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The 2007 BGC ( the third installment after 2005 and 2006) took place in Frankfurt's Universities' Campus Westend and was by far the biggest BGC to date with more than 240 developers, providers and subcontractors participating in most of the interesting lectures and discussions.

The conference area was divided into a registration area, a showroom for sponsors and partners, 2 seperated lecture rooms, a couple of catering places and a meeting room. But the conference has not only grown organizational, the whole system and the quality of the lectures seemed to be a lot more "mature" than in the years before. Whereas the last years have been affected by basics all around marketing and distribution of new, small games, this year's aim was to help established businesses and bigger games which was done by lectures such as "Investors and Business plans" by Mark Gazecki or "Online gaming in China" by 2 deputies from nexxter.

The sector seems to become more interesting to some larger companies as well - Steffen Ritter from Microsoft Europe came to present their new "Silverlight" technology. But there were other interesting topics such as "Small games getting big" by Heiko Hubertz (Bigpoint), "How to achieve in-game depth comprehendible" by Stephan Wintermeier (Mediatainment) or "Rising from a hobby project to a company" by Siegfried Müller (Travian Games).

"From hardcore strategy to casual MMOG: Quo Vadis Browser games?" became one of the highlights of the event. The panel discussion between Heiko Hubertz (Bigpoint), Klaas Kersting (Gameforge), Frank Matzke (Sierra Online), Ingo Griebl (Burda:ic) and Gerald Hattenberger (Greentube) was moderated by Dr. Andreas Lober, initiator of the BGC. The discussion was based on future prognoses around topics such as "What will the market be like in 2010" or "What influence will external companies and investors have on the scene".
Micro-payment systems such as item shops have been presented as the customer friendliest and most flexible payment option. "This doesn't always work" (Ingo Griebl) and European companies have to learn a lot from the Asian market, who is about 5 years ahead concerning balanced item-sales and item shop systems. An item should not give too many advantages, but still has to be interesting enough to be sold at all.
Klaas Kersting pointed out, that graphic is not the most important factor within a browser game, but an innovative and fun concept is at least as important: "We're still reading books, even though there is cinema", which explains why games with little graphics can still be successful in the future.

An enrichment for the whole event was space and time to communicate with each other - the reaction of the initiators to last year's critics. Adequate breaks after the lectures, free drinks and snacks and a nice get-together helped developers and owners to socialize and manage by walking around. You can see - the market is growing together and the competitor is only human, too.

Quo Vadis BGC? What will there be in 2008? Another location? New topics or lecturers? We're looking forward to meeting the scene at the BGC 2008.

Some Impressions:

Pictures by courtesy of Chili Entertainment GmbH.

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