Business and pleasure
Project director Tim Endres on the careful balancing act that powers Gamescom
Tim Endres on the balancing act that powers Gamescom
This year marks Gamescom’s tenth anniversary. In Cologne’s Koelnmesse, the conference brings together industry professionals and gaming enthusiasts from all over the world. It continues to grow: 100,000 square metres in 2009 more than doubled to 210,000 in 2017. The exhibitor count is now nearly 1,000, and last year 355,000 visitors attended the show. A decade of successful business and community building is no mean feat, considering some publishers are now moving away from trade shows to put on separate events. But Gamescom’s magic is in its melting pot. Here, project director Tim Endres explains how to create a space that represents everyone – and that is, by extension, something all the big players will still want a slice of for years to come.
How did you come up with the concept for Gamescom? What niche did you feel it could fill?
It was a result of the discussions we had with our partners. We stay in close contact with the German Game Industry Association. All the major players are organised in this association, and that’s good feedback for us. We recognised from the beginning that the trade on the one side, but also the consumer, the media and tech on the other side, are both very relevant for the concept of Gamescom. In 2009, we already had a business area and an entertainment area – separated expos, but within walking distance, and that’s the success story.
E3 has had trouble making it work in recent years. What’s your secret to doing it successfully?
The biggest reason is the different platforms for different target groups. We have a full week of gaming at Gamescom. It’s not only the business area, and entertainment area, and the fairground – the Gamescom week starts on Sunday with Devcom, the international developer conference. We also have SPOBIS Gaming and Media, which we launched last year: it’s a B2B congress which focuses on esports and marketing. Then there’s the Gamescom City Festival in the city centre with music, entertainment, good food and fun, all free of charge. And this is what Gamescom is about: it’s a 360-degree event for all the industry.
What’s the business reason for attracting families to the show?
“The gaming industry is developing very fast, and it’s hard to say how it looks in five years”
Our aim is to have the whole gaming community at Gamescom. For example, mobile gaming is more family entertainment, and there are maybe more older target groups there than in triple-A gaming. One of Gamescom’s strengths was always to have all types of gaming on all platforms – mobile, PC, console – because we want to show the whole market for the whole community. Family is one big part of that.
Some triple-A publishers are distancing themselves from shows such as E3. How do you retain their interest in Gamescom, and keep everyone under one roof?
There are individual side events in the context of Gamescom every year: however, there is no recognisable tendency [for publishers to run their own events] at Gamescom. The core of the gaming event remains Gamescom on the fairground, for sure, and the reason for this is the advisory board. All the major players are members, we have constant contact, we hear about their needs, and we put those needs in the concept.
And what are their needs? What’s the reason they keep coming to Gamescom?
It is the size of Gamescom, because it’s a massive crowd of consumers they can address on the fairground – but also being able to stream events on their own, or on our Gamescom website via our new platform, Gamescom Live. It’s additional reach for the exhibitors, but the crowd here on the fairground is very important for them. But this only works together with the business area, which is the European hub for the international gaming industry. Everyone who wants to do business at Gamescom needs to be in the business area, because the number of international exhibitors increases year-on-year. This combination is really the success story, and what the exhibitors are looking for.
How do you ensure that Gamescom is still relevant in, say, the next ten years?
Well, the next ten years is a long time! [laughs] The gaming industry is developing very fast, and it’s hard to say how it looks in five years. We always need to be fast to get new trends, and this is what will be the priority for the next decade: finding trends, offering the right platforms for new and different target groups, and designing Gamescom better every year.
What about the next two or three years? Do you have an inkling as to what’s going to be the next big trend?
Streaming will be very important. The other thing is esports, which is one of our main strategic fields. We already have ideas for how we can develop it – they’re not ready to announce, but we have many ideas.