A Gamescom exhibition expedition

Ahoy mateys, welcome Below Deck!

Tepene and I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Germany. Thirty hours of travel, four nights in Cologne, and then straight back again. We're tired. Our feet hurt from being on our toes non-stop working the booth at Gamescom, and our backs hurt from sitting through the long haul flights. Despite all this, we're absolutely buzzing from the event.

It was a real "pinch-me" moment being there alongside the very best of the NZ games industry, and amongst 80,000+ developers from around the world. Before leaving on Friday we also got to catch a glimpse of the 300,000 game consumers and fans descending upon Cologne to immerse themselves in their favourite IPs and discover new games.

In this edition of Below Deck I'll share some pictures and stories from our first Gamescom experience!

Yours piratically,
Ben

Davy Jones' Deckhand at the New Zealand Pavilion

NZTE and CODE NZ put together an impressive display for the many kiwi games travelling to Germany.

The Cass Bay Games booth

Tepene came equipped with some beautiful, impactful details that really made our booth stand out. It was a great place to test out some of his genius ideas ahead of our next showcase at PAX Australia in October. These items included an old map, books, keys, and a tiny wooden chest for business cards.

Representing Games pitching event

The day after we arrived, Ben pitched the game to a room full of publishers as part of an event hosted by Representing Games. He dressed appropriately.

Our Gamescom experience

Left: Ben at the booth. Right: Tep at the NZTE Networking Mixer.

Sharing the game with NZ's Ambassador to Germany, Craig Hawke.

Context

• We were located in the business area in Hall 3.2 — trade passes only.
• We had a silver tier package and were part of the New Zealand NZTE pavilion.
• We've never done this before…

Highlights

• Presenting a pitch at the Representing Games session got us in front of lots of publishers, even those who had rejected in-person meeting requests.
• With a silver tier booth we had lots of drop-ins, including some publishers we got to pitch our game to, and so many people stopped by to play (and love) the game!
• We met amazing developers from all around the world and got to hear many inspiring stories of success.
• Every publisher we pitched wanted follow up and Steam keys to share the demo with their team.

Challenges

• We received many rejections to our meeting requests via Meet To Match and ended up with just 3 publisher meetings booked ahead of arrival — but we pulled together 3 more while there, and they all felt really positive.
• The phrase "Roguelike deckbuilder" sometimes met with resistance. We had to really hone how we communicated our points of difference — namely our open world exploration elements and counter-attack system.
• We were approached by a lot of service providers with a hard-sell attitude, including several trying to convince us to pivot to mobile. We had to practice giving a polite "no thank you"!

Was it worth it?

While we had hoped to book more publisher meetings ahead of time, especially with the huge 30+ hour journey from New Zealand, really it just takes one publisher that's a good fit and we could be set for the next phase of our journey. We will be following up and reaching out to others who weren't at Gamescom. The experience itself was an absolute blast, especially being surrounded by our New Zealand game dev peers! We also came away with some valuable insights to work into our next showcase build for PAX AU.

Chronological photos of Ben and Tep ending with them looking epically tired.

Until next time me hearties, yo ho!

Ben and the Cass Bay Games Team