After two digital editions, this year's gamescom congress is back on site at Koelnmesse's Congress-Centrum Nord. Selected sessions will also be broadcast live. The gamescom congress will open at 10 am. Directly afterwards, top politicians will discuss the current topics and issues of the digital generation at the Debatt(l)e Royale.

Debatt(l)e Royale" politics talk

After the opening, gamescom congress 2022 will kick off with a talk that is one of the political highlights of the entire gamescom: At Debatt(l)e Royale, Kevin Kühnert (Secretary General, SPD), Mario Czaja (Secretary General, CDU), Emily Büning (Federal Executive Director, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and Bijan Djir-Sarai (Secretary General, FDP) will discuss, among other things, the question of what framework conditions politics must create in order to make the best possible use of the potential of games. The talk will be broadcast live.

Program with a broad range of topics

Following the "Debatt(l)e Royale", the various sessions will start in the halls of the Congress-Centrum Nord at Koelnmesse. One highlight is the presentation by Lionel Ferra from the European Space Agency. The astronaut trainer and founder and head of the XR Lab and Crew Technology Team of the ESA European Astronaut Center will report on how gaming supports ESA space research. In addition, Chris Bratt, Co-Founder of People Make Games, discusses war and peace and the state of games developers in Ukraine with Ukrainian games developers Irena Belous and Nika Avayan of Frogwares. In partnership with the German Foreign Office and the Digital Games Culture Foundation, guests from the German Foreign Office, the Goethe Institute and others will discuss how German foreign policy can be better communicated with the help of games. The online keynote by Outi Laiti from Helsinki, who will report on how indigenous cultures can be preserved with games, is eagerly awaited. The panel "Future Games - Digital Games in Education" in cooperation with GMK - Gesellschaft für Medienpädagogik und Kommunikationskultur e.V. - will deal with digital education.

Toxicity and Hatespeech as well as how to deal with them will also be addressed at the gamescom congress. Franziska Elsaesser from Google and Deborah Mensah-Bonsu will show possible solutions and invite&toa QA afterwards.&Steffen P. Walz of CARIAD Volkswagen Group will report on in-cabin gaming from the perspective of the automotive industry as well as health and wellbeing, and thus on how the Volkswagen Group brands are no longer just about physical mobility and how the in-vehicle travel experience will gain in importance in the future. Practical workshops that show how business models can become more successful with gamification, how games can be used educationally in the classroom, or how games open up new approaches in recruiting, offer opportunities to delve deeper into topics and develop your own solutions.

The gamescom congress will take place for the 14th time in 2022 as part of gamescom, the world's largest event for computer and video games and Europe's leading business platform for the games industry. After two years in which the congress was held exclusively online, it will return to Cologne with keynotes, panels and workshops in presence. The gamescom congress is organized by Koelnmesse GmbH and game - Association of the German Games Industry. The conference is sponsored by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Participation information:

• The ticket store can be reached at gamescom-congress.de.
• Tickets are available online for 95.00 euros.
• Tickets for students and teachers cost 35.00 euros (proof required).
• The congress tickets can be combined with admission tickets for gamescom (trade visitors and private visitors) for an additional fee.
• Only digital tickets will be issued. This requires the gamescom Ticketing App, which is available in the App Store or Google Play Store.
• The gamescom congress on August 25, 2022 will start at 10:00 am (admission from 9:00 am) and end at 6:00 pm. The conference will take place at the Congress-Centrum Nord of Koelnmesse.