Conventions, regardless of the media branch they’re attached to, are important, as they bring people together for various reasons, including teasing what the future is, and allowing people to go hands-on with various items, products, and meet those within the industry with whom they can build relationships. In the case of Gamescom, it’s the biggest gaming event in all of Europe, and ever since the fall of E3, it’s emerged as one of the premier events that people must attend, and many people do, in fact, attend it. Last year, over 300,000 visitors attended the event, and the event has grown even further this year, as they’ve had to expand the space that they’re using for the show and even open a bigger venue for Opening Night Live.
When you hear all of this, you’d think that the show is primed for continued growth and to become the biggest thing around, but one of the directors of the show, Felix Falk, is mindful of the show’s growth and wants to do right by it and by fans going forward. In a chat with Game Developer, he noted how thrilling it was to have a record number of exhibitors on the show floor, while also admitting that growth needs to have limits:
“We have more exhibitors than ever before, which is great because we still have space to grow, but [success] is more about variety and diversity of content. It is not our aim to grow, grow, grow—because that doesn’t make sense. It’s more about the quality and most importantly the digital reach, which we have seen over the last few years is exponentially growing.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because during its more turbulent years, E3 went from an event that “grew every year” to being something that “only certain people could go to,” or you had to “be really lucky to see anything” due to how many people were within it, and that’s something Falk wants to avoid:
“We don’t want the atmosphere to be worse because we squeeze in too many people. We could squeeze more in—which we don’t—because the quality of the experience is important for the fans.”
Indeed, and it’s clear that many go to Gamescom because of the quality on display. Plus, there will be demos for big Nintendo games, Xbox titles, and more. Falk even noted that the indie gaming area is bigger than it’s ever been before!
We’ll see soon enough how everything plays out for the 2025 event.
