Gamescom fumbles

Gamescom Latam (Latin America) fumbled by basically going Delta Airlines on devs and nickle and diming them on everything according to Game Devs Unidos.

This is a pretty strong sign that Gamescom, the once bright alterative to E3, has fallen victim to overspending. No surprise with ONL becoming a Geoff Keighley event. The amount spent on that must have be disgusting.

The problem with video game publications relying on income from video game companies has come again in the form of these mass marketing organizations. The real selling point for these mass marketing organizations is that they have a community presence to leverage that the video game companies don't, but when events like Gamescom are largely funded by publisher's marketing departments then the ability for Gamescom to build a community becomes compromised. 

Chances are that Gamescom is going to be shuttered. They don't have the financial liquidity to move with the community and downsize. The publishing engine that kept them moving is now losing fuel and the ship seems to be sinking.

As Game Devs Unidos points out, Gamescom isn't filling a void. There are plenty of smaller, local shows that support the local development communities. As the industry struggles to support it's massive overgrowth, it will be the smaller markets that survive.