gamescom 2024: Key Themes to Look Out For

Date Published: 08/08/2024

Keywords Studios is delighted to return to Cologne for gamescom 2024. The team will be at Booth C-010 in Hall 2.1 to support your creative and technical ambitions and to help you realise the vision for your games and communities. You can book a meeting with us at gamescom 2024 here.

To help you prepare for the big event, we’ve picked out a list of key themes we’re looking forward to exploring and learning more about across the week.

Accessibility & Inclusion

After launching our Accessibility suite at gamescom 2023, we can't wait to see what's next for accessibility in video games at this year’s conference. With over 50 million players over the age of 50 in the USA alone, we believe that inclusive game design for older players will be a topic of much interest in this year’s event.

Améliane F. Chiasson, Games Accessibility Lead at Player Research, a Keywords Studio, recently shared some fascinating detail on the importance of Accessibility Quality Assurance (AQA) in video game development, which you can read below.

Community Clubhouse

Community Clubhouse returns to Germany, this time as official devcom Developer Conference partner, taking place at the Koelnmesse in Cologne on August 20th.

This event offers a chance for industry experts across all areas of Player Engagement to come together and discuss prominent themes in today’s video games industry. You can reserve a place here.

A New Era for Indies

From Hades 2 to Manor Lords, Hellblade 2 and The Rogue Prince of Persia, hugely popular indie games have been released across 2024, far exceeding expectations and delivering AAA levels of production quality. We'll be paying special attention to the NRW Indie Showcase and devcom Indie Market!

Also, best of luck to all exhibitors competing for the devcom Indie Award 2024!

Live Operations

The landscape of Live Operations (LiveOps) is becoming more dynamic than ever. Developers are competing to maintain their audience’s interest and keep players engaged in their games, sometimes years after launch. Successfully managing this requires a detailed post-launch strategy with input across all areas of development.

The team at Smoking Gun Interactive, a Keywords Studio, recently shared a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits of an integrated post-launch strategy which you can read below.