The came. They played. Then more came, and more still.
In total, more than 345,000 people crammed the halls for the 2015 Gamescom, Europe’s largest video game trade fair. The five-day attendance figure was a new record for Gamescom and around 10,000 more than made the trip to Cologne, Germany, last year for the continental equivalent to Los Angeles’ E3 conference.
Gamers and fans, who swarmed Gamescom over this past weekend, made up the bulk of attendees, but organizers also saw an uptick among the professionals. Industry registrations were up 5 percent to 33,200, with a total of 6,000 journalists and bloggers reporting from the event.
There were few major news announcements to come of Gamescom this year — Sony opted out of its annual Gamescom presser, a major absence — but for the audience, the event seems to have lost none of its appeal.
And industry and audience were in agreement when it came to handing out the awards. Electronic Arts’ action title Star Wars: Battlefront won a total of five Gamescom honors, including the top, best of Gamescom award handed out by an industry jury, and the most wanted consumer award, voted on by the public.
