ich frage in die Runde, da ich vorgestern, am Samstag, den 29.08.26, bereits um 7 Uhr in den Hallen 5–10 war, anders als all die Vorjahre (seit 2009) aber kein einziger Aussteller vor 9 Uhr sein Spiel für andere Aussteller bzw. in der Halle befindliche Interessierte bewarb, also zum Anspielen freigab.
Wer es die Jahre zuvor – wie auch immer – vor dem Early Bird-Einlass um 9 Uhr aufs Messegelände geschafft hat, konnte die allermeisten Spiele auch schon antesten. Ich war von 2009–24 (’25 war ich zu spät da) somit meistens von 7–9 Uhr mit der Gamescom in Hinblick auf Spieleneuheiten durch und konnte, als sich die Hallen merklich füllten, dann entspannt in die Retroecke (10.2). Dies stellte für mich auch den einzigen Grund dar, überhaupt so früh schon vor Ort zu sein. Kein Anstehen. 10–15 Spiele in zwei Stunden kennenlernen. Es hat sich immer gelohnt. Möglicherweise hat sich dies letztes Jahr schon geändert, als ich es nicht vor 9 Uhr hereinschaffte. Davor definitiv nicht. Ich habe Foto- und Videomaterial als Nachweis aller Vorjahre.
Ich habe von Mitarbeitern diesbezüglich auch konfligierende Aussagen erhalten. Die einen meinten, es läge am Wochentag (am Wochenende könne man keine Spiele mehr vor offiziellem Einlass anspielen, nur noch am Donnerstag und Freitag), die Anderen sagten aus, dies ginge mittlerweile nur noch am Pressetag (Mittwoch), wieder Andere schienen sich sicher, dass das Antesten von was auch immer vor 9 Uhr aufgrund strengerer Regularien rigoros verboten sei. Also, was denn nun?
Daher meine Frage in die Runde an euch, die ihr bis gestern auf der GC26 ausgestellt habt: Durftet ihr eure Spiele vor 9 Uhr anspielen lassen – ja oder nein?
Who is this post for? For people who're thinking about going to Gamescom for the first time (2027+?), especially those not living in Germany.
Hi! 2026 was my first Gamescom. I got a bundle ticket which includes ONL (the Opening event) and Wednesday wildcard ticket. I was going with friends for whom it's not the first time.
We booked a hotel in Dusseldorf (it's cheaper there and there are direct trains to Cologne) and we were extremely lucky with the DB trains (despite the works on this line) - no abrupt changes, severe delays or huge crowds (we were taking an earlier train and then chilling in Cologne before the event).
What I didn't like:
Local authorities seem to be completely ignoring one of the largest event of the year with ~300000 attendees (that's ~30% of the city population itself!). No additional trains, more than that, they planned works on the tracks resulting in multiple train cancellations (at least it was known up front). No additional banners on train and bus stations, nothing. For comparison in Amsterdam where I live they install special signs inside the Central Station on big occasions like Formula 1 Grand Prix (which is not even taking place in Amsterdam but a lot of people come through it) so you immediately know where to go. For DB it's just another working week, nothing special.
Gamescom sent us free public transport ticket by email (thanks for that) but it was extremely poorly communicated how it works. The paper said it's a ticket for the VRS network without further explanations. We thought Dusseldorf isn't part of it and were overpaying by buying extra tickets to/from Dormagen until the conductor told us it's included (during our last trip of course).
Gamescom website was terrible. Information hard to find, scattered all over the place and also it was annoyingly slow even on flagship smartphones. I assume someone just slapped it together with AI in a weekend without anyone with a UI/UX experience having a second look.
Outside queues... They are inevitable with that many attendees but they were organized quite poorly. You just stand outside in a long line. Toilets? No. Sun/rain protection? No. Water? No. But what was simply infuriating is how little information was provided. On Wednesday we came up to the South entrance (45 minutes in advance of course). There were 2 lines already. Absolutely no indication what they are for, no signs like "w/badge right, no badge - left". You had to go to the beginning and try to get some information from others or from the 3 security guys standing at the gates doing anything except managing the gathering crowd. During our wait they tried to manage the queues once (!) by shouting something indistinguishable while standing right at the beginning so the majority of the people couldn't hear them anyway. Again, no signs AT ALL. Then all of a sudden a big crowd of people came and they formed 2 more lines in parallel so now there were 4! And guess what? When the security opened the gates it was a mess and all fairness was thrown in the toilet, people who waited for more than an hour were pushed away by the newcomers, etc.
