Gamescom Opening Night Livetakes place soon, kicking off a week of gaming news, events, and more, as Gamecom as a brand continues to focus on its community. Fans and developers the world over have been taking part in Gamescom festivities since 2009, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Gamescom broke attendance records in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, and survived via digital and hybrid means during that time. The in-person event came back stronger than even its organizers expected, andGamescom 2024 has already broken records, with it expected to break even more in the coming days.
Ahead of the event, Game Rant sat down with Felix Falk, a member of Game (the brand owner and co-organizer ofGamescom). We spoke about the history and anniversary of the event, its growth as a brand with Gamescom Asia and Gamescom LATAM, expectations for the showcase, and much more.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
The History and Legacy of Gamescom
Q: Could you introduce yourself and explain what you do for our audience please?
A:My name is Felix Falk. I’m the managing director of the German Games Industry Association called Game, and we are also the brand owners and co-organizers of Gamescom. That’s us, 500 members-strong from the whole industry, the whole ecosystem, from publishers and developers toeSports organizersor universities. Everything connected to games in Germany is a member of us, and yeah, we celebrate 500 members this Gamescom.
Q: This year marks the 15th year of Gamescom. What does this sort of history and legacy represent for the show?
A:It was a great ride. It has been such an amazingdevelopment for Gamescom. Looking back at the first years, we already had hundreds of thousands of people come. From there, we’ve had continuous success, and it’s seen Gamescom become a 360-degree festival for all different areas of the global games culture. We’ve made it a stage for representation, a place to meet up and represent the whole diversity of the culture. It has been great to see, and it’s developed every year since the first one, so it’s never stopping.
It’s amazing to see the development of an event on this scale. You can see where the culture goes, where the industry goes, where people in the industry go, or how different topics in the industry evolve. You can actually see all of this at Gamescom, and it’s our responsibility to build the right stage to represent all of this. I think that’s gone pretty well, and we’ll see more of this year.
Q: How do you think Gamescom and its role in the industry has changed the most over these 15 years?
A: I think what has changed the most is, which you’re able to actually see in the industry too, is how hybrid the experience has become. The USP of Gamescom 15 years ago and many years after that was an on-site meeting of people and hands-on playable demos. In comparison to E3, for example, we’ve always had a focus on the community.
Of course, that was with a focus on the on-site experience, but it’s more hybrid right now and we’ve had a big boost because of this. We didn’t start this during COVID, but of course, it was a big boost too. We didn’t stopGamescom during COVID, but we did make it digital and then even more of a hybrid Gamescom. It’s great to see how this works together, so you still have hundreds of thousands of people on-site. The whole town in Cologne is absolutely living during the festival. If you count all the people coming to Gamescom in Cologne, it’s more than half a million. But part of these numbers is we can’t really extend it to more and more record numbers. We don’t want to just squeeze people into halls. It still needs to feel good, so there’s a limit. We’ve already adjusted the limits over the years, but after a record number of 370,000 in 2019, we said we wanted to reduce it to make sure it’s a nice experience for everyone. With the increasing numbers in the digital world since then, Gamescom has become a real hybrid and real international event.
I think that was probably the biggest change. It gave Gamescom even more importance, not just as the biggest on-site event, but also as a festival for gaming. You’re able to take part wherever you are by tuning into Gamescom Opening Night Live, checking out games here on-site, being part of Gamescom Studio, checking out Gamescom Epix, being part of Gamescom Biz, and making appointments even when you’re not on site. All of these things are the biggest change.
Q: Based on your experience with past Gamescoms, how do you think this year’s has shaped up so far?
A:I think we will see some new records, which is astonishing. A record has already been set: we will have more than 1400 exhibitors, and that’s a big leap from last year and a new record. When we were bringing the in-person experiences back,Gamescom came back faster than we thought. Last year, we already had better numbers than most of the KPIs of 2019, which was the record-breaking year before COVID hit. This year, we have seen more records. One number, for example, I find really exciting and great is the number of country pavilions. They are mostly in the business area, but more and more countries are represented with booths in the indie area.
Last year, we had 33 pavilions from 26 different countries, and this year there are 48 pavilions from 37 countries. This is great because it provides an even broader diversity for Gamescom. With one country pavilion coming from Indonesia, Brazil, or wherever, it provides developers from these countries the possibility to come to Gamescom, showcase their games, and without these pavilions, they wouldn’t have the chance to be part of that. That’s great.
Extending the Gamescom Brand
Q: When I was at Gamescom in Latin America, Gamescom as an organization got praise in two areas from a lot of people I spoke with. One of those was sustainability, the Gamescom Goes Green initiative that launched back in 2022. I was curious how that initiative is manifesting this year?
A:First of all, for us as an industry, topics like diversity, sustainability, and accessibility, all those are extremely important to us and our members. That’s why we are pushing our event and our brand to be front runners in these areas as well. We started with Gamescom Forest in 2020, and we made it a whole concept in the end. It’s not only that we build some trees or something, but we made it a real concept to integrate everyone. There are three pillars that this concept stands on.
