Crowded house
Cologne’s Gamescom pulls in big numbers, but the spectre of the next generation looms larger
Gamescom pulls in numbers, but the next generation looms large
Back in June, E3 suggested an industry that was starting to think about the next generation of consoles. This is always a fine time in games; installed bases are large enough that publishers and, on occasion, platform holders are more prepared to take risks. But it does mean the release calendar starts to thin out a little. Over the past few years there have been so many games for developers and publishers to talk about that the industry had to look beyond E3; events like Gamescom were the beneficiaries, picking up the spare that couldn’t be knocked over during a week in LA. With the pace slowing as the generation winds down, what becomes of Gamescom?
Well, it certainly had the numbers. A total of 370,000 people filed through the doors of the Koelnmesse during the week, an increase of 15,000 on last year’s figure. Attendance from within the trade was also up, and organisers were quick to tout the show’s international flavour, with 114 countries represented. But Gamescom has always been busy: in 2009, its first in Cologne after moving from Leipzig, it drew in 245,000 people. It is a sweaty, teeming mass that only grows sweatier and more teeming with every passing year.
Once you got through the doors, though, this year Gamescom felt more like E3’s awkward little brother than it has for some time. This was simply another beat on the promo circuit for most publishers, where games that had been unveiled to much fanfare at E3 were given release dates ( Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), hands-off presentations ( Life Is Strange 2) or, in rare cases, a first gameplay outing ( Devil May Cry 5). We’ve heard grumblings from the industry for some time about how close together E3 and Gamescom are, and how they seem to get closer every year. Our thanks to the PR teams kind enough to warn us when booking appointments that a certain game’s Gamescom appearance would be the same demo that was at E3. It saved us a few hours, at least.
The big publishers may not have given us much of note, but at least they seemed interested. Sony skipped the show entirely again – no surprise after its quietest E3 in the PS4 era, with all of this generation’s game announcements long since made. At the time of writing it has yet to confirm whether it will, as in the past couple of years, use October’s Paris Games Week as the main focus of its EU activities, and even that was on the quiet side last year too. Nintendo had a physical presence in Cologne with a large booth focusing, as at E3, on Super Smash Bros Ultimate. There was a brief Direct broadcast on indie games headed to Switch, but little else.
The major disappointment was Microsoft, which showed such confidence at E3 and has the most to gain from a late-gen surge in interest in its platform. However, if it went into Gamescom hoping to build on the momentum it had started to gather in LA two months earlier, it had a funny way of showing it.
With Phil Spencer staying at home, the headline event for Microsoft was an Inside Xbox live stream that reminded everyone how little the company has to talk about, despite a greatly improved performance at E3. There were updates for games that are already on shelves, such as Sea Of Thieves and State Of Decay 2, bookended by developer interviews. There were novelty hardware and peripheral announcements, such as a PUBG- themed console and controller. An introductory segment confirmed that Hunt: Showdown, the Crytek shooter released for PC in February, was headed to Xbox Game Preview. There was also a frankly bizarre PUBG mini-doc that saw Xbox community mouthpiece Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb take a camera crew to Seoul to interview the developers, explain the appeal of last year’s most popular game in breathy tones over an oddly outof-place acoustic guitar instrumental and then pretend to take a nap in a PUBG Corp bunk bed. Patreon surely beckons.
In the end the week was rescued by the quality of the games on show. It may not have yielded much in terms of news, but there was little complaint about what was available to play. Publishers may have shown their hands in LA two months earlier, but it’s impossible to look too harshly on an event that gives attendees a world-first play of DMC5 or Sekiro.
That numbers were up regardless suggests that, if anything, the industry is right to reduce its focus on Gamescom, or at least got away with it this time. No doubt attendance will rise again next year, even if Sony and Microsoft postpone next gen until 2020. Gamescom’s organisers, however, may quietly be hoping that this muted year was only a blip. If not, we suppose there’s always Major Nelson.
The big publishers may not have given us much of note, but at least they seemed interested