BERLIN, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- This year's gamescom, one of the world's largest trade fairs for video games, kicked off in the German city of Cologne on Tuesday with a focus on cloud gaming.
Cloud gaming would have the potential to change the games industry "dramatically" because all "essential" processing would take place in data centers, according to the German video game association (game) which is one of the organizers of gamescom.
With cloud gaming, video gamers would not need powerful hardware anymore and "even the most technically demanding" games could be played on basic laptops, smartphones or tablets, the German video game association stated.
According to the organizers, around 1,150 exhibitors from over 50 countries and regions are expected to present the latest trends in the computer games industry as well as numerous new game developments on an area of 218,000 square meters.
"At gamescom, everyone can see that games attract millions of people, drive technological innovation and are an important cultural and economic factor," said Felix Falk, managing director of the association of the German games industry (game).
Andreas Scheuer, Germany's minister of transport and digital infrastructure, reminded during his opening speech at the gamescom that "we agreed in the coalition agreement to promote the games industry".
Germany needed the "innovative energy" from the video game industry, said Scheuer and added that the German transport ministry would be "strongly committed" to ensuring that funding for the gaming industry would continue in the long term.
The video games industry is booming in Germany as revenues from games and games hardware rose by 11 percent to a total of 2.8 billion euros (3.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, according to game.
However, Germany is only ranking fourth among the global gaming markets. China is coming in first place with around 20.5 billion euros of turnover generated with video games in 2018, followed by the United States with 15.8 billion euros, according to the German statistics company Statista.
The gamescom trade fair is scheduled to last until Saturday this week. However, day tickets for Friday and Saturday are already sold out.
