The Hollywood Reporter shared the news today that Geoff Keighley, the creator and host of The Game Awards, will help to kick off Gamescom 2019 “in grand style” with a brand new live event. Gamescom: Opening Night will be produced in English and streamed worldwide on August 19th at 11 am PT, the first day of the Gamescom convention. “The show will feature announcements from major game publishers and independent developers, as well as world premieres of new game footage and appearances from well-known video game industry stars.”
While it may not generate the same buzz (especially in the US) as E3, Gamescom is the world’s largest gaming event (when measured by visitor count and exhibition space). Last year, 370,000 visitors attended the Germany-based conference, and 1,037 exhibitors were featured– resulting in a copious amount of premieres and worldwide exclusives.
Looking at last year’s Game Awards ratings as evidence, Keighly should help boost the popularity of Gamescom, both in the US and around the world. According to the show’s official website, The Game Awards 2018 brought in over 26.2 million live views, a “128% viewership increase fueled by significant year-over-year gains on Twitch and YouTube.”
Felix Falk, German Games Industry Associaton’s managing director of games, states that “Opening Night Live is an entirely new show designed to make gamers worldwide a bigger part of the Gamescom experience.” Falk adds: “with his experience as host and producer of The Game Awards and his strong international network, we couldn’t think of a better partner than Geoff to help us bring this show to life.”
As with The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley is an executive producer of Opening Night Live along with Kimmie H. Kim. You can read more about the convention’s partnership with Keighley here in this blog post.
Gamescom 2019 will take place in Cologne, Germany, and run from August 20-24. More information on the conference can be found on the official website.
