Welcome to Virtual SEA – Home of Southeast Asian gaming culture!
Dive into the exciting world of Southeast Asian video games with Virtual SEA. Our website is your go-to destination for all things Southeast Asian game development, featuring reviews, previews, news, and reports about the latest indie games from the region. From the bustling cities of Singapore to the lush jungles of Indonesia, our team of independent writers brings you a unique perspective on the diverse and rapidly growing Southeast Asian gaming scene. With a focus on highlighting the innovative and culturally rich games developed by local studios, we are dedicated to showing the world that Southeast Asian indie developers are at the forefront of creative and exciting game design. Join us on our journey as we uncover the hidden gems of the Southeast Asian games market and be a part of the future of global gaming.
meet the team
Andreas Betsche founded Virtual SEA in early 2016 after researching Cambodian mobile games for his Master’s thesis. He has a background in Southeast Asia studies and has worked and lived in Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Since he has been actively playing games since the early 90s, combing both worlds in Virtual SEA brought together both of his passions.
Andreas
Kenzie received a second childhood by crunching five generations of video game history in her free time – out of pure boredom and fascination. Since then, she’s been obsessively playing and writing about games and interactive fiction. She hopped aboard VirtualSEA to discover more about the regional game industry and help promote its talent and titles. She has a rolling list of favorite games, but Knights of the Old Republic and Horizon Zero Dawn come out on top.
Kenzie
Luna is an indie game developer and author from Berlin. She’s all into games, comics, and other geeky stuff. On Virtual SEA, she reviews games and occasionally irons out Andreas’ many spelling and grammar mistakes. Her top three games are Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (Lufia), Seiken Densetsu 2&3 (Secret of Mana & Secret of Mana 2), and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Luna
Vince is a lazy artist, writer, and aspiring game designer from the Philippines. His favorite ways of escaping from reality include playing shooters with friends and long, immersive single-player games. Having a particular affinity for horror, he joined VirtualSEA to discover and build up discussion on the latest and greatest games in the genre in the SEA region. Currently, he’s really hooked on Lobotomy Corporation and Slay the Spire.
Vince
Usually, you say: „If life gives you lemons, make lemonade of it.“ But my life was more like: „If life gives you hardware and video games, explore it.” Since I got my first GameBoy in 1999, I fell in love with video games and thought about it – or just enjoy playing until today. When I finish my day job, I love to explore the vast universe of gaming in as many parts as possible. Even the technical thoughts, next to narration and world-building, is an aspect that I love to dive into. Therefore, I accepted the challenge to write about Southeast Asian indie games, to explore a whole new genre to think outside of the box.
Oliver
Risky is an avid full-time gamer who occasionally does his other jobs when he has free time. He learned a thing or two about life from JRPGs, and he embarks on a quest to understand how games and society influence each other. While that seems to be an excellent and relevant reason to join VirtualSEA, he joined to annoy Andreas with grammatical errors. His top three games are Final Fantasy IX, Persona 4, and Ace Combat 5.
Risky
Carlo was working at his summer internship when his boss stuck her head in through the door and asked “Does anyone here want to write about video games?” He said yes without thinking, so he guesses this is something he just does now. His list of favorite video games changes as rapidly as the industry makes controversies, so he’s not sure what to say for this part. He does, however, have a couple of thousand hours in Dota 2, so it’s probably going to be it.