First, everything we do as organizers, together with our partner Koelnmesse, and everything we are responsible for is carbon neutral. Our carbon footprint is neutral, either with reduction, prevention, or off-setting, and we get better and better every year. Two years ago, we started to have green energy for the whole event. This year for example, for the first time, we will be using certified “Cradle to Cradle” carpets that are environmentally friendly, recyclable, and therefore specially designed for the circular economy. These carpets will be used in Gamescom’s own areas as well as recommended to exhibitors. There’s also the second, community, so we let them donate and built the Gamescom Forest with them. The third one is the exhibitors, so we asked them to be part of this project as well with everything they’re responsible for. We try to have an approach where we invite everyone to take responsibility in the areas we have.
That’s why it’s not called Green Gamescom, butGamescom Goes Greenbecause this is a process. We add something every year, and we measure ourselves every year. We do an event footprint where we analyze everything and try to be better next year, so we are quite proud of this. This is only in the field of sustainability too; these are other areas with similar goals.
For example, this year we’ve introduced a new rule for all exhibitors: we ask them to be wheelchair-accessible. We have seen more and more people with disabilities in wheelchairs come to Gamescom because Gamescom itself, with Koelnmesse, is accessible for people in wheelchairs, but not all the booths were. Together, that’s something where our members of the Gamescom committee said it should be a rule that every booth is accessible. These are steps where, every year, we analyze and think about how we can make Gamescom an even better place for a really diverse community, as the gaming community is.
Q: Gamescom as a brand has also expanded over the past couple of years: Gamescom Asia was established in 2021 and Gamescom LATAM was announced in 2023. How has this expansion impacted Gamescom in Germany?
A: We noticed that Gamescom, within those 15 years, has become a really global brand. More and more people have attended, also more and more people in other countries know about Gamescom. Gamescom is a really strong international brand, and that’s why we started with Singapore, with Gamescom Asia first. This year came withGamescom LATAMbecause we saw first a request from the industry and communities in these areas and because we had the opportunity to find the right set of partners to fulfill the promise of Gamescom. We didn’t really want to open something up and see what happens. I mean, in the end, of course, we need to see how it works.
Two of the greatest things I’ve heard in São Paulo at Gamescom LATAM were that the event made a big step up compared to BIG Festival last year and that it feels like Gamescom. These are two big steps forward, where it feels like Gamescom but smaller, but it feels like this is a promise. We really want to see the impact, not only for the brand, but also for the events we put together as we combine ideas and work together. For example, we had big delegations from Asia and LATAM this year. For LATAM as an example, this strengthened the partnership with politicians, and they did a lot for São Paulo and in Brazil for the games industry. They also want to learn a lot from the European games industry. They’re coming over back and forth, so I think it’s helping in many fields. In the end, it’s not just our goal to have a successful event, but the question is, why should we have it?
For us as an association, the answer is always in favor of the industry, so we want to help companies get better access to the South American market. We want to help developers find publishers in other areas of the globe and so on. It’s great to see that this many companies involved, not only for our members, but also members of the Brazil and LATAM associations. They think this is really helpful for them, and that’s the main focus. We love to build something, build that stage where those companies can connect with their communities in the best possible way.
Expectations for Gamescom
Q: Do you have any advice for anyone coming for the first time?
A:The advice is either to not prepare and be okay with being overloaded by everything happening there and saying, ‘Okay, next year, I need not only two days, but four days to see even more,’ or my advice would be to prepare well to get the most out of it because there’s so much. Even for us as a team, I do remember evaluations where, after Gamescom, we sit together for long workshops and evaluate everything. Every year, someone says, ‘I heard there was something in hall eight, and that was crazy. I didn’t see it. Did somebody see it?’ Others will say they don’t remember it or they don’t know, and we have to find out about it.
It’s really huge and, as I said, a 360-degree festival. It’s fantastic to see that you can easily spend three days and still have things you want to do or see. I think that’s the fun of it, so I recommend good preparation or just let it go and see what happens.
Q: To wrap things up, I think setting expectations is always important for events like this. What would you say a general gamer’s expectations should be coming into Gamescom Opening Night Live and the event this year?
A:I thinkGamescom Opening Night Livewill again be a great show on site. We doubled the capacity of people, so there will be a great atmosphere with more people in a really huge hall. Also, I heard from Geoff that, content-wise, it looks really good. I mean, we know it’s tough times for the industry at the moment, not only because of some company layoffs. You know, there have been some rough times in the past month, and also content-wise, it’s not so great. But as I’ve seen and as Geoff has told me, Gamescom Opening Night Live will look really good. It’s also just the kickoff, as always.
It’s not one of those one-off digital shows, but the opening to a full week of games and video game content. No matter if you’re in Cologne or if you are participating online, for example, in Gamescom Studio, Gamescom Awesome Indies, or many, many others.
I think it’ll be a good year, and that’s why I told some members I think it’s a good sign that, after thosetough times for the industry, Gamescom is the signal ahead for better times because we are showing the titles that will lift us as an industry again and get us out of the period we have been in. I think it will be a good start to a positive next period.
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Gamescom Opening Night Livetakes place on August 20 at 11 am PT/2 pm ET.