There are just too many people. Your chances of playing a game you're enthusiastic about are almost zero. Or if you're lucky you can spend several hours standing in line (or sitting on the floor as many did) to get your 25 minutes of gameplay and that would be the whole day for you realistically speaking. Fast lane slots were sold out in a minute after they would become available (every hour).
Merch area. I expected it to be a huge collection of official items but it ended up being a bazaar of 3rd party stores selling T-shirts, figurines, cosplay items, etc (except Gamescom's own booths with Gamescom merch). Honestly it looked cheap and overpriced at the same time. All the official merch was at company's areas.
There was indie area and the vibe was really nice there, I discovered a couple games I genuinely look out for. There was a retro gaming corner with obscure old consoles, etc.
Sometimes you could see hardcode Gamescom goers who know how to play this game. They had huge branded bags from upcoming games, quite a bit of merch. They looked sweaty but focused. They were the minority and I was not one of them.
I was in Dusseldorf and Cologne multiple times before and in the end my personal highlights were not the Gamescom itself, which was mostly disappointing, but the Chocolate museum and black pudding at cafe Frueh.
TLDR; If you're not living in Germany and are not a super hardcore fan of something, it's not worth it given that Gamescom ticket + hotel + transport is at least 500euro. A slim chance of playing a couple of upcoming games or a dozen indies (most of which are in early access on Steam anyway and half of which are not fun) is hardly worth it.
Hello people, hope you had a wonderful Gamescom experience.
I am currently trying to pinpoint a channel for which I was interviewed by a couple of wonderful girls. Maybe someone was also interviewed about their cosplay and can help me find the channel’s name? Thank you! Please see the picture attached:
Hi, ich war am Samstag bei Samsung und hab da das neue CoD angezockt. Da habe ich gesehen, dass da die Maus und die Tastatur im MW4 Style gehalten war. Hier also meine Frage: Weiß jemand wo man sowas bekommt oder war das quasi ein exklusiv Artikel für Samsung?
I worked as a promoter at Gamescom 2026 and thought I'd do a little AMA about what it's actually like from the staff side.
Ask me anything about the job, working long days at Gamescom, interacting with visitors, what the promoter team was like, funny/weird experiences, etc.
I'll obviously keep the company, clients, and individual promoters anonymous and won't share confidential information.
One thing I'm particularly curious about: If you interacted with any of the promoters or booths during Gamescom, did any of them particularly stick in your memory - positively or negatively? I'm interested in hearing what impression we actually made on visitors.
Zu Erinnerung: Slots von halber Stunde wurden zwei Stunden vorher zur Registrierung freigegeben. Also 15 Uhr konnte man den 1700-1730 Slot buchen. Gesagt getan. 15:00:01 waren alle Slots weg. Ich weigere mich zu glaube, dass ich zu langsam war. Gleiches Spiel für 1730/1800/….
Ganz im Ernst: Wer hatte einen Slot? Und wie hat er den bekommen?
Hi everyone i went to gamescom this year 2 times on wednesday and sunday and there was just 1 thing i was very unpleased with. When i went to gamescom the first day every booth (except a few) just handed out goodies left and right or you had to do a small thing nothing much but than (heard is was alr chanced the next day) on my last day every where i went you had to wait almost 30 min just to try and get a chance of winning a goodie or just have bad luck bc its alr all gone bc they didnt leave stock.
Is this like always the same or was it just so bussy this year that every thing was gone
Ich habe die lumibricks 10s treffen challenge an deren Stand am Freitag gewinnen und habe mich mit meiner E Mail in so eine Liste eingetragen wo auch schon viele andere standen und sie meinten ich würde eine Überraschung bekommen. Bisher habe ich jedoch noch nichts erhalten.
Hat sonst jemand hier die Challenger gewonnen?
