Game industry expos and conferences making the call to go online-only in the wake of this dastardly COVID-19 pandemic seem to be an increasingly frequent move. So far, this year has seen the cancellation of E3, and the postponement of GDC. It also has seen the announcement of an all-digital “Summer edition” of the Steam Games Festival as part of an apparent collaboration between Valve and The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley. All of these announcements, cancellations and delays have happened within the past couple of months. Now there’s news breaking about the newest addition to the “exclusively online” list, that being the conference known as Gamescom.

This particular conference, which was originally scheduled to take place from August 25th through 29th, 2020 in Cologne, Germany, has had its physical incarnation terminated due to the German government’s strict ban on in-person gatherings through August 31st. That development has led its organizers to issue a statement about the conference’s fate. Within that statement, the aforementioned organizers issued a fairly optimistic message in the face of everything the world is currently dealing with.

To quote that statement directly, the Gamescom team asserts that they “are already working at full speed on a digital Gamescom,” going on to add that the conference is “the world’s biggest event for games, and that’s what it should be again this year.” The team also states that more information about the digital version of the event will be made public in the weeks to come, and adds that any tickets that have already been purchased will be fully refunded automatically.

In the wake of all these event postponements and cancellations, I can’t help but wonder if every major conference and expo scheduled not just for this year, but perhaps even well into 2021, will be forced to make the call as to whether to go fully digital or simply not happen at all. I can’t quite accurately predict the future of course, so I can do little other than speculate on that. All I can say with certainty is that I commend the Gamescom organizers and those in charge of every other industry event that has been canceled or postponed, for making the safer decision considering the current circumstances.

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