We did a last minute trip to Gamescom this year in Cologne, Germany. Main reasoning for the trip was to meet up with some current projects and also to see the current landscape of games in production and coming out soon.
As its quite easy to isolate your self when working on projects as you only see a small cross section of games that your working on or on social media but its great to see the bigger picture at these events, and to see what the next 6 months / 1 year will look like for releases.
This was first time at Gamescom but I had heard for lots of people before going it was both ‘massive’ and ‘mental’. It certainly was both of these and did not disappoint. The sheer scale of the bigger companies booths and installations was wild and very cool to see.
I knew I needed to get photos and see these as I first arrived as otherwise there would be no chance as on most of these booths the que was full as soon as the event opened, so they had to close the line up as they wouldn't get through everyone before the event shut. This was mad to witness but understand the hype as most of these games were first time hands on experience.
Having access to the business side of the event was really useful as it was much calmer in those areas and gave the opportunity for sit down and coffee in calmer environment.
The indie side of things was equally amazing and huge, I kept finding new areas to explore as my time at event progressed so this was fun. I got to play and speak to loads of developers and publishers which was a good chance of pace from normal day to day work on our projects.
Travelling to Cologne and the event was really easy and I would highly recommend attending the event if you are thinking of it. Using English was fine but some of my GSCE German came out from the depths to help in certain cases.
I did however have an issue with my connecting flight back to the UK and had to stay in Ibiza airport for an extra few hours which wasn't too bad but a lesson learnt!
If your on the fence of going I would recommended it but would suggest trying to go to the earlier days of the event when it opens as it is a lot more calmer, but it was a really cool experience and would hopefully be going next year.
PS go check out the Cologne Cathedral as it is something straight out of Bloodbourne and was so crazy to see in real life (and its only around the corner from Gamescom!
-Jack