Leveling Up at Gamescom 2023: The Power of Blockchain Gaming
BGA is back from an epic Gamecom 2023, one of the largest annual gaming events. This year, this mega game show saw over 320,000 visitors from over 100 countries, with over 31,000 trade visitors and 1,227 exhibitors from 63 countries, of which 76% traveled from around the globe to attend and connect! The event has no shortage of visibility, with over 180m video views across the entire show program.
With a booth showcasing 19 of our members and 21 projects over the three days, we are stoked at the feedback we have received from the gaming community of professionals throughout the conference.
Key Takeaways
There is an openness towards Web3 gaming, with many game studios and infrastructure projects starting to see the benefits of integrating Web3, NFTs, or other elements that enable digital asset ownership and transparency.
- Conversations with many game studios, payment solutions, and other infrastructure and tooling, as well as publishers and media companies guided by their clients and partners integrating web3 or starting to onboard web3 games into their services. As a result, there is a greater need for them to understand more about the Web3 space and, therefore, show greater interest in the Blockchain Game Alliance and our work.
- The projects that showcased at the BGA booth had valuable conversations, and connected with interested parties and got to demo their projects to conference attendees in the trade area.
“Time spent at the BGA booth was very valuable for us. Usually, we have to find partners in the conference app and then meet them at specific meeting spots. But, the BGA Telegram channels made it easy for us to meet everyone attending the conference, and we could meet those same people at the booth. This really saved a lot of time and increased the number of leads we managed to get from the event.”
Srdjan Mahmutovich, Co-founder — Kriptomat
Some of our other BGA members who showcased at the BGA booth added:
“I loved being at the BGA booth. We got to meet a lot of people from BGA there, as well as a lot of interested people who passed by and were interested in the games we were showing.”
Luiz Piccini, Founder & CEO — Falco“Taking a stand in the BGA booth gave our partnerships team a huge advantage during Gamescom. It was always busy and buzzing, and made a great spot to take meetings and introduce ourselves to new potential partners walking by. Huge thanks to the BGA team for the opportunity!”
Jasmine Cohen, Head of Marketing — Fractal
- As a wider benefit, event BGA members who did not showcase at the booth came to say hi and meet us and the projects there, creating an excellent space for meetings, networking, and a base for BGA members to discuss and share details on their activities during Gamescom.
“I met great technologists at the BGA booth. It was great to stop in and see who was hanging around from time to time during the show!”
Mike Sorrenti, President — Game Pill
- Throughout the conference, the rise of games and projects integrating Web3 in various forms was much more present than in previous years. This ranged from Web2 games that are Web3 ready, with plans to integrate later on, once they have consolidated their user base and community and ensured they have created a fun and engaging game for users.
- It was interesting to see the conversation shift from play-to-earn to creating great content and removing friction to enable a seamless experience for players. We are witnessing discussions around discoverability and game design and what that looks like when integrating Web3.
“I really loved the buzz around web3, didn’t feel like down-market at all. Also going to the dinner and other events as a web2 developer who came to web3, I always feel very welcome to be there. It is a very warm and friendly ecosystem, we have despite the obvious competitive positions between many parties.”
Elina Arponen, Co-founder — Quicksave Interactive
The BGA Annual Dinner
With over 60 attendees at our exclusive BGA annual dinner, it is clear that the Blockchain Game Alliance is growing and expanding across the gaming ecosystem. We are proud to provide a space for members to meet, network, and discuss their projects, industry advancements, and all things gaming.
“BGA dinner was an exceptional networking opportunity to meet with builders from the web3 gaming space.”
Tom Kopera, COO — Elympics
The BGA dinner was a great success, and it was clear that Web3 was very much present at Gamescom. It was fantastic to connect with so many new and existing members coming together to meet, find ways to collaborate, and have some great conversations about the future of our industry.
During the evening, BGA president Sebastien Borget joined the event, giving a speech to welcome our members, discuss some of our activities, and introduce the new BGA board members who were in attendance, Christina Macedo from Ready.GG (scroll to the end to see Christina’s thoughts and feedback on the BGA events and activities) and Hideaki Uehara from Square Enix. In addition, we announced the launch of the BGA State of the Industry Survey Report 2023. An annual report that takes an in-depth look at the current state of the web3 gaming industry and what the future may look like for the year ahead. The 2022 Report can be seen here.
