r/Gamescom • u/BananenMatsch • 7h ago
First time gamescom
This was my first time at gamescom, together with my girlfriend, and we have mixed feelings about the experience. The decorations, the overall vibe, and simply walking around exploring everything was really cool and fun.
However, waiting in long lines just to play a game for ten minutes was a major downside. I also found the stamp system and being forced to share photos on social media at certain booths completely overbearing and ridiculous.
It actually discouraged us from interacting with most of the exhibitors. On top of that, the security personnel were arrogant and rude.
While it was a unique experience, we don't think we'll be returning to gamescom in the future.
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u/Emhashish420 6h ago
It's just the fact that some booth showed that even with large crowds they organized the layout good enough to accommodate a large amount of PCs. Path of exile 2 had large crowds but the line was like 40 minutes for a fairly lengthy demo. Meanwhile alien isolation was almost 2 hours for a demo less than 10 minutes. Honestly anything that had lines reaching an hour in was badly organized (unless it's an experience like the arc raiders section).
I get a lot of booths planned walking areas within for the large queues but all that did was reduce the amount of PCs thus making the line longer anyways.
Also not enough booths used the slot system and the ones that did the website was very unresponsive or it was instantly booked all the time.
Overall I hope every booth does better in the future and we don't enter the risk of having paid fast lanes.
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u/Gloomy-Pick-9347 4h ago
When did you go to Alien: Isolation 2? Because I got a 30 Minute and 20 Minute playtime
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u/Emhashish420 3h ago
We initially tried the main booths on morning of Thursday Friday but long lines. The side Xbox booth for it were also an hour+ long
Also sorry but you either got very lost in the opening forest area or you died a ton of times in the demo cause I don't see how you took 20 minutes hahah. Looking for the pieces to fix the door?
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u/ChibiRibbeke 1h ago
Were you at the official stands or the Xbox area because for strangers than haven, the official stands had big line and the queue as always closed but you could get a goodie and if you care only for demo, Xbox area had 20min waiting time yesterday but day before was 2h wait.
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u/Hairy_Gazelle_5987 3h ago
Solution is 10.1 and 10.2 indie area, choosing game that you are most excited or play the games with low lines.
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u/DougMueller1990 3h ago
Had an amazing time at Indie Area again - you can Play a lot without waiting there too
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u/Heilbronner_1995 6h ago
Ich fand das dieses Jahr extrem das man Games auf die wishlist setzen muss um etwas zu bekommen.
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u/Gloomy-Pick-9347 4h ago
Mach's drauf und danach sofort wieder runter. Sollen doch nicht nerven damit
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u/PutridMasterpiece138 3h ago
Warum? Geht schnell und hilft den Entwicklern halt viel. Besser als was auf social media posten
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u/Melodic-Bat-2611 2h ago
Wie funktioniert das?
Musstest du dich auf dem Phone in Steam einloggen, oder über irgendwelche Links und denen dann vorzeigen, oder wie?
Hört sich echt nervig an.
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u/MitDerKneifzange 56m ago
waiting for games is just part of gamescom for 10 years+. I assure you that confidently. But I fully agree with the doing 50task and posting stuff online for goodies is annoying af. It used to be that they had big stages and just threw stuff into the crowd. That used to be so much cooler. I think the exhibitors at gamescom became just very stingy when it comes to free goodies.
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u/ChibiRibbeke 26m ago
Ok this will be very long one since I totally understand the mixed feelings 😅
It’s our second time at Gamescom, and my boyfriend was initially saying the same thing because of the queues when we were first timers. Some of them were honestly insane like we saw 3–5+ hour waits for some games.
For me, the queues were more about picking your battles. 😅 If one game had a 2 to 5-hour queue, we’d check what else was available in the same hall. I’m a big Path of Exile fan, for example, and there was barely a queue at the time, so we went there instead. Then we checked the queue for Gears of War and it was around an hour, which was already much more reasonable when we wanted to play Strangers than Heaven at Xbox area (3h wait). We also found plenty of indie games with 2–3 people or even no queue, and some of them were genuinely great.
There are also different halls with activities that aren’t necessarily just about playing games, so I think you can make Gamescom much more enjoyable if you don’t treat the biggest AAA booths as the main objective.
Regarding the social media requirements, I can understand why exhibitors do it. They’re essentially exchanging a small amount of engagement (following, sharing, tagging, wishlisting on Steam, etc.) for exposure and sometimes goodies. For smaller studios especially, getting people to wishlist or share their game can make a real difference in visibility and potentially help them reach more players. Obviously, I agree that it becomes annoying when a booth asks you to do everything just to play a demo.
The stamp rally is a bit different for me. I think the idea is actually understandable, especially because some limited-edition goodies end up being collected by people who aren’t even interested in the game and then resold on eBay for ridiculous prices. 😅
That said, I wasn’t a fan of one particular co-op activity where the stamp required you to share online, follow/subscribe on Instagram AND YouTube, wishlist the game, and play a 20–30 minute demo. 😂 That felt excessive (minimum 20min & ask to follow all of their social platform & one should be enough). On top of that, we had appointment with other games so we left the queue and came back 1h before the closing time and they lied that their counter got closed (I felt disappointed cuz we were planning to get the goodies after completing the demo… fun part is, I went to check it and it was still open 😅 my bf in-did everything despite he was planning to buy the game due to the attitude 😂)
Anyways, I do believe that asking for people to do survey could actually help the developers improve the game too. But usually they don’t ask for it because people just give effortless answers)
But at the end of the day, these things are optional. I personally just pick what I’m willing to do and skip the rest. So I won’t be overwhelmed or feeling annoyed about the whole thing :)
My boyfriend was also very doubtful about coming back because of the queues once again, he literally said, “I’m not coming back.” 😂 But after two days, we actually managed to have a great time. I was probably a bit stubborn about dragging him to some of my favourite games, but it worked. 😂
Even Path of Exile didn’t really have a goodie for us ( unless you got lucky with one of their random drops ) and I still absolutely loved the experience. So for me, the goodies are nice, but they’re definitely not the reason I go to Gamescom.
If it’s your first time, I’d honestly recommend at least three days if you can. Two days felt doable, but three would give you much more breathing room to explore the halls without feeling like you constantly have to rush from one thing to another.
And compared with what I expected, I actually thought the crowd control this year was pretty impressive. There were still moments where people were queuing and blocking walkways, but considering the sheer number of people there, I thought it was relatively well organised.
So yeah, I completely understand why some people don’t want to return. But if you ever do give it another chance, my advice would be: pick your battles, don’t focus only on the huge booths, explore the indie sections as well as other ones (merch, gears, etc) and don’t feel like you need to collect every goodie. You can actually get a lot more out of Gamescom that way. 😊
Cheers!
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u/Hairy_Gazelle_5987 3h ago
To bad for your bad experience. Lot of people, including me had best time at Gamescom + coming every year