Gamescom 2009: Opening Memories
From a Star Wars themed opening ceremony to a translated conference with lots of numbers, Gamescom 2009 started off with a bang, swiftly followed by the snoring of Simon Williams.
I ought to elaborate on the “bang” per se since it wasn’t quite a bang, but rather the roar of a jetpack as a Clone Trooper descended from the heavens. Of course when I say heavens, I mean the roof of the Kölnmesse complex, and yes that part of the opening ceremony was seriously exciting. The night before we received an email from Activision saying that we should aim to be at the complex early, and that there would be rockets and jets involved. Straight away we figured that it was going to be a colossal disappointment with aircraft flying overhead, how wrong we were. Instead we find ourselves looking up to the skies and being deafened by the sound of a clone trooper in a jetpack. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was deafening either, I really mean it when I say it was plane-engine loud.
Nonetheless, the opening ceremony was rather short and turned out to be a promotion for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Republic Heroes. After that we headed into the North Congress Centre for the opening conference, complete in German with English translation fed through our earpieces. It was a general conference outlining what Gamescom has to offer, some personal showboating and of course, lots of figures. However, some of this information was particularly interesting.
I’ll have to assume that these are accurate and not over exaggerated for advertisement’s sake, but apparently Gamescom 2009 was host to four hundred and twenty exhibitors who made their way to the show from thirty different countries. The speaker boasted that forty-three percent of the number were from abroad, making Gamescom a giant international event.
If those figures are correct, I’m guessing the one hundred and twenty thousand square metres of floor space used for the event was needed, thanks to the huge Kölnmesse Centre in Cologne, Germany. Believe it or not, the event only used six halls, meaning that there was still empty space in the centre! However, GDC Europe was finishing up on the opening day so it wasn’t strictly all about entertainment in Germany, when’s it ever? Whichever way you look at it, those sure are impressive figures – let’s just hope that the attendance figures were worth the cost for these folk otherwise we may not be seeing Gamescom in this larger venue next time.
Gamescom 09 was also host to a slew of other events besides just the show. Events present included the German case modifying championships as well as a (failed) attempt at the Cosplay world record, which for those who don’t know involves having the most people dressed as videogame characters in one place at the same time. The speaker, whose name I didn’t catch because I was too busy trying to pay attention to the English translation in my ear also mentioned about a service called GamesCompetence. This is a service aimed at parents to educate them in parental control on games, and to make them more aware about how to handle the games industry appropriately. Albeit a small service that may be mostly overlooked, it does provide a vital service – letting parents know when to stop buying their kids mature games so they don’t go out and kill somebody and then allowing the media to blame it on Grand Theft Auto…again.
Next the gentleman, which I’m feeling slightly embarrassed about leaving him nameless, went on about the growth of German gaming and the console movement in the last decade. Console gaming is now the majority market in the German games industry, which is significant as the country was all about PC gaming ten years ago. He then went on to mention that he thinks Germany could go on to replace the United Kingdom as Europe’s gaming beacon. And then I laughed.
The end.
