Game Republic has just returned from what was the busiest Gamescom since the Pandemic, with many new games on show including a great presence there for UK and Northern companies. There’s a gallery of photos at the end of the feature.
MD of Game Republic, Jamie Sefton, summed up the mood at the event as “an overall picture that is one of optimism, with deals being done and games getting signed, but there can be no doubt that it is a mixed picture, with many developers looking for work-for-hire and co-dev deals and a market that is definitely tougher.”
The business days for Gamescom are Wednesday & Thursday – and there is also developer-focused conference Devcom earlier in the week. Wednesday at Gamescom is mostly business only, with several large halls at the huge Koelnmesse venue with packed with stands for publishers, investors and games companies such as Microsoft Xbox, Bethesda, Bandai Namco, Tencent Games and more, as well as business areas representing dozens of countries including Spain, France, Brazil, South Korea, Poland, and of course the UK, with the Ukie stand one of the busiest of the show, containing hundreds of people showing games and having 1-1 meetings at branded tables. PlayStation & Nintendo didn’t have any official presence at Gamescom this year.
It was the busiest Gamescom for years though – 1400 exhibitors from 64 countries – and it it was great to see so many of our Game Republic members in Cologne including Revolution Software (Co-Founder Charles Cecil showing the new forthcoming Reforged version of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars), plus Dink, Radical Forge, PQube, Huey Games, Otterweave Games, Double Eleven, Cooperative Innovations, Other Things and Team17 who also had big presence on the entertainment show floor. You can hear Rob Hewson of Huey Games talking about the event on BBC 5 Live here (47 minutes in)
On Wednesday, Game Republic arranged an exclusive Gamescom meet up with Valve at a nearby hotel, where our cohort of developers had an opportunity to ask questions about bringing their games to Steam. Useful info included the use of Playtests to have players instantly try out levels and game builds without having any reviews (and restrict access at any time), how different types of games fare better on Early Access and how it doesn’t count towards New & Trending lists, advice that developers shouldn’t launch games during seasonal festivals as the front page changes, and consider Steam Deck at launch as 40% Steam owners now play on the Valve console.
Gamescom also gave us a great chance to check out public areas before it got super busy from Thursday to Sunday (last year had 320,000 visitors over the 4 days), playing some new indie games, checking out Triple-A titles like the new Diablo expansion Vessel of Hatred & the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle action game from Sledgehammer Games, complete with promotional Indy fedora.
Game Republic also got the opportunity to attend numerous parties and meetups, of which there are many for companies including Epic Games and Tencent – a particular highlight was the IGN Party where we got to meet games publishers such as Ubisoft and journalists from GamesIndustry.biz and The Guardian to name a few. With the recent demise of E3 in the USA, Gamescom is now the biggest business and consumer games business event in the West, and a great opportunity for business meetings – both formal and casual – and to check out the latest games, and if you book early enough for transport (we went by train) and hotels, it’s good value compared with events such as GDC in San Francisco.
