Games: The Leipzig Games Convention 2008
The future of the largest games show in Europe looks very much in doubt. The organisers look like they will shift to Cologne (after, it is rumoured, trying to get more money from the city of Leipzig) and the city itself seems determined to keep running an event. Our last experience of this sort of thing was in London, where a combination of greed and stupidity saw first two shows, and then nothing at all. How it plays out here remains to be seen but Mstation felt it had to get along to see what the fuss was about...
Train from Berlin
Inter-Connex run a fast, relatively cheap service which is cheaper if booked on the web (around 17 Euros) but we went by a regional Deutsche Bahn train which was overpriced considering the slow journey of about four hours, and lack of couthness of the train itself. The reason we went this way was that Inter-Connex had few, badly timed departures from Berlin. The times going the other way were a lot better and so we returned by the much faster and cheaper Inter-Connex.
Still, the countryside of Brandenberg was very pretty and we even saw one town with an old castle peeping over the trees - it's not too bad a route to take if it's your first time.
Leipzig
The venue is the Leipzigmesse, on the edge of town and close to the airport and an easy tram or train ride from the center. It's a fine venue too even if the air conditioning wasn't up to coping with a mid 20C day and big crowds.
Our first job was to change our credentials so we could have a less restrictive pass and this was accomplished with complete calmness and efficiency - some event organisers in other countries should send their staff here for training (what? training??!).
Going, going ...
The Leipzig Games Convention is the biggest in Europe and one of the main events in the world so imagine our astonishment at the talk that this will be the last event in Leipzig and that it will move to Cologne. This seems a classic case of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. The rumours are that Leipzig didn't come up with a big enough offer to keep an event they helped make. Sounds like extortion to us but we don't have the full story.
... continues below ...
There are five large halls with 547 exhibitors and the first public day saw some 38,000 people through the turnstiles. Major announcements seem to be few but Sony came up with an 160Gb PS3, and a new PSP. Here are some random odds and ends ...
FragFX controller using mouse + other hand controller for PS3 and others coming up - supposed to be faster as well as easier for people used to mouse control... Swiss/Canadian company.
French company Key Solutions specialises in packaging and design and has everything from bio-degradable packaging to metal cases with scary designs, or even wood. This is the sort of thing that is used when launching a new game.
Codemasters and pursuit of p2p'ers - there was a news story about a few games publisher companies gathering together to launch an RIAA style assault on pirate downloaders. This seemed such a silly idea that we thought we'd go in search of company comments. Needless to say, no-one knew anything or was prepared to say anything if they did. In fact, the company reps really didn't know much about games either. They are so used to just talking to a mostly bought and paid for specialist media that they don't feel they have to.
Eki One AI engines and Exait One - AI is one of the interesting background technologies in gaming and it has progressed from simple flocking algorithms to, these days, companies that will arrange apt looks on the faces of background characters. There were a couple of stands there for developers to add something to their middle ware.
Flying Fish Works - In one corner of the business section we came across two Polish guys, Maciej Kowalski and Rafael Budnik, demoing a game set in the late Middle Ages about some sort of agent of the Inquisition having to deal with all sorts of nasty creature-like things. Quite a rich environment it was too. They were there in search of a publisher and good luck to them. It was nice to see smaller teams having a presence at the show.
This did make us wonder though at the use of reasonably common middle-ware to make things. On the one hand you get a look that is recognisable and easily understandable and on the other, you don't stand out. It's a hard one, and, of course, you have to spend way more money and time to build it all yourself.
The Acer Aspire Predator - Acer had a small stand with some hopped up games machines complete with special cases. Leaving aside the cases, which were a bit juvenile, the specs were fairly eye-popping and are worth checking out at your local store. Er, yes, expensive too.
There were a few payments system people around which in itself isn't very interesting at all but one thing caught our eye which was from Wirecard AG, which lets you apply online for a payment card which you load up with money and you're then shipped a prepaid Mastercard which let's you deal with online buying which seems quite handy for kids or people wanting to limit the risk of online buying.
Like any sort of live show, the vibe is the thing, and the one at Leipzig was a happy, questing sort of thing being pushed along by multiple high-powered PA's spitting out an assortment of music as well as MC's yelling about this and that - a sort of good-natured cacophony which the behind-the-scenes trade show people were more than happy to be away from. And behind the scenes was where the interest was - the startups hoping to sell software to the big developers and publishers; small team developers hoping to find a publisher - that sort of thing.
As far as retail is concerned, the interest right now is mostly in the detail. The games are mostly sequels and haven't really caught up with the capabilities of the likes of PS3. All this is not too strange when you consider how expensive it is to get a PS3, XBOX, or even Wii game out the door. This naturally produces a quite large amount of conservatism. We explained to one person who thought the whole scene to be quite gormless that the interest was mostly conceptual and in the backrooms we look for subtle indicators of what is to come. There wasn't much beyond the obvious - ever increasing graphics realism in tandem with hardware capabilities and similar realism in the behaviour of background characters. We await some genre busters from some creative team somewhere.
Tip of the Mstation beanie to the ever pleasant Merseberger strasse people!
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