BioWare Blog: GamesCom Wrap-up Report
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As Jay said in his blog entry Koln, or Cologne, Germany hosts a huge event where fans from all around Europe come to learn about their favorite upcoming titles. BioWare had a presence in 4 separate areas of the convention. We were in the EA Business lounge where Ray Muzyka was doing interviews and both Dragon Age: origins and Mass Effect 2 were being shown BCD (Behind Closed Doors) to the European press. We also had 2 huge rooms as part of the EA area on the show floor, one for Dragon Age: origins and one for Mass effect 2. And finally, we had been invited by the EA Germany team to show off both DAO and ME2 in the Community Lounge, which was in a separate part of the complex from the others. As Jay alluded in his blog, we had a little trouble finding the Community room. Despite being given clear instructions, we took a short cut and became hopelessly lost in a deserted kitchen that felt like a scene out of a horror movie. We expected a knife wielding maniac in a leather apron to leap out of an abandoned meat cooler and try to make schnitzel out of us.
After scampering out of there with many a backwards glance, we called for assistance and were rescued by the German Community Manager who was stunned by our ability to not follow a simple map.
Both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins were a huge hit at Gamescom. To be honest, I think the Dragon Age line was slightly longer than the Mass Effect line, but both lines were huge. For the entire conference, they had almost 300,000 people attend with over 100,000 on Saturday alone. The place was absolutely packed and there was barely any room to swing an inflatable sword or throw out a free t-shirt. The lines were amazing with some folks waiting up to 4 hours for a chance to get their hands on with their favorite games. When we would discover a hardcore BioWare fan, they would get invited up to the Community Lounge so they could have extra time with Dragon Age or Mass effect 2 as well as ask questions to us directly. We had a great time meeting fans from Germany, Holland, the UK, France, and many more countries. We even met up with a couple who, in their opinion, owed their lives to BioWare. He was a web designer who worked on the German BG2 site. He met her on the BG2 message boards and they are still together and still big BioWare fans. I may have to change my job title to (cupid).
