play gameZ Stuttgart

We organized a “mini gameZfestival” from the 26 – 28.11 in Stuttgart, called the play gameZ.

It was an exiting week. Being part of the organization team as well as being an exhibitor can make events rather busy. After setting up everything on the first day, we were ready for the grand opening in the evening.

As it is tradition for this event, we were located in the basement of our cooperation partner, the Stuttgart Stadtbibliothek. The Stadtbibliothek has an average of 5000 visitors per day, which filled up our exhibition plentifully. It also has awesome architecture and a very friendly staff

The audience was quite wide-ranging, consisting of people of different cultures from children to couples to seniors. Some of them were hard-core gamers, others had never held a controller before. This gave of some very valuable feedback for our project Niche.

Additionally to the constantly open exhibition, we had a hall for talks and panel discussions. The program varied daily, featuring game mechanic and narration insights from successful studios like Studio Fizbin and Bits&Beasts, introductions of game schools and short pitches of student projects. 

From the perspective of an exhibitor, the festival worked out pretty well. The only downside I could mention is that the exhibition room was quite empty during the talk sessions. The atmosphere was cozy and even none-gamers felt save enough to try out something new. The guided tours through the exhibition helped them to relate to the new medium and made everyone curious.

The play gameZ was definitely worth participating in, I’d do it again any time.
Also, my birthday was on the 28.11 so we all celebrated together