GC Leipzig Canceled As Organizers Announce New EventGC Leipzig Canceled As Organizers Announce New Event

Organizers for the Leipzig Games Convention, which was slated to take place in late August, canceled the general video games expo, citing increased competition on the German trade fair market and announcing an online games-focused show in its stead. The Leipzig Trade Fair spent the last five months contending with Cologne's GamesCom event over which of the two would serve as Germany's authoritative video game convention this summer. Announced in early 2008 by the BIU and Cologne's trade fair business Koelnmesse, GamesCom was supposed to support Cologne and replace Games Convention in Germany, with 2008 intended to be the last year the Leipzig show would be held. Following the Leipzig show last August, however, Leipzig Trade Fair CEO Wolfgang Marzin announced that the Games Convention would return, pointing to a recent poll which indicated that over 82 percent of private visitors wanted to see the expo in Leipzig in 2009. Marzin backed out of the battle by revealing today that the Leipzig expo will be dropped from the 2009 calendar, offering, "If the industry is again in search of a platform for console and PC games and hardware with the know-how of the GC -- Games Convention, we will immediately be available." At the same time, though, the organizers announced a new show, Games Convention Online, taking place in Leipzig from July 31st to August 2nd as a combination online/offline event. The trade fair will focus on online browser, client, and mobile games. While the event will be organized into two separate areas, for trade/professional public and gamers, Games Convention Online will also have an online component which users around the world can access for free. "We will be combining the real fair, that is, the offline event, with an online event," says Marzin. "This means that millions of gamers are linked in on the internet and can take part in the Games Convention Online in Leipzig live. The Games Convention Online will host tens of thousands of visitors in Leipzig, and several million in the whole world."