Games Market Europe: Day One
On Wednesday 31st August 2005, Games Market Europe (GME) - a new European Games trade show - opened it's doors for the very first time. The event was taking place at the fancy Business Design Centre under the organisational skills of Mr Andy Lane, who formerly put together the Electronic Consumer Trade Show (ECTS) which ran for the past decade before sadly closing it's doors for the very last time in September 2004.

Games Market Europe 2005

Gathering...
The News0r crew gathered at the venue around 11am where we were joined by the VagusNet.com team and the XboxGameZone.co.uk crew, both of whom are renowned for creating elaborate community based events such as tournaments, as well as defining gamer's feedback and wishes into solid services and solutions which unify the general community spirit of Xbox Live.

Ubisoft went ape and let out the Monkey!

As we caught up on old times and reminisced over the days activities, we ventured into the Business Design Centre were we where greeted by numerous Nintendo DS pods located through-out the entrance to the main hall. After a quick touchy of the Nintendo DS systems, we headed over to the Ubisoft stand which had Peter Jackson's King Kong, Far Cry Instincts, and Prince of Persia 3 playable alongside the latest demo trailer from Ghost Recon 3. Immediately we all crashed on the comfortable bean bags and were provided with a detailed presentation of the all the games, which are extremely enjoyable! King Kong is not your average movie to game conversion, rather one of the strongest and most impressive movie to game conversions I've ever had the pleasure to see first hand and I think once the game is officially released you will be in for a real treat!

Moving on we split into smaller groups to cover the show and attend vital business meetings, conduct exclusive interviews and generally browse the various stands. A number of publishers such as Buena Vista, Codemasters, Digital Jesters, Eidos Interactive, Electronic Arts, Midway Games, NCsoft Europe, Take 2, Ubisoft and Vivendi Universal Games were in attendance, all of whom backed Games Market Europe (GME) and had stands or private meeting rooms.

Alongside the numerous publishers who were in attendance, there were a number of specialist trade bodies such as ELSPA (Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) and the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) who provided us with an insight to how video games classification takes place and a number of other helpful details. You'll have to wait for a number of exclusive interviews from Games Market Europe on a certain Pod Cast which has just launched for more information.

The slickness of Project Gotham Racing 3!

Games Market Europe is place were games means business, and I'll provide budding dot com start up's some advice here; if you're serious about developing a career, an online presence or even getting anywhere in the games industry, you really do need to make an effort and attend events like this.

Cardboard Pizza
We were all about to gather for lunch when funnily enough everyone spotted the GEM stand which had the first ever European Xbox 360 pod on prominent display. This pod's configuration may change slightly in the next few weeks before launch, however UK retailers will be showcasing Microsoft's Next-Generation console in these stylish display cabinets in retail outlets across the UK.

That's the first ever Xbox 360 pod, isn't it pretty?

While we wandered over to the restaurant next door, collectively grinning as we were among the first people in the UK to actually touch the slick, stylish Xbox 360 and controller, we met up with Take 2 for a spot of pizza - which oddly tasted like cardboard... yuk - while we discussed strategic gaming ventures such as News0r's latest creation: www.news0r.com/psp and compared notes on what we had already seen at show. This turned out to be useful in planning our next steps: Do we go play games? or hit the bar? After all it is hard days graft attending these trade shows… we ended up back at the Ubisoft stand for more game time and preparing for the upcoming Far Cry Instincts community day and the BXB LAN 2005!

What's with Hobbits and Video Games?

Overall Day One of Games Market Europe was a success, as we managed to meet up with a number of industry contacts and check out the latest games biz.

It didn't end there; we caught up with Ubisoft's Community Manager and headed for a respite at the local pizzeria (yeh, I know, how many times can we eat pizza in one day!? At least it didn't taste like cardboard this time) and exchanged views on a wide range of subjects and somehow aliens and a debate over whether jaffa cakes are either biscuits or cakes raged: - you decide, because I got lost on that part of the twilight conversation.

Games Market Europe: Day Two
Feeling the pressure of the heavy lifting from the night before (well lifting pint glasses) I had one major hangover and ended up over at Games Market Europe for the early part of the afternoon. My contacts at NovaLogic kindly offered to provide a cure to the head pumping hangover with, yep you've guessed it more intoxicating beverages and shortly you'll be hearing about one of the coolest events ever taking place over Xbox Live!

My colleagues over at Vagusnet.com couldn't attend the second day at GME, due to having a blast at Tank Driving, Shooting lessons and SAS training at Nintendo's launch event for ‘Advanced Wars: Dual Strike DS' - how lucky were they? Some of us had to press on with some serious business...!

The view from Tower42...

All day Thursday, word was buzzing around Games Market Europe about the ‘Arachnos' hosting a super secret party at a top secret location in London, I was very intrigued by all this chatter and made my way over to BH PR's Press lounge to find out more. I discovered to my delight that NCsoft Europe was holding a City of Villains preview party and that Jack ‘Statesmen' Emmert (Creative Director and Lead Designer of Cryptic Studios) himself was in attendance alongside the mysterious ‘Ghost Widow'.

Hooking up with friends, we headed over to Tower42 and were whisked through the towers security using our cunning and guile (well, OK, our VIP passes) and made our way into the press preview of the new City of Villains add-on for the MMORPG City of Heroes. Following the impressive presentation, the organisers introduced us to the mysterious ‘Ghost Widow' who took a liking to Gareth Morris (just kidding G). We were told to follow her to Doctor Aeon's secret lair... so everyone clambered into the lifts and were teleported up to the 42 second floor of the Tower and we were greeted by stunning views of London City from 600ft!

Overall a perfect end to a perfect event, stay tuned for loads more pictures and previews of the games we played.

Please visit the following sites for more coverage from Games Market Europe:
www.Clubskill.com
www.MSXbox-World.com
www.VagusNet.com
www.XboxGameZone.co.uk

Photos courtesy VagusNet.com.

By Luke ‘Duke' Newcombe (02nd September 2005)

More pictures from GME 2005!