GAMEFEST 2010

GAMEFEST 2010, the first edition of the Videogame Fair in Madrid, closed its doors on Sunday 10 October, promising to come back next year with an even bigger edition: the fact that all the tickets were sold out the three days of the fair, has reaffirmed to the industry the necessity of a fair like this one in Spain, sixth most important videogame sales market of the world.

These three days have been full of conferences, exhibitions, presentations, workshops with an inflow of 40.000 people, both professionals and general public, that have come to get to know in depth the novelties and future releases of the distrubutors, to listen to interesting conferences by important people of the industry and, in short, to spend a great time trying out the most important releases for next year in this fair dedicated to the videogame consumer.

All the companies of the sector have been present in the more than 11.000 square meters of the fair.

All the big companies of the sector have shown their support to this first edition of the fair, which is already the biggest one of the south of Europe; Microsoft, for example, has brought their world executive director, the well-known Steve Ballmer in order to present to the Spanish public the possibilities of Kinect. The conference did not let the audience indifferent, since Ballmer showed his best showman qualities to cheer up an audience that was already excited about this conference. Sony, Konami or Ubisoft have also contributed to the success of GAMEFEST, revealing to the Spanish market scoops of their games and bringing shows and famous people to the fair, as well as competitions of their newest games. The presentations of PES 2011, Castlevania Lords of Shadow, ArcaniA – Gothic 4 or NBA 2k11, games with 3D technology for PLaystation 3 such as the new KillZone and Gran Turismo, the new Assasin Creed or the latest versions of classics such as DOnkey Kong for Wii, have been another main attraction of the fair.

The conferences and exhibitions organized in the fair have been higly valued by the public, since the seating capacity in all of them was full. Undoubtedly, the most outstanding ones were those given by Spanish people that work in international design teams, like Enric Álvarez (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow) or Daniel Sánchez Crespo (Invizimals Shadow Zone), or those in which the public has been able to see in detail the gears of the industry and how the videogame sector works. We should also emphasize the interesting exhibition of consoles and “retro” games, the presentation of current games designed by Amstrad or Spectrum and the commemorative exhibition of the 25 anniversary of Mario Bros.

Another point to stress is the big inflow of people dressed up as videogame characters, popularly known as “cosplay”, and the big age range of the audience, since althought the range 15-30 was the majority age range, GAMEFEST has received also children and elderly people, which demonstrates that videogames are not any more a hobby just for the youth but a universal way of leisure time. GAMEFEST besides, has been the perfect meeting point for entire gamers communities that have finally met face to face after a long time playing together online.

Pablo Crespo, director of the GAMEFEST fair, declares “The participating companies have been able to contact the final user, to have first-hand information of their needs and likes and they will be able to act accordingly. We think that this fair is going to be a revulsive for the market and will encourage the sales in a moment needed. Perhaps we should emphasize the fact that the videogame industry in Spain last year invoiced 53% of the entire audiovisual and interactive market, beating the invoice all together of cinema, DVD and recorded music. An industry like ours, needed a meeting point with our clients and the media; an event where we could promote our products and I think GAMEFEST has met the expectations.”

GAMEFEST is now one step closer of consolidating as the annual appointment for the videogame lovers in Europe.