GamesCom versus E3 and TGS

[Shifty Geezer]

In an interesting development in the gaming community, the recently held GamesCom was by far and away the largest gaming expo ever. Hitting 245,000 visitors, this eclipses E3's largest attendance which was 70,000 in 2005, 40,000 this year, and significantly outdid TGS 2008 at 200,000. And this is GameCom's first year! (Admittedly lots of Leipzigers would have gone, and Leipzig had already managed 200k.)

The question is, how should the industry respond? Do we really want three shows in the period of six months, instead of spread more evenly throughout the year? Should more key anouncements be moved to GamesCom instead of E3 and TGS? Can the console companies pick a show they want to 'win' and place all their eggs there for biggest impact? eg. If Natal 'won' E3, PS3Slim 'won' GamesCom. What about game developers and publishers? I feel attendance at one show in the middle makes more sense than covering both E3 and TGS. I'm not sure how important the regional aspect is as most coverage is via media. When it comes to spreading by word of mouth through user experience, you want to reach the largest number of people, which requires the biggest venue. What about media coverage? Coverage was far higher for E3 than GamesCom, presumably in considerable part because GamesCom was a European E3 recycling content for the region. If the media sticks with the earliest show, that'll be the show with the most coverage and most importance.

Or is anything happening in Europe just an inconsequential sideline, and it's nice for the little Eurozoners to see some games, but the rest of the world really isn't that interested in what's going on here?

 

[Arwin]

I talked about this on the podcast a little bit as well, but the upshot is simple: Europe is a large continent, with a lot of people buying a lot of games. Every region has its specific interests, and now every (major) region has its own annual trade fair and conference opportunity. In addition to being able to announce and show stuff specific for the region, as well as let people in the region test new games (and GT5, Final Fantasy XIII and XIV, to name a few, are big new things that were playable in Germany), the companies can spread their information over three different occasions over four months, putting different things in the spotlight at the different occasions. BlizCon also did a nice hookup, having their conference broadcast live to an audience of 20.000 at gamescom.

The amount of specific information that is relevant to Europe in terms of the big announcements is already becoming surprisingly big. Announcements like vidzone, the video store, BBC iPlayer and their various national equivalents are all currently only truly relevant in Europe, for instance. And showing off games like FIFA and PES is also very suitable to Europe, etc.

Now in terms of press coverage, they may have had a small backlash from last year, when quite a few U.S. journalist showed up only to mostly see what was there at E3 before. So this year, fewer of them showed up, but there was actually a lot of real news to be had this time. Listenup showed up in full force though at least. And they had very high praise for the show.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What surprised me when writing the above is that Leipzig already outshone E3 in terms of numbers, but wasn't a big deal across gaming websites, and wasn't a huge deal for the gaming companies. I guess the media goes where the big reveals are, and the big reveals happen where the media goes, and as such E3 is and always will be the place to be.

 

[liolio]

My take on this is that next year show should be bigger. I read some days ago that Germany passed Uk as the biggest market in EU. Most likely UK or Germany are both as big market as Japan if not bigger. France market is not that tiny. We need a big european show, this time of the year is perfect I'm sure some gamers in vacations make the travel to Cologne, as it's a nive opportunity to mix tourism, video games and ... beer
I vote for the BES (I patent it Big European Show) to take place in Belgium instead of Germany by the way

 

[silhouette]

E3 is invite only... It is not intended for general audience. I cannot go for instance even if I want to

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My take on this is that next year show should be bigger. I read some days ago that Germany passed Uk as the biggest market in EU.

That was actually due to a big downturn in the UK rather than Germany growing. The UK has been the largest by far in Europe for years. however it'd be rather un-European to host a European show here seeing as we're cut off from the mainland and rather out of the way. Germany is pretty central.

Most likely UK or Germany are both as big market as Japan if not bigger.

Nope. Europe recently outgrew the US, but all were in the ballpark of $11 - 12 billion or whatever it was (linky).

E3 is invite only... It is not intended for general audience. I cannot go for instance even if I want to

They reopened the doors to the public this year. Do they exercise control over who can buy tickets?

 

[Rangers]

I really like the idea of a more generalized "Europe e3" type event. This seemed more in that vein than Leipzeg. It's a question of branding. I hope it grows.

That said, it was nowhere near E3 in terms of public reveals and such. Listening to the listenup podcast, it seems a ton of stuff actually got revealed/playable (for example, a new FF13 demo in a whole new area was shown, behind closed doors). But it seems only journalists got to see too much of it. That seems to be the disconnect.

But yeah, good start.

 

[MrFloopy]

They reopened the doors to the public this year. Do they exercise control over who can buy tickets?

If I remember correctly, E3 has always been trade only for all but one day of the expo.

Wasn't open to the public at all this year:

from the official website faq:

Is the show open to the public?
No, E3 Expo is not open to the general public. E3 Expo is a trade event and only professionals from the industry will be allowed to attend. Individuals who are not able to document their direct and current professional affiliation to the interactive entertainment industry are not qualified to attend E3 Expo. All E3 Expo attendees are required to show government-issued photo ID (such as a driver's license or passport) upon request.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Dang, everyone beat me to it. Yeah unlike TGS (and Gamescom from the sounds of it), E3 is meant to be for professionals only.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

Nope. Europe recently outgrew the US, but all were in the ballpark of $11 - 12 billion or whatever it was (linky).

very surprising
I would of picked europe -> US -> asia
but in fact its asia -> europe -> US

2006 - SW $11.4 billion asia (prolly 12->12.5 for the same period)
2007 - SW $11.3 billion europe
2007 - SW $10.6 billion US

2007 - HW $8.8 billion europe
2007 - HW $8.6 billion US

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If I remember correctly, E3 has always been trade only for all but one day of the expo.

Okay. But that's still where the 70,000 figure comes from, right? And that's a change they wanted, because the previous two years of only trade, the industry felt the show lost its edge and relevance. So getting people in came back.

I guess though it'll remain the platform of choice for big news because that is its emphasis. It's the ESA's show after all.

 

[TheWretched]

Having been to this years GC, I must say I was very disappointed.

Problem was/is the german youth protection laws, where every game that was rated USK16 and up needed to be shown in a closed off area... And those had HUGE lines. ALL of them!

Hopefully, I'll be able to go on the business days next year, which should not be as full as it was on friday.

But seeing stuff like Eyepet in action was pretty cool though^^

 

[deepbrown]

If Microsoft and Nintendo take a hold of it as Sony has done (Sony has made relatively big announcements in Europe before) then GamesCom will be even more significant and bigger.

 

[MrFloopy]

Okay. But that's still where the 70,000 figure comes from, right? And that's a change they wanted, because the previous two years of only trade, the industry felt the show lost its edge and relevance. So getting people in came back.

I guess though it'll remain the platform of choice for big news because that is its emphasis. It's the ESA's show after all.

It was still not open to under 18's etc. What did happen was that how closely affiliated to the industry you had to be got quite broad and so they tightened that up.

For comparison GamesCon only had 17000 trade professions there. Having been to quite a few e3's, I don't think there would be much doubt that E3 typically way outstripped that number.

I guess when "E3 demo" stops appearing on project schedules you can say some other show has taken that title.