Gamescom 2022 in Cologne: no summer like back then!

Canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, tens of thousands of gaming enthusiasts are making a pilgrimage to Cologne, Germany for the first time since the beginning of the Corona crisis to attend the world’s largest games fair Gamescom. But it’s not summer like it used to be…

Although – what else would one do in lockdown – video games have experienced a boom in recent years, the first Gamescom since the beginning of the pandemic is not a brilliant comeback. Not because of the number of visitors: Within seven days after the start of sales, 60,000 tickets changed hands, and interest in the first post-pandemic Gamescom is great. However, many large, popular exhibitors are missing this year. Those skipping Gamescom this year Neither Sony with its PlayStation nor Nintendo with its immensely successful switch console, which can be used at home on the TV set as well as on the go, are represented with their own booth in Cologne this year . And numerous other greats are also missing – from Activision-Blizzard (“Call of Duty”, “World of Warcraft”) to Electronic Arts (“FIFA”, “Battlefield”) to CD Projekt Red (“The Witcher”, “Cyberpunk 2077”). Microsoft on a spending spreeOne of the few major exhibitors using the Gamescom stage is Microsoft’s Xbox games division. It represents a major change in the industry and is increasingly relying on a subscription model à la Netflix for distribution with the “Xbox Game Pass”. The result is an unprecedented spending spree: Last year, Microsoft completed the acquisition of the gaming giant Bethesda (“Doom”, “Fallout”, “Elder Scrolls”), and is currently working on the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. Everything for a subscription range that is as comprehensive as possible. How “Indies” fill the gap Lucky for the trade fair visitors: The gaps left by Sony, Nintendo & Co. were quickly filled. Independent development studios, often one-man companies, are – see video above – more strongly represented at Gamescom than ever before with their independent games (“indies”). Experimentation is being carried out here, developers are daring to tackle projects that would not stand a chance with large corporations with sprawling marketing departments. Gamescom 2022 in pictures: As reported by Heise.de, there is another phenomenon at post-pandemic Gamescom: The game genre of simulators – from the realistic racing game to the “flight simulator” – is bigger than ever. Once decried as an inaccessible niche program, this category has apparently gained many new fans in recent years. Simulators and the associated hardware are correspondingly widespread this year. Hardly any large blockbuster simulators and creative “indie” titles compensate the trade fair visitors to some extent for the low density of new blockbuster announcements. Without the giants of the industry, smaller providers such as Funcom are increasingly in the limelight, where they are causing a stir with a new online game in the “Dune” universe. A new adventure of the Sega hedgehog Sonic, the dark sci-fi horror game “The Callisto Protocol”, or the Harry Potter game “Hogwarts Legacy” attract attention at Gamescom. The money is not earned with gamesPossible reason for the low blockbuster density: In the gaming industry – 9.8 billion euros in sales in 2021 in Germany alone – money is no longer earned with large game projects or hardware. With the rise of the smartphone and its simple free games including shops for digital knick-knacks, the industry has learned that the big bucks can be found in this area. And today even wants to sell digital goods to buyers of 80-euro full-price games. Even the up-and-coming game subscriptions, which have been the subject of so much debate, are negligible in terms of sales – see infographic. The development shapes the thinking in the management of the corporations. Decision-makers prefer to milk existing and proven popular game brands in shallow smartphone games rather than create entirely new digital marvels for PC and consoles at high risk and enormous expense.

Reference-www.krone.at