GamesCom 2012 conclusion?


I like the picture with all the girls playing Spyro. Oh wait, one of them is actually EvilDragon? :p
 
In Leipzig at the old Games Convention I never had to wait longer then 10 minutes. I'm also sure, even at the gigantic E3 you don't have to wait hours to see a game. Somehow the GamesCom does something pretty wrong.
I've never been to the convention in Leipzig, but I would blame it more on the very rigorous youth protection laws in Germany. The Gamescom is open for all age groups, but if you show a game that is rated 16 or 18, you have to make sure, that noone under that age is able to get a slight glimpse of it. So every game rated 16 or 18 requires a closed booth, which of course will lead to long queues.
 
I've never been to the convention in Leipzig, but I would blame it more on the very rigorous youth protection laws in Germany. The Gamescom is open for all age groups, but if you show a game that is rated 16 or 18, you have to make sure, that noone under that age is able to get a slight glimpse of it. So every game rated 16 or 18 requires a closed booth, which of course will lead to long queues.
Hmm, possible. But then they should have learned from the past how to optimize their booths to solve this problem. Or how about an entire Adult hall? Would solve the most problems. :)


However, the Retro Area seems to be a point for relaxing, without that much trouble of the bigger Halls. I know this also from Leipzig, there were already nice retro/indie areas in the family convention hall.
 
I would not blame it entierly on the youth protection. Sure this is a part of the problem but in earlier days the law was the same. Still it worked better. You could have a look everywhere. If you wanted to play yourself you had to queue up. If you wanted to access an 18-Area you would have to show your "I'm 18!"-Tag.


I'm not sure if it's a matter of size (I can't remember if Leipzig was a bit smaller with less people) or management, however it is not really worth a visit like this.


I think the best idea would be to have a part of the fair for families and one for 18+. This would also make the place a little less crowded :)
 
So I'm back home now. Sorry that I had to leave early.


It was nice to meet some people inperaon and get a face to the nicknames on the forum.


You are all very nice and polite guys.


I had a lot of fun and am happy to see that the Pandora got a lot of attention there.


See you next year :)
 
ED would have probably told us if he knew by then. General activity on his shop was definatly increased during the gamescom.
 
Just came back home as well :)


Thanks for everyone helping out - we should definitely see more users soon :D
 
New hotel, bad upload rate, so no pictures today unless i don't sleep until 10:00 am ;) .


My (our) feet are happy, the shower was one of my greatest, the four fruit juices too, and now a good bed.


Hope we will meet again soon, OP zealots ^^.

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That be me in the photo playing the amiga with the 2 female admirers behind me.

I will put up the video of the pandy booth at gamescom tonight when im back home.
 
I would like to know if the demand for the pandora increased dramatically now? I would love to see you guys making some money after all... And did any pandoras get lost/stolen as some were afraid of? And what was your favorite visitor story?
 
I would like to know if the demand for the pandora increased dramatically now? I would love to see you guys making some money after all... And did any pandoras get lost/stolen as some were afraid of? And what was your favorite visitor story?
no pandoras were harmed in the making of this production but about 10 sd cards were pilfered by some dishonest punters.but mostly the people coming to the booth were great.lots of kids playing pandoras too.there were 3 or 4 intenesely interested guys on the last day.i had my 1ghz pandora out for demonstration.so many hands touched my pandora.
 
Yeah, there were a lot people who were really interested. But the problem is, if you want to explain to someone what the Pandora is and what it can do, you always have a talk of 15 minutes minimum. Then they asked a lot and wanted to try everything.


When you mention the prize, some were quite shocked, but when you explained to them a bit, they mostly understood the situation. A lot of people even thought, that that was a good price for what it can do.
 
I can only speak for Thursday. I had only very few really nagging about the price. Most people understood the reasons for the pricing. Nevertheless (and this is where I understood the visitors): Understanding the price does not change anything about "cannot afford this". :) After all it's a toy, so people on a budget probably don't buy it, even though they might even say it's "cheap" for what it can do.


I had one customer saying "I bought a DSi when it came out for 250€ and it cannot do much of what the Pandora is capable to do. Adding 5 games I match the price for a Pandora but I am still not able to do much with it, so I think this looks well priced". Nice feedback :)


Face it, the Pandora is a very special device for very special users :) It might not even be a good idea to have a "mass"-market, because most "normal" users expect something along the line of an iDevice. Switch on, runs flawless, looks polished. Klick here and gets me that game my mate talks about. Give a Pandora to one of them maybe creates a lot of frustration because not everything is polished, some things need more smarts to get it running and somewhere deep inside there may be even dragons... Of course such a state of perfection is impossible to archieve with people working in their spare time without a big company (and money) so this is in no way meant as nagging :)


Talking about the photos, just in case someone "names" the people on the pictures: Keep in mind that someone might not like to be identified in here, so please ask first, to save us from trouble :)


You'll find me over here: http://boards.openpa...&attach_id=3609 Pandorian in the background with that bottle. (Gamers always eat or drink or at least hug game characters, when not actively gaming it seems on that photo :p )
 
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I don't have any interesting visitor stories, but I liked watching people play, there were a few who stayed almost an hour just trying out stuff, one guy beat half of VVVVVV - many also returned several times.


People showed great interest, through all ages there there were some who did not seem to care about the high price, so I guess we will see some new faces soon (hello there people from the future if you are reading this!).


Overall it was a great experience, loved getting to know some faces behind the avatars and chatting about the Pandora.
 
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