On Friday, Gamescom attendee and solo indie dev Ryan Layley posted a video to X alleging that his booth had been robbed, despite the 24/7 security provided by the event. And he wasn't alone, noting that other publishers had fallen victim to the raid and that the police were now involved. Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red reached out, offering to replace the hardware, but crucially, amid the outpouring of support from the industry, other devs spoke up about how they too had been robbed.
Tessera Studios co-founder Pere Suau posted images of a broken lock, claiming that the thieves stole "two personal laptops and a Steam Deck that we left stored at our stand." They alleged that "Gamescom takes no responsibility," a sentiment many in the industry echoed. "On Wednesday, we arrived at our booth in the Indie Area to find our cabinet forced open," Tessera Studios posted to its official X account. "The devices contained not only our Gamescom demo, but also personal, company, and critical information."
iam8bit, a production company known for boutique merchandise like Alien Isolation vinyls and Mega Man X classic cartridges, likewise posted a statement to X addressing a break-in. "Today at Gamescom we arrived to our station in the business area hall to discover that our two laptops had been stolen overnight, despite the presence of Koelnmesse security," it said. "These were machines we were using to demo iam8bit Presents titles Petal Runner and Escape Academy 2 to media and content creators during the show [...] This is hugely disappointing for us and our development teams at Nano Park Studios and Coin Crew Games who worked tirelessly to prepare for this show."
Finally, with backlash only continuing to snowball, Gamescom has responded. Though it's not exactly the most reassuring of responses.
"We are aware of stolen hardware and take these reports very seriously and understand the frustration of affected exhibitors," Gamescom said. "Since many requests reached us, we would like to inform about general security regulations at the event: uniformed guards provide security across the venue. Individual stand security can be booked separately, and exhibitors are advised to insure equipment against theft. This is noted in the terms and conditions of participation and the technical guidelines. All cases have been reported to us and to the police, and investigations are already underway.
"Because security has one of the highest priorities to us as an event and to see that indie developers are affected makes us very sad," it continued. "At an event of this size, however, there will always be individuals attempting to take advantage of the situation. Our security measures are designed to minimize such risks as effectively as possible."
Gamescom is already an expensive trip, especially for a solo indie dev, so the official response boiling down to, 'Get insurance' and 'this is bound to happen', especially with round the clock security that is supposed to prevent these kinds of things from happening, hasn't gone down well.
YouTuber DANNYonPC responded, "You're putting all the blame with devs then?" Publisher NoQuarter Software chimed in, "Absolutely unacceptable response." Twitch streamer L0k0hGaming added, "What a lovely way to apologize by blaming the devs." Neon Doctrine co-founder Vladislav Tsõpljak said, "Did you just... blame the people that got robbed for not hiring private security at your event?" Pretty much every comment and quote says the same thing: "What an utterly sh*t response" (thanks, Tom Warren).
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/gamescom-officially-responds-to-stolen-hardware-reports/