“The BGA dinner was an amazing way to connect with already familiar and new projects alike, facilitating an easy way to connect with one another in a relaxed atmosphere. The BGA booth enabled each project to showcase their project and connect with interested parties as well as with one another. Looking forward, this event may have led to being a foundation of working alongside some amazing projects and growing together.”
Hubert van Vliet, Community Lead — Polkastarter Gaming
The dinner was a delicious mix of traditional German food, with wholesome portions and many chats and connections throughout the three-course meal, rounded off by a shot of the signature noisette digestive.
Side Events
Sequence event featuring BGA
This pre-event meet-up was a great kickoff to Gamescom. With a good turnout, the meetup enabled industry professionals and attendees to connect, bringing together many BGA members and newcomers curious about integrating web3 or building on blockchain before the main event.
Saga Multiverse Summit
Aboard the Blue Rapsody, BGA President and The Sandbox COO, Sebastien Borget, joined a VIP panel discussion, alongside Polygon, Samsung, and others. to discuss how to give value to the community in the metaverse and web3 games. Returning the second day for another high-level panel discussion to provide further insight into the web3 gaming landscape.
Our content manager, Melanie Dow, jumped aboard to moderate a panel on Web3 game design hosting Shrapnel, Mighty Bear, and BGA member Blockus, who provided some great insights on how games can incorporate Web3 into game design and how this may differ from the web to space.
A core point that came up throughout this conversation was education and being guided by the community to see how friction can be reduced and how game design can include the community, as well as how user-generated content can play a key role in engaging the community and the design of the game and the positive part of web3 with regard to ownership and rewarding players. There were also a lot of conversations about community onboarding, reducing friction, and creating a seamless user experience and journey.
The Stardust and Avalanche side event saw great attendance and opened conversations between the Web2 and Web3 gaming space, with positive interactions across the board.
The Metaverse Mixer event also saw BGA member Quicksave Interactive’s CEO, Elina Arponen, take the stage to talk about web2 to web3 gaming.
Gamescom was welcoming in terms of positivity and web3 presence. BGA’s presence ensured that blockchain-based gaming was represented at one of the most significant annual global gaming events.
Our activities were summed up succinctly by some of our esteemed members:
“What was nice is the amount of interest seemed much higher this year as we didn’t seem to have any downtime at the booth. Just a constant flow of people wanting to learn about the games and approaches to blockchain.
Dinner was great for mixing it up with other members and discussing all sorts of development, acquisition, and investment landscapes. More bullish than ever on you guys and what BGA is about.”
Patrick McGrath, CEO & Co-founder | Moonlit Games
More members shared their feedback:
“The BGA Booth and Dinner were highlights of our time at Gamescom. The organizers and attendees brought such positive energy for the space, and it was wonderful to meet so many great builders!”
Julian Atehortua, Director of Business Growth & Operations — Halliday
BGA is privileged to work with so many awesome members across the web3 gaming ecosystem. Another member who joined us at the booth over the course of Gamescom added:
“I’m incredibly honored and thrilled to have been invited for networking over BGA dinner and to showcase Legends of Elysium at Gamescom. These events opened doors to new collaborations that we hadn’t considered before.”
Darek Sandman, COO & Co-Founder — Legends of Elysium
BGA Board member, Christina Macedo, also shared her feedback on the event:
“The BGA now represents over 500+ members coming together to represent the true face of web3 and web3 gaming — Builders, innovators and dreamers. With one aligned major goal — to promote more to come build, engage, and PLAY in web3. This was evident at the BGA Gamescom supper — so many coming together after a couple of long days of successful business development, finding time to bond, and share how positive Gamescom 2023 was for the web3 community. Sitting with my colleagues talking about the last year BUIDLING*, the ups and downs, and now the reward of seeing how many are curious about web3, have found more confidence to at least try, and even some just looking for any opportunity to jump to play — felt like such an ACCOMPLISHMENT for us all. As for READYgg, the positive energy we encountered from the game developers who are looking to build in web3 was INFECTIOUS. As more come together to collaborate and buidl we will surely find collective success.”
Christina Macedo, Co-founder — Ready.GG & BGA Board Member
To find out who joined us and more about our activities during August, you can check out the Magazine here.
Next stop, Token2049! Meet us there on the 13 and 14 September 2023! We will be hosting more members at the booth, as well as side events bringing together some of the best of the web3 gaming community in Singapore. Keep an eye on our LinkedIn and Twitter (X) for more details soon!
