Gamescom is currently happening, this is the biggest gaming event in the world, almost 500,000 people in one place! Huge!

This is the place to play the biggest upcoming AAA games, get some awesome swag, and (my favorite) play literally hundreds of indie games and chat with the developers!

For you as an indie dev, is attending an event like Gamescom worth it? Should you attend as a visitor or show your game as an exhibitor?

That is a very important question and one based on many factors so it's hard to say objectively yes or no. The biggest question is cost. If you live in Germany and attending is just a train ride away, then spending maybe $100 on a train ride and $50 on a ticket is very likely worth it. On the other hand if you're like me and you don't live in Germany then that means plane ticket + hotel which can be quite expensive. For me my flight was about $500 and my hotel around $1200, although that was partly my fault since I only decided I could go to Gamescom just weeks before the event, it would have been cheaper if I had booked a hotel a year ago.

In terms of raw numbers as a way for indie devs to get wishlists it is probably not worth it. I believe the cheapest exhibitor booth is around $3000, and even though there's almost half a million people in one place I would guesstimate a small indie would only get maybe 100 or 200 wishlists. So in terms of raw numbers the math doesn't quite work out.

HOWEVER, these events are NOT about raw numbers of wishlists, that's just a neat bonus. Instead these events are really about networking and name recognition.

The word "networking" has quite a lot of baggage, some people love it and think "who you know" is everything, while others hate it and feel it's just LinkedIn cringe posts. So let me give you my point of view as someone who previously did not see much value in networking but now has been fully converted due to what I've noticed happening to myself.

The benefit of these events is how you have lots of people all with one shared goal/interest together in one place. And nowadays in the age of AI, human personal connections are more valuable than ever before!

You want to find a publisher? There's hundreds walking around, and they're more likely to listen to your pitch in real life as opposed to just one more email in their overcrowded inboxes.

Maybe you want to try growing your studio for your next game? Again here you have tons of game developers all under one roof, maybe the person showing their indie game next to your booth might become a future partner.

What about press or YouTubers? They get literally hundreds of emails with game keys every single day, it's very hard to stand out. But if you make a personal connection then your odds jump significantly!

Like I mentioned one benefit is simply "name recognition" which is exactly the thing I have noticed happening to me as I go to more and more of these events. I play games and talk to devs, then when I'm researching for my Top 10 New Games videos I will likely remember the game and think "oh this is that cool game from that awesome dev!" That instantly makes it stand out in a sea of thousands of indie games coming out every month.

Same thing for more professional contacts like meeting the people that work for Unity/Epic or Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo/Steam. One personal contact might be the difference between getting featured or just being another game on the store.

In my case one great example are the sponsored videos I've made. If you've been watching my channel for a long time you might have noticed I don't normally do sponsored videos. I only do them very very rarely, and usually I only say yes when I already know the people behind it. That's why I've made videos sponsored by Unity, I've met many awesome people who work there, why I've made a video sponsored by Odin (awesome people) why I made a sponsored Animotive video (I knew someone who worked for Unity and moved there), why I did some things with Genies and more. This is another example of how powerful and valuable it is to have a personal human connection with someone.

These are the very real benefits that are very positive but very hard to track. There's no raw number to analyze all your contacts and see how they might become awesome future opportunities.

Although on networking let me also point out one very important thing. It is crucial that you're not constantly thinking "what can this person do for me?" If you have a business meeting then it makes sense to just get down to business, but in every other context you should be just trying to connect with other people as human beings and not trying to get something from them. If you do that then you will meet cool people who might in the future become friends or coworkers and might do all kinds of awesome opportunities together.

Another neat bonus of these events is player feedback. The best kind of feedback you can get is to actually watch players play your game, it is infinitely more valuable then just getting a text review after the fact. But again this one by itself would not make events worth it, much cheaper to hire someone to record themselves playing your game, this is just another neat small bonus.

So networking is really the big benefit of these events, wishlists are just a small bonus, as is player feedback.

Based on that you can do the math yourself and figure out if the cost is worth it. Don't do it for raw wishlists, but if you're looking for a publisher, contacts in media, maybe a future partner, then it can be worth it, especially if it doesn’t cost you much to attend.

The latest Unity sale is all about Fresh New Assets! These are assets that came out recently so you probably don’t yet own them. If you regularly follow my Top 10 Lists that I do every month and you have some things wishlisted they might be on sale right now.

There’s lots of awesome tools (like Asset Inventory 4) some awesome VFX, lots of visuals, animations, and more.

Browse everything on sale HERE!

The Publisher of the Week this time is Master Key, publisher with lots of casual game assets.

Get the FREE MK Puzzle Level Map Pack • 4 Themes Bundle which includes multiple packs for making casual game levels.

Get it HERE and use coupon MASTERKEY2026 at checkout to get it for FREE!

So many games announced/shown at or during Gamescom! This industry really is impressive, there's always so much awesome stuff to play!

The biggest announcement is how one of the best games of all time is getting a complete remaster, and completely for FREE! The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered! It's definitely one of my personal favorite games of all time, this remaster might give me a reason to play it again, especially because I never got around to playing the DLCs. Speaking of that they also showed more of their upcoming DLC The Witcher 3: Songs of the Past.

Oh and a small little thing happened this Thursday, the latest and biggest trailer for GTA6 came out!

After 13 years of waiting, and 2 years since the first GTA6 trailer, we finally have gameplay, and yup the game looks as excellent as people hoped it would. It dives deeper into the story with two protagonists sort of like Bonnie and Clyde, (swappable characters) the topics are what you expect from a GTA game, criminal underground, weapons, shootouts and more.

In technical terms it looks insanely impressive, animations are top tier just like RDR2, insane amount of unique NPCs, huge varied world, very dense urban areas, and importantly the whole thing was apparently rendered on a base PS5! That's magic! I have no idea how they got such good looking impressive visuals out of that console but apparently they did.

The game is out on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 with a PC version likely coming one year later just like they did with GTA5, and GTA6 Online will likely also be released as a standalone online mode in 2027.