Well, if you want to meet people you know from YouTube, let me tell you: the press conference for SPIEL Essen is the place to be! 😀
Hi everyone and welcome to Day 0 of my Essen 2024 coverage! Things kicked off today with the press conference and new games show. This was the first time for me I was invited to attend it and wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Whatever it was, I can tell you I wasn’t expect: this!
There was actually a sizable line of people in front for the press conference. After feeling less special of having received a press pass for a moment, things already began to move. Coming into the entrance hall of the Messe, I got a bit more proud of the achievement again as I spotted familiar faces: Christoph of Better Board Games, Ben Maddox of 5G4D, BGG’s Eric Martin, … . There was seating for approx 150-200 people and the room was packed! Judging by the questions that were asked at the end, I would say at least half of the audience was traditional media outlets like newspapers and TV station, likely more. Keep in mind board gaming is a big cultural thing in Germany and SPIEL happening again is something that will be mentioned during prime news segments. Seeing people you have been watching/listening/reading for a while in such a small crowd lowered the hurdle a bit to approach them and so I actually dropped by a couple of people to say thank you for their work. Talked a bit to the lovely Rene & Kristóf from Board Game Diaries and ended up sitting next to Flo from YouTube channel Get On Board and ended up having a lovely conversation about his recent videos on myths, misconceptions, and issues on how publishers work. It’s in German, but if that is not an issue for you I can really recommend watching it.
The press conference of course was a lot about numbers: how is the SPIEL doing, how is the board game market developing, how many exhibitors are there, etc. To my surprise, quite a lot of questions in the Q&A section actually came back to these numbers, I guess another indicator that a lot of traditional media that are not that into board games are in attendance.
The biggest surprise, both positive and negative, was of course that the 4-day tickets had sold out before the fair even started and it was announced that 10min before the press conference, even the day tickets for Thursday are gone and there will be no additional tickets at the entrance! Rational speaking, I guess there has to be a safety limit for the halls somewhere, but I never imagined there could be such a thing as “no tickets” for SPIEL. A lot of years in the past, I just bought tickets on a whim, but that time seems over now. What of course is a contributing factor besides our hobby growing is that Thursday falls on Germany’s national holiday, so people are bracing themselves for this year’s crowds. Just above 200k people are expected, which is crazy!
Also interesting: the halls are full as apparently all space has been given to exhibitors or areas to chill or grab something to eat. Even last year, there were some areas fenced off as they were unused, but not so this year. Someone asked if they were considering adding more halls but apparently that’s tricky as they are also used as waiting areas for the audience in case of bad weather. In other news, SPIEL has their on mascot, an improved app, and even created their own board game featuring their mascot. I guess further signs that SPIEL is ever-evolving.
The press conference was wrapped up by the Deutsche Spielepreis winners. Third price went to White Castle, second to Sky Team, and first to Mischwald, whose designer was noticeably touched by the honour. Interesting for me was how both Lookout and Asmodee were explicitly thanked for making it possible to bring 250000 copies into the hands of eager players already.
After that, it was time for the “Neuheitenshow”. This year, it was given more space which was really helpful. Imagine a single hall filled with tables and publishers get like 50cm table length per game to show off their new releases. It’s sort of a mini fair inside a single hall and it was great. There is no space to test anything, but helpers from the publishers stood in front of their games and gave short rules summaries and answered any questions the press had.
I spent a good 3-4h there, although one could probably also do it in one. On every stroll, I found something new to peek my interested, though all the big ones were already known from the pre-Essen coverage. Also approached a couple more people while I had a chance: had a nice chat with Chris Yi from the Dice Tower, briefly said “hi” to Sunniva from Boardgaming Rablings, talked to Peter Dörsam from PD Verlag (the publisher behind Concordia), … everyone was really appreciate of people me approaching them and saying thanks, though of course it was noticeable that some people were more interested in how I even was than others, so I just named some of the most positive encounters 😀
Quick Impressions
For now, here are a couple of quick impressions with more detailed info coming later today. I was happy to see that Resafa looked nicer close up than I had feared after seeing only picture.
There was this weird 2p game with magnetics that looked really fun but would scare me to put anywhere near a computer, phone, watch, etc. Those magnets were surprisingly strong but had a great hand-feel.
Japanese publisher Itten has a cute 2p deduction game for this year:
Bone Wars by now closing-down publisher Game Brewer looked great, will definitely demo this over the next few days.
Kintsugi is a simple card game about the art of fixing (and enriching) broken pottery with gold and might win my personal prize for loveliest artwork and theme of the fair:
Souvenirs from Venice had also a lovely theme, definitely want to try it out and see if the gameplay holds up.
7 Empires by Mac Gerdts (of Concordia fame) had one of the best covers I have seen.
Quiet House was a simple deduction game that has amazing presentation, so I also want to check it out over the next days.
Landmarks by Floodgate Games reminded me of Codenames but with an expiration theme that I quite liked, definitely will demo this as well. Comes with a nice cloth map, too.
One of the bigger surprises for me was Kingdom Legacy which felt like Palm Island taken to eleven. 140 cards solo-only legacy game in a tiny with art that was way more gorgeous than I had expected. This has become an auto-buy for me.
Same for Altay which I was rather uninterested in before today but Jim from publisher really got me hyped. Sounds like it will sell out very quickly though, so probably one to run for on Thursday.
There was also weird stuff like this cute children’s game where players have to find objects within odd looking shapes by using a mirror. I kind of liked it!
So that’s it for today. I would say a rather successful start that got me excited for the rest of my four days here. Let’s hope the running into people will continue, but with so many people in attendance it will be much harder I guess to recognise anyone! 😀
As always, let me know your thoughts and what games you want me to check out during the next days.