from the company to do it. I wanted to grow the VR market in Japan.

“That’s why it’s so important for Western developers to come and look for opportunities. This is to help grow the market in Japan, which will ultimately help all developers everywhere.”

Japanese industry has its own unique quirks that have proven to be long-term barriers to adoption that make these initiatives critical. While all consumer-grade VR has its place, it’s difficult to sell to the general public as a result of small apartments and houses, along with other cultural norms. Instead, live event-driven VR experiences are taking off, both within Tokyo and beyond. Tyffonium and Excurio have shown that you can maintain these large-scale immersive experiences, even though the former is a homegrown company that is hard at work with Square Enix on their own Final Fantasy venture to premiere later this year. Even major developers are willing to take a chance on these spheres – Capcom’s AR-powered Monster Hunter Bridge was originally developed and produced locally for World Expo 2025 in Osaka, but its success will now get a permanent exhibition at the Nijigen no Mori theme park on Awaji Island.

G-Smash’s XR Yokocho booth more than made itself known with a splashy, large space. A secondary goal is to support creators in de-risking high-risk projects, while encouraging innovation that has low risk of failure but has the potential for viral success within and beyond VR. At one end of the spectrum, Character Bank will be showing off their latest demo for the upcoming Knights of Fiona while creating beta tests for the game’s online components. A preview video for the upcoming Evangelion VR game was also shown, with several big hitters such as Lumines Arise currently available.

For even smaller projects, UNIVRS and Character Bank both had titles developed in collaboration with G-Smash, defined as small-scale, rapid-development experiences with iterations to keep people coming back. For UNIVRS, they created Project Punch, a fitness-like rhythm punching game, while Sausage Batting is the name of a very hilarious sausage fest.

“Those two games are ideas that we created with those developers at G-Smash, and we want to launch them both this year. We created these groups two months ago, brainstormed, and ran with it. We want to create conversations, launch these games, and create conversations that bring people to see VR in a new way. Connect with people.”

“I don’t want to do this alone, but I want to make the industry more exciting. Small VR means we have to use it to our advantage. We want variety, but for example, we can introduce five sausage games in a few months at different companies, and suddenly everyone can do it. VR is now about sausages! Nobody can do it. To do that, you have to do it first. In sausage batting, you play with this sausage, but if you hit it, it becomes difficult.

“I want a quality, but we need to start conversations around VR. If people notice this kind of movement, they might be confused about all the sausage, but then they’ll look further. It’s the same with creating showcases at Bitsummit like XR Yokocho. They might look at it one year and wonder what it was, but when they come back the next year, the big companies can’t check. Flat2VR, suddenly XR Yokocho is a recurring thing.

This philosophy extends to the student-run Game Jam, with four unique VR experiences created by passionate developers. The cash prize was won by Torima Headpong, a fun game that instantly captivated the audience and kept people watching the game. It certainly made for the scene G-Smash was hoping to create, as you controlled the headset to get high scores by nodding your head at the speed of a bird on a skateboard. It can induce a bit of neck pain if you’re not careful, but it’s not designed for a very intense or long session. If anything, that’s exactly what VR needs: something goofy enough that anyone can play it instantly, while also being enhanced in habits that are only possible within VR.

“90% of the people who visited our booth at PitchSummit had never played VR before,” Shun explains. “Maybe we tried it once in 2015 or 2016, but things have changed a lot. It’s easy to be in the industry and think everyone knows about it, but the truth is, even in America, people know about VR, but not many people actually play it. Not just the audience, but mixers and events or community building, talking to investors and informing them about the current market.

“A lot of people don’t know about Gorilla Tag! Investors in VR, they know about the game, but other people don’t really know about the numbers and the excitement around it and how popular it is. And because the investors in Japanese developers are in English, it’s hard to have those language barriers.

Is the booth a success? Overall I would have to say yes. With an increase in size from last year and more participants, it saw a representative sample of the industry in one place if the goal was to introduce the potential of VR to those who haven’t tried it in more than 10 years or didn’t realize how much VR has progressed in the intervening years. They even looked beyond games – Wrath: Aeon of Ruin VR was showcased with haptic hardware chairs and accessories for further immersion in ways that traditional flatscreen games can’t achieve.

Beyond being a showcase for games, BitSummit hosts regular forum events where developers can share their games and talk about development. Shuto Mikami, CEO of CharacterBank, spoke with Shuhei Yoshida, former head of SIE Worldwide Studios and head of PlayStation Indies, about Knights of Fiona and the VR industry, one of the most talked about stages, and these names alone are enough to get viewers asking what the show has to say.

Over time, the conversation spreads beyond a phenomenon or the whispers of enthusiasts and back into the mainstream. G-Smash will be key in that transition.


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