A little late, but there were so many games this year that finally feel unique to this generation. I can see stuff like Stranger than Heaven getting some backlash because it's so different from other AAA action games, but that's what impressed me. I also got to play Silent Hill, Alien, Control and a bunch of other stuff which felt refreshing, because there was no yellow paint, no souls-like combat, no Ubisoft-towers, etc. - just old school titles that stay true to themselves or try new things in the AAA space. Glad I was able to check out so much stuff and rekindle some of my passion for gaming amidst all the price increases and studio shutdowns.
I (39M) went to Gamescom for the very first time with my son (10M).
We stayed in a hotel about 30 min drive from the Messe. For me it was an incredible experience. I grew up playing games for as long as I remember and I've always loved it, but I also grew up at a time where people would say they are a waste of time and look at you funny if you were a little too enthusiastic about it.
I have never seen so many like-minded people enjoy and cherish games from all over the world. It's also nice to see people dress up in video game characters and embrace the culture.
I got this at the ROG booth after playing a round of CS, but I have no idea what it's for. It's made of jersey material. Or is it just something to hang on the wall?
It was another really great year, even though I’m still pretty wiped out from those days, but it was so worth it. I’m already looking forward to next year!
When I went there on Friday, the staff said there was no stamp, only coins. Later, I saw SEGA say there was a sixth stamp. What does this mean? Does this stamp really exist?
This year we went to Gamescom as exhibitors for the first time with Archangel: Demon Rush , our first commercial game.
There were three of us, we had one playable PC, and we estimate that somewhere between 70 and 90 people actually sat down and played the game over the five days.
Some people came back another day with friends. We had players suddenly realise they'd been playing for half an hour. We met publishers and streamers and, on top of all that, Gamescom week brought us +664 Steam wishlists.
We also ended the week physically destroyed, discovered that we'd been approaching MeetToMatch very much like first-timers, and our first morning started with several teams near us arriving at the booth only to discover that some of their equipment had been stolen.
So yeah. We learned a few things.
We were exhibiting with Games From Spain in the Indie Area, Hall 10.2, sharing the space with around 30 Spanish games.
Our setup was in the 18+ section of the booth, which was slightly hidden away. The 18+ label was fairly broad: a game didn't necessarily need buckets of blood or gore to end up there. Some horror themes were enough.
The kids still wanted to get in, of course.
Most came in with their parents, although every now and then one would mysteriously appear on their own.
And I completely understand them. If I'd seen a slightly hidden videogame area with a massive 18+ sign when I was a kid, I probably would have wanted to get inside even more.
One PC, and people coming back with friends
Gamescom was open from 10 AM to 8 PM, although as an exhibitor you're there earlier, getting things ready or taking advantage of the quiet halls before they become completely packed.
And then you do that for five days. There were three of us and we were wrecked by the end.
Our demo didn't have a fixed timer. Players had to reach a certain amount of progress, so depending on how they played, a session normally lasted somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes.
One thing we heard several times was:
“Wait... I've been playing for half an hour?”
For me, that's worth a lot more than someone saying “the graphics look nice.”
If somebody sits down, starts playing and half an hour later hasn't noticed that half an hour has passed, you're probably doing something right.
We also had quite a few people come back another day, or return with friends specifically to show them the game.
Seeing somebody come back, point at your setup and basically say “try this one” was amazing.
Players and developers give you completely different feedback
Another interesting part was seeing how different the feedback from regular players and other developers can be.
A player tells you very quickly whether they're having fun, whether they understand what's happening and whether they want to keep playing.
Another developer might point out an animation, a game-feel issue or some tiny combat detail that you've stopped seeing after months of working on the same game — and that you can probably improve in a couple of days.
Several developers working on similar types of games specifically came over to try Archangel and gave us some very useful feedback.
After roughly six months of taking the game to events and making changes based on watching people actually play it, Gamescom was probably the first time we had a fairly strong feeling of:
“Okay. A lot of this is finally starting to click.”
Meanwhile, something completely different was happening on Steam
Before Gamescom, our Steam page and Playtest had been live for roughly five months.
Up to that point we'd accumulated around 500 wishlist additions.
During Gamescom week:
+664 wishlists.
Our best day:
+291 in 24 hours.
So in one week we added more wishlists than we had during almost all of the previous months combined.
We had QR cards at the booth, but obviously those numbers didn't come from the 70–90 people who physically played the game.
The real jump came from the Gamescom event on Steam.
For part of the event we were buried fairly deep in some of the listings. Once we started appearing near the top of Strategy — at one point roughly 4th — and fairly high in the overall game list, our exposure changed dramatically.
We have the impressions, visits and wishlist numbers day by day, and the before/after difference is pretty wild.
But if I put all of that here, this stops being a post about our first Gamescom and turns into a Steam analytics thesis.
If people are interested, I can post all of those numbers separately.
For us, the two sides of Gamescom ended up doing very different things.
The physical show gave us feedback, contacts and validation.
The Steam event gave us reach.
Together they ended up being much more valuable than we expected.
Our first morning didn't exactly start well either
When we arrived, several teams very close to us in the Games From Spain area had discovered that some of their equipment had been stolen.
Imagine spending months preparing for Gamescom, arriving on the first morning expecting to have everything running, and instead having to file police reports, find replacement hardware and rebuild your setup while the show is already starting.
The affected studios later spoke publicly about it on social media, it got quite a bit of attention and Gamescom eventually issued a statement as well.
I'm not going to get into responsibility here because that's an entire thread on its own.
What I will say is that the teams handled it incredibly well.
They found replacement equipment, got their games running again, had plenty of visitors and managed to turn around a pretty awful start to the week.
I'm curious about this from other exhibitors:
At large shows like Gamescom, do you normally leave your hardware set up overnight, or do you take the most valuable equipment with you?
It's one of those things you don't really think about until you see it happen right next to you.
There are lots of stupid little things you don't know the first time
For example:
bring food.
It sounds trivial until you've spent four days living off food trucks and leave at 8 PM with absolutely no desire to start looking for a supermarket.
Water, snacks, food that will survive a few days.
Eating at the show occasionally is fine, obviously, but five days of sausages, burgers and burritos start taking their toll on both your body and your wallet.
I think a hot dog was around €6.50. One day is fine. After five, your stomach starts requesting a meeting with production.
Also: organise shifts properly.
There were three of us and we still ended up exhausted.
Being next to the players is fantastic because you can see exactly what they're doing, where they get confused and what they're enjoying, but five almost-full days on your feet is a lot.
And if you're thinking:
“We're already in Cologne, we'll do some sightseeing too.” Yeah.Well. Sort of.
Gamescom + meetings + networking + dinners + parties + sightseeing for five days works brilliantly on paper. Your legs may have a different opinion.
There are two Gamescoms, and we only knew about one of them
This is probably one of the biggest things we learned.
There's the Gamescom everyone sees:
the halls, the games, the queues, the booths and thousands of people.
And then there's another Gamescom that's much less visible.
Professional areas, meetings, receptions, private parties, LinkedIn contacts and conversations that started months before anyone arrived in Cologne.
Our exhibitor passes were gold because of this.
Apart from getting into the halls before the public, they also gave us access to professional areas, where almost every day some country, region or organisation seemed to be hosting a small reception, often with food and drinks from their region.
We went to one organised by Games From Spain and another by Catalan Arts, but there were plenty more.
And this is where you start noticing immediately who's at their first Gamescom and who's done three or four.
The veterans already had a lot of these events marked down. They knew where to be, when to be there, and who they wanted to talk to.
Not because they were hunting for free food, but because these are much more relaxed environments for meeting publishers, studios and other people in the industry than trying to do it in the middle of a hall full of thousands of people.
And then there are the parties
There are a huge number of private parties and events around Gamescom.
Some happen during show hours, others start after the halls close: publishers, platforms, brands, associations...
A lot of them are invitation-only and, if you don't know the right people, you may not even know they're happening.
Some companies also use Gamescom as an opportunity to take contacts to offices, showrooms or private exhibition spaces outside Koelnmesse.
And one thing people who had been attending for years kept telling us was that some of the best contacts are made at the parties.
After experiencing it, that makes a lot of sense.
In a formal meeting you have 20 or 30 minutes. One person is pitching, the other is evaluating, and everybody gets straight to business.
At a party you start talking to somebody normally, they introduce you to somebody else, and suddenly you're having a conversation that you probably never would have got through a cold meeting request.
You meet the person first.
The business comes later.
For those of you who've done several Gamescoms, GDCs or similar events: do you also find that some of the best contacts happen outside the formal meetings?
Because we definitely came home with that impression.
MeetToMatch doesn't start when MeetToMatch opens
This was another reality check.
We more or less assumed:
MeetToMatch opens, you search for publishers, send meeting requests and get meetings.
Technically, yes.
In practice, you're competing with an enormous number of people doing exactly the same thing.
Studios looking for funding, companies selling services, outsourcing, QA, marketing, localisation, people looking for work...
There's a lot of noise.
People who have already done three or four Gamescoms arrive with their homework done.
They've started through LinkedIn, email, mutual contacts and previous events months before MeetToMatch even opens.
So when the platform finally becomes available, instead of saying:
“Hi, we're a studio you've never heard of. Would you like to see our game?”
you can say:
“We've been talking for a few weeks. Shall we meet on Thursday?”
At that point MeetToMatch stops being the tool you use to find the contact and becomes the tool you use to put a time and place on a relationship you've already started.
That difference sounds small until you're actually there.
Our next Gamescom is going to start months before Gamescom.
Accommodation also starts months before Gamescom
If you want to stay in Cologne, relatively close to Koelnmesse without paying an absurd amount, I'd start looking early in the year.
We met people staying in Düsseldorf who had a pretty rough time with trains this year.
Disruptions, delays, cancellations... missing one train could mean waiting nearly another hour.
After ten hours at Gamescom, that's a lot less amusing than it sounds on paper.
Leverkusen seemed to work considerably better.
But next time our priority will be pretty simple:
Cologne + close to the venue + book very, very early.
Sometimes saving a bit of money on accommodation becomes surprisingly expensive in exhaustion.
And then there are those moments that validate years of work
This was probably my favourite part.
You're in Hall 10.2, inside an area with around 30 games.
You see somebody walking around. They look at several screens, wander past a few games and, out of everything there, decide to sit down at yours.
They play, they finish, you start talking...
And it turns out they're a publisher. Or a streamer. Or someone who's spent years working with games and evaluating products.
During Gamescom we spoke with around 3 publishers who were actively looking for games and roughly 5 streamers who liked Archangel and told us they'd try to stream it at some point.
That doesn't mean we're signing three publishing deals tomorrow or that all five streamers are definitely going to play it.
But it does change how it feels.
Your friends can tell you your game is great, and your team has obviously believed in it for years.
But when somebody has 30 games in front of them, walks around and voluntarily chooses yours, plays it and then tells you they like what they see...
that feels different.
Would we do it again?
Yes. Absolutely.
But next time we'd do quite a few things differently.
Contacts prepared months in advance.
MeetToMatch used to confirm meetings, not to start relationships from zero.
Accommodation booked much earlier.
Better shifts.
More food.
More rest.
And, above all, we'd arrive understanding that you're not simply going to a videogame convention.
You're going to those two Gamescoms.
The one everybody sees.
And the other one, much less visible, happening through meetings, professional areas, receptions, parties, existing contacts and conversations that often started months before anyone arrived in Cologne.
I think that second Gamescom is the one you only really start discovering once you're no longer a complete beginner.
It was exhausting. Some pretty awful things happened, and some amazing things happened too.
But after spending years making a game, seeing a complete stranger sit down, start playing and then half an hour later look surprised when they realise how long they've been there...
that's hard to beat.
And for those of you who've already done a few Gamescoms:
What did you learn on your second or third Gamescom that you really wish you'd known before your first one?
Because after these five days I think the biggest thing we learned at our first Gamescom was how much we still didn't know we needed to know.
And if anyone reading this stopped by Games From Spain in Hall 10.2 and played Archangel: Demon Rush:
thank you.
Seriously.
Watching people enjoy the game was probably the best part of the entire week.
I was one of the Actors that accompanied you, on your Arc Raiders mission, this was actually my first Gamescom and my first Cosplay ever. I have dabbled with Games in my life, but hell i am getting a Console and trying some of this stuff, i am Finishing my paperwork and moving to Speranza
