// GAMESPOT — GAMING
The Biggest Gaming Show In The West Continues To Grow
One of the world's biggest gaming shows, Gamescom, is now underway in Cologne, Germany, and hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend. The organizers sold out the entire 233,000 square meter exhibition floor at the Koelnmesse exhibition center, with more than 1,600 exhibitors signing up to show off their games and products.
In short, Gamescom is huge. It might not be the world's largest gaming event, as that title belongs to ChinaJoy, which had more than 438,000 attendees this year. But Gamescom is a bona fide juggernaut, and it's stayed strong, and grown, while other events have come and gone (looking at you, E3!).
GameSpot caught up with Gamescom boss Tim Endres (director of Gamescom at Koelnmesse) and Stefan Heikhaus (director of Gamescom and events) to discuss how the event comes together each year, how the organization defines success, and how the show has been impacted by the death of E3.
We also chatted to the pair about partnering with Geoff Keighley for the big kickoff show, Opening Night Live, and what Gamescom is doing to help shine a light on smaller games that might struggle to get noticed in the sea of blockbusters that dominate the headlines. The organizers also discussed bringing Games Done Quick to Gamescom for the first time, as well as Gamescom's new Gaming for Democracy initiative to help use the show as a platform for good.
You can see our full interview below, and be sure to stay with GameSpot for the week to get all the biggest news, videos, and interviews from the show floor.
Gamescom is now underway, but how early do you begin planning each August's show, and what is that process like, generally speaking?
Tim Endres: Planning for the next Gamescom begins while the current one is still taking shape. An event of this size is an ongoing cycle of listening, analyzing, and improving. After each edition we closely examine feedback from all our communities. This feedback directly feeds into decisions regarding hall planning, crowd flow, accessibility, program structure, and more.
At the same time, the industry moves extremely fast. We must understand early on which topics are becoming relevant, which communities are growing, where publishers and developers see value, and how fans want to experience games on-site and digitally.
How do you define and measure success for a giant event like Gamescom?
Stefan Heikhaus: There are two sides to this answer. One is numbers: visitors, trade visitors, exhibitors, international participation and digital reach. But numbers alone do not define success for us. What matters just as much is the quality of the experience: whether fans, content creators, journalists, exhibitors and industry professionals feel comfortable, inspired and connected, and whether they have an extraordinarily good time at Gamescom. That is why feedback after the event is so important to us--it helps us improve things year after year.
Gamescom is known for bringing in thousands upon thousands of attendees. In this post-COVID world, have you seen attendance normalize back to historical trends?
Tim Endres: We have seen a very clear recovery since returning to a physical event. But it is not simply a return to the pre-pandemic model – Gamescom has since become a hybrid event. After two digital-only editions, Gamescom returned to Cologne with 265,000 visitors in 2022. That increased to 320,000 in 2023, 335,000 in 2024 and 357,000 visitors from 128 countries in 2025. At the same time, digital reach went from 228,000 to over 1.1 billion views. The way people experience Gamescom has changed.
The digital layer has become much more important.
The on-site event in Cologne is still the emotional center and the place where fans meet, play, celebrate, and connect. But the digital layer has become much more important. With that, we reach more people than ever before with our event.
Can you talk about your partnership with Geoff Keighley for Gamescom Opening Night Live, and how the synergy w