Two decades ago there were unsettling rumors that the Games Convention could leave Leipzig. For me they are completely absurd. But some are more concerned. The city’s economic development agency is looking for and connecting partners to make Leipzig visible as a games city. She finds open ears at our technical college, the HTWK. It is now putting games instead of e-commerce at the center of an annual conference, the Leipzig IT Days. As a freelance journalist, I apply for a lecture – and am accepted: “Digital games – economic factor and technology driver”.
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In the evening, December 1st, 2006, the participants are sitting comfortably in a restaurant. Two professors, Hans-Ulrich Niemitz and Klaus Bastian, brought a project to my attention: “The Long Night of Computer Games” in May as the highlight of a public lecture series about, well, games. It’s just a pretty sounding name at first; the content is still missing. We exchange ideas: You could stock a PC pool with games, you could set up old and new consoles in the hallway, you could show exhibits behind glass. The proposals will be developed over the months. The meeting point for this is the monthly get-together of the Leipzig gaming scene.
Hard drive fried egg
In order to transform the work computers in the PC cabinet into gaming machines, the hard drives are changed. I will receive a sample computer with a fresh Windows for a few weeks. There I install all sorts of things, mostly freeware and demo versions; later I’ll ask small studios for DRM-free versions. There are some online games for which we set up accounts for visitors.
An IT technician duplