Satire — Oh Right, Gamescom Opening Night Live Was Yesterday

OMG! I actually missed Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026. Are you even allowed to call yourself a gamer after that? I mean, what could possibly be better than watching trailers for games that are still years away from release? I watched it later—and felt like I'd wandered into my bank's annual shareholder meeting.

Yeah, sorry about that. Especially for having the nerve to play Morrowind instead of watching ONL. A 24-year-old game! When I could've been soaking up the hottest world premieres! If I were a guard in Whiterun, I probably wouldn't have taken an arrow to the knee, but one straight through the skull. My post-traumatic catchphrase: “That bow... get it away from me. Get it away...”

A stage from Cologne to Hong Kong

But hey, I'm watching now. What? A 26-minute pre-show? I'm not big on foreplay—I prefer getting straight to the point. And there he is, emerging from his sparkly little hideout in the middle of the stage: journalist and host Geoff Keighley. If he'd had to walk all the way from either edge of the stage to the center, that pre-show could've hit the full 30 minutes.

Does Call of Duty come out twice a year now? Because this stage is so wide, a missile launcher could roll in at any moment and fire a test shot eastward to kick off a CoD presentation. Modern Warfare and all that. But no, it's just Geoff onstage, now surrounded by the combined light pollution of Tokyo's red-light district. Still, I'm confident this irradiated backdrop has something to do with gaming.

Now our gaming buddy is talking, but none of it has any substance. His job seems to be cheering and pumping up the room. Fair enough—just like our Eugene, he's a video game journalist. Unfortunately, Geoff's enthusiasm looks about as genuine as a Gucci bag from China, but I guess that's what happens when every last movement of your arms has been choreographed.

What impresses me most so far is how the host commands his mega-stage at what feels like 600 FPS. Every movement is buttery smooth; even reality lags next to him. I'm guessing 32x anti-aliasing, both visually and rhetorically. Rounding out the show even further is Geoff's full suit—for the gamers, at least he left off the tie.

Look at us: We're Hollywood with controllers

Of course, it's obvious what all this spectacle is for. ONL is an advertising show, and it's not just about charging serious money for those presentation slots. Gaming began more than 40 years ago in kids' bedrooms. “Kid stuff,” the old folks called it back then—nonsense and a waste of time. Later came all those reputation-damaging debates about violence in video games. Not great.

Today, though, the games industry is a serious business generating billions in revenue. That's one of the things ONL wants to communicate—and sell—with an epic stage, respectable suits, “important” world premieres and fans squealing with excitement.

Because that's part of the point too: lots of fans mean lots of reach and a potential audience of millions. That's interesting to investors, corporate executives and financiers; not to mention platform holders, hardware manufacturers and licensors. ONL sells new games to players—and sells the players to the business world. Their enthusiasm isn't just the goal of the event; it's also one of its most important products.

And there are a hell of a lot of players on offer: Around 1.74 million people watched ONL 2026 concurrently, even if that was about 13 percent fewer than the year before. This time, though, the show still racked up more than 5.8 million hours watched in total. So this gala certainly isn't playing to empty seats, and definitely not to empty investor seats.

The fact that ONL is geared so heavily toward that crowd (and even toward politicians, with subsidies and all that) apparently doesn't bother most gamers. You can see that in the recorded viewer chat next to the ONL video. So many couch adventurers are watching and typing at the same time that the chat races by like an exploding stock ticker. Even the profanity filter is wheezing and swearing by now.

Sure, between the choreographed hosting, live band and brand ambassador in evening wear, there are still a few game trailers to watch. Which reminds me: at a gala like this, the host really ought to sing during the grand finale and show off a few dance moves. Is Geoff going to do that tonight? I know we're in the satire section here, but I'm completely serious about this one.

And the world premiere is... Dark Fantasy

Enough Geoff and Gucci bags, though; I want to see games. There's a world premiere on the schedule! Why would I need The Elder Scrolls 6 when I can have... HoYoverse's latest dose of live-service diarrhea? Hey, I didn't think Genshin Impact was bad, but Nodusfall? A mix of Elden Ring and Monster Hunter? Do they go bungee jumping on three-foot cords at HoYoverse too?

If that was the opener, I might as well go back to Morrowind. But then this article would be too short. So, what else? Rainbow Six Tactics, coming sometime in 2027. That's a “skip” for now, as they say in chat. Gears of War: E-Day. Looks like Helldivers 2, minus the fun. Skip. And now? Anime Everything. Climb, punch, sneak, cheers: Ananta. Pretty, but it reeks of HoYoverse-style gacha. Skip.

Well, there are a few interesting titles in there—Sea of Remnants, for example. I also think it's pretty neat that good ol' Mega Man and Rayman got some stage time. The overall mix is actually fine. And yet I can't shake the feeling that I'm sitting in a five-star restaurant being served pancakes. If the presentation goes full Oscars, people are going to expect Oscar-level fare.

A two-tier ONL would be better

I do have a solution to this problem, though. In the future, Gamescom could simply have two different opening formats. Like this:

• For gamers: the new Opening Night Live—with a jeans-and-T-shirt dress code, embarrassing verbal slip-ups, interviewees casually eating on the side and gameplay trailers that actually contain gameplay.
• For investors and assorted suits: Opening Statistics Live—with sharply dressed types striking the “right hand in trouser pocket” pose, upward-trending charts, endless walls of numbers and cinematic trailers showing absolutely everything except actual gameplay.

With Opening Statistics Live, you wouldn't even have to bother the gamers. Just upload each new edition to YouTube as an unlisted video, then post the link on LinkedIn with “Some exciting news!” Geoff could finally fix his fashion deficit and wear a tie, too. Yeah, that would work beautifully for me.

More likely, though, AI will take over Gamescom. Yes, including the hosting. For one thing, cheerleader journalists—I'm just the messenger here—are interchangeable. And for another, a virtual host can cheer, sing and dance at the same time. Geoff only gave us a quick wave goodbye. No song, no dance, not even a tiny moonwalk. I could've stared at that much unused stage space in Morrowind.