A first-hand review of Gamescom 2024
30 August 2024
by PikPok CEO and Co-Founder, Mario Wynands
Gamescom was my fifth overseas conference for the year, behind DICE, GDC SF, Reboot Blue, and Gamescom LATAM, which has given me a great opportunity to track the change in industry sentiment on a fairly granular basis.
“Vibes” isn’t exactly a science based metric, but when actual people are making funding and publishing decisions based on a combination of commercial factors, personal judgement, and emotion it is helpful to understand where their heads might be at. And I’m happy to report that I’m continuing to see a gradual shift towards positivity, optimism, a willingness to engage, and an appetite to move forward.
Of course, we aren’t back to where we were, and there is a large gap to close before we even return to something resembling “workable” or sustainable.
The last couple of years has been very challenging, with consumer spending down, the cost of development going up, and VCs and publishers generally holding back. Deal flow has been slow, if you could even get deals done at all. Most companies still aren’t at the point of making firm commitments yet, they don’t have full confidence. But the wheels are starting to turn again.
In meeting with all manner of companies throughout the events I’ve attended, the trend has been obvious, and Gamescom seems to have marked a point where big companies are now actively “doing” rather than “waiting”. Gone are the excuses of waiting for the next quarterly budget or the upcoming strategic offsite. Projects and companies are now being proactively sought out and actively evaluated for publishing and distribution, or funding and investment. They (mostly) still aren’t signing quite yet, and any deals which are going through are smaller in nature like seed round VC rather than series A or B funding, but the groundwork is happening and things are being primed to move forward. The growing activity is due in part to the macro environment, inflation and interest rates are coming down globally, and games markets are seeing upticks in spending.
Gamescom itself has record breaking attendance. Early signs of a return to gaming growth. And there will be pressure on the public gaming companies in particular to capitalise and demonstrate their own growth. Despite the obvious anecdotal and market shifts though, “Survive to 25” remains the consensus mantra among devs, recognising there is a confidence gap to close and that even at the best of times deals might take 6 months to get done.
The pessimism from the start of the year has been swapped out for a quiet optimism, and Q1 2025 is where industry players, including myself, are pinning their hopes on a more visible and tangible return to form. GDC SF 2025 in particular is expected to be fertile hunting ground for developers. Publishers and platforms have a large hole to fill in their forward looking slates arising from previously canceled projects and a lack of new greenl-it titles, so they need good content to plug into.
VCs too are obliged to deploy their funds they’ve been holding onto. And the media is always looking for a scoop on the next breakout hit, especially when there have been some very big swings and misses this year.
In the mean time, manage your spending closely, work those contacts, make those pitches, and make sure you are on the publishers short list. Scrutiny remains higher than ever before, and that bar isn’t coming back down, so you really need your numbers dialled in with detailed budgets, timelines, development plans, market positioning, and whatever favourable supporting metrics you can scrape together.
Keep building your brand, your community, and your wishlists. Survive to 2025, and get those games out there. It is going to be the best year for the NZ industry yet.