gamescom-09 posts

It was just the event's first year yet the debut of Gamescom in Cologne Germany has to be considered a massive success. Today the event's organizers said the show brought in 245,000 people over the five days of the event. Last year's Leipzig Games Convention had "just" 203,00 folks show up.

That officially makes Gamescom the single largest game convention on Earth with just one year under its belt (E3 has just 41,000 people this year and PAX had under 60,000 last year) and as you might expect the organizers are planning to do it again next year. The 2010 version of the event will be held on August 18-22 in Cologne.

It looks like the fight between the two major consumer-trade conventions in Germany has finally come to a head. GamesCOM, the new event to be held in the city of Cologne, has announced they have switched their dates from early September to August 19-23, 2009. That happens to be the same dates as the Leipzig Games Convention which last August had over 200,000 attendees.

GamesCOM's advantage is that they have the support of the industry consortium BIU which in theory means most of the major game publishers would want to attend their event. However, organizers of the Leipzig Games Convention claimed after last August's event they also had broad support to attend their show. Clearly, one or the other has to give in. Which will it be?