Why Gamescom Is Gaming’s Main Event

Gamescom is approaching, bringing a shift in the annual gaming calendar. While early summer is dominated by trailers and announcements, the late-summer German convention is focused on playable software, practical previews and games nearing release.

That hands-on emphasis has helped Gamescom remain influential after E3 disappeared from the calendar. For Australian players following the industry from afar, it is increasingly the event where upcoming releases become tangible rather than simply teased.

Two strategy games lead the conversation

The preview season includes substantial looks at two notable tactics games. Star Wars Zero Company is shaping up as a squad-based strategy experience that can fairly be described as “Star Wars XCOM”, while Nintendo’s Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave is being praised as an especially strong follow-up to the ideas established by Three Houses.

Why Summer Game Fest cannot fully replace E3

When E3 began to falter, Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest became its closest successor. Like E3, it occupies the June window in Los Angeles and gives publishers a loose framework around which to arrange showcases. It also combines an in-person media event with a major trailer presentation, where companies can pay to debut announcements.

It delivers plenty of attention, discussion and promotional momentum. Its timing remains useful for publishers, and Keighley’s December Game Awards is one of the few events that rivals it for major reveals.

However, Summer Game Fest is largely digital and commercial. There is limited reason for much of the wider industry to travel to Los Angeles, particularly people outside the media. It generates a large advertising moment, but not the same broad physical gathering that once defined E3.

E3 was certainly promotional, but its strongest years also created thousands of meetings and informal encounters. Publishers, developers, journalists and other industry figures could arrange appointments, meet unexpectedly, exchange ideas and build a shared account of where games were heading. That human network gave the convention more substance than a sequence of trailers alone.

Gamescom’s hands-on advantage

Gamescom fills that physical role at the end of August in Cologne. It is not a direct replica of E3: because the show is open to the public, its attendance is considerably larger. Its headline presentation, Opening Night Live, is hosted by Keighley, but the convention generally contains fewer brand-new reveals than the June showcase season.

Instead, Gamescom concentrates on finished or near-finished ideas. Much of its software is playable, with a strong emphasis on titles expected to launch within the following two or three months. That makes it valuable to anyone wanting evidence of how a game actually works, rather than another distant promise.

The event also came through COVID and the wider collapse in the events industry in notably healthy condition. It was already better established than E3 before the pandemic, and its organisation was not hampered by the same internal politics that damaged its American counterpart.

Major companies including Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA and Activision continued to attend Gamescom after some had withdrawn from E3 or limited their involvement there. That sustained support has given the Cologne show a level of credibility other gaming conventions have struggled to match.

Geoff Keighley stands with Neil Druckmann, Ashley Johnson, and Troy Baker on the Summer Game Fest stage for a segment about The Last of Us Part I.

From PC niche to industry centre

Gamescom’s longstanding relationship with PC gaming has also worked in its favour. PC gaming was sometimes treated as a niche during the console-dominated 2000s, but its cultural importance has grown considerably since then. Large PC companies such as Riot and Blizzard have consistently supported Gamescom, despite having little involvement with E3.

The convention is even beginning to compete with the Game Developers Conference as a place for business meetings. One major publisher contact described Gamescom as a more pleasant and productive setting for meetings than the San Francisco event.

Online hype is only one part of a modern convention’s purpose. A successful show also gives the industry and its audience somewhere to meet, discuss the state of games, celebrate a common interest and form a shared identity that can later be communicated online.