The first purely digital gamescom opens its doors from August 27 to 30. Within this time, internet users worldwide will have the opportunity to experience the newly developed Indie Arena Booth Online for the first time. In less than five months, the Hamburg-based event agency Super Crowd Entertainment has created an online platform that makes a virtual visit to the fair with original booths more fun and varied than ever before.
On this platform, the location initiative Gamecity Hamburg presents itself along with 9 game studios from Hamburg, who present their new games with individually designed virtual booths.
In 2019, gamescom in Cologne, the most important trade fair for computer and video games, attracted over 370,000 visitors from all over the world. Large events like this one cannot take place at present due to Corona.
In less than five months, the Hamburg-based event agency Super Crowd Entertainment, supported by Gamecity Hamburg and other partners, developed a flexible solution to transfer the Indie Arena Booth as an important marketing platform for independent game developers from all over the world into the digital space, thereby also creating a platform for the Hamburg games scene.
The result is an interactive experience world of the digital booth as a free online game in web browsers. At the Indie Arena Booth Online, more than 190 game studios from over 50 countries, including 9 game studios from Hamburg, are presented on 100,000 virtual square meters. Using a specially developed editor, the 190 studios and teams were able to design their booth creatively and efficiently. With the possibility for exhibitors to insert numerous contents (chats with developers, videos, playable demos of games, etc.) and make them directly tangible online, online trade fairs are more interactive than ever before.
Dr. Carsten Brosda, Senator for Culture and Media: “At this year’s digital edition of gamescom, nine Hamburg-based independent studios will present themselves at the virtual joint booth, impressively demonstrating the diversity of the Hamburg games industry. The Indie Arena Booth Online also shows the innovative power of the games industry: The Hamburg-based company Super Crowd has developed an innovative event format that shows a future perspective for trade fairs and events, in times of Corona, but also completely independent of it. Even though this year’s gamescom is taking place exclusively in digital form, the Hamburg games industry will have a strong presence with the support of Gamecity Hamburg. “
Dennis Schoubye, Project Lead Gamecity Hamburg: “People wonder how major events today and in the future could look like. The Indie Arena Booth Online provides an answer to this question, which is more interactive, accessible, and imaginative than anything we have seen before. Super Crowd Entertainment has succeeded in digitalizing its business model – without laying off employees, but on the contrary, creating two new jobs. We are happy to be a part of the Indie Arena Booth Online and look forward to many visitors at our first digital Gamecity Hamburg booth”.
At the interactive Gamecity Hamburg booth, 9 Hamburg Indie Studios will present themselves as part of the Gamecity Hamburg Road to gamescom program, which already included two workshops for the Hamburg studios in the run-up to the digital trade fair.
9 Hamburg Indie Studios at gamescom 2020:
- Tiny Roar – Bomb Bots Arena
- The Tribe – Pit Rush
- Osmotic Studios – Orwell – Keeping an Eye on You
- VR Nerds – Tower Tag
- One Man on Mars – Leif’s Adventure
- tool 1 game – The Invitation
- Mooneye Studios – Lost Ember
- ROCKFISH Games – EVERSPACE 2
- Bagpack Games – Out of Place
The underlying technology of the Indie Arena Booth Online can be used flexibly for further online events in the future.
You can visit the Indie Arena Booth Online and the Gamecity Hamburg Online booth with Hamburg Indie Studios from August 27 at 10 pm until August 30 via the homepage of the site: https://indiearenabooth.de/
Current streams and presentations of games and developers are available on the streaming platform twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/indiearenabooth/