Global offline game exhibition has been busy after a long time

Gamescom, Tokyo Game Show, G-Star, and offline exhibitions to be held at E3

The game exhibition, which was temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis, will be held in earnest from the second half of the year.

After the COVID-19 crisis, most of the game exhibitions have been switched to online. The online showcase replaced game exhibitions and promoted new games, but meeting with game users and pre-playing of anticipated games were the strengths of offline exhibitions.

An industry official said, “Until now, offline events have hardly been held due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Online events can be viewed comfortably, but it is difficult to accurately understand the reactions of game users. Also, the business that was conducted through the BTB hall was impossible. However, since the offline event will be held for the first time in three years, interest in both the game industry and users seems to have increased.”

A full-fledged offline game exhibition will be held from Gamescom this August. Gamescom, which will be held from August 22, is an offline event held for the first time in three years, with 500 companies expected to participate, and world-class game companies such as Xbox, Bandai Namco, Tencent, Ubisoft, and Sega will participate.

As domestic game companies, Krafton and Neowiz decided to participate. In addition, hardware companies such as AMD, BenQ, and Razer and ESL Gaming, an e-sports company, will also participate. Major major game companies that did not participate in Gamescom include Nintendo, Sony, EA, Activision Blizzard, and Take Two.

In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show 2022 will be held as an offline exhibition from September 15th. About 300 Japanese companies and more than 160 overseas game companies decided to participate, and representative Japanese companies such as Capcom, Square Enix, Sega, Koei Tecmo, Konami, and Bandai Namco decided to participate. In addition, Nexon, Microsoft, and Hoyo Bus also decided to participate. Many indie games are expected to be unveiled at this Tokyo Game Show, and 80 selected out of more than 500 indie games will be displayed at the event.

In Korea, G-Star 2022 will be held offline from November. Wemade has already been selected as the main sponsor, and Nexon, Netmarble, Red Brick, Sandbox Network, Higo World, Inven, Kakao Games, Krafton, and Hoyo Bus will participate. G-Star, as an offline exhibition for the first time in three years, is paying attention to whether it will be able to regain its popularity in the past.

E3, which was not held online this year, announced that it will be held offline from next year. In particular, E3 plans to hold E3 in cooperation with Lead Pop, which hosts Comic Con. It is speculated that cooperation with Lead Pop heralds changes in the E3 exhibition. Unlike general game shows, E3 has been focused on industry officials. However, it is pointed out that there is a possibility that the general public will be able to visit and it may become a more popular game exhibition as long as it has cooperated with Lead Pop.

In this way, as the Corona 19 situation was gradually settled, the offline game exhibition started once more. The game industry is paying attention to which games will receive attention through the offline game exhibition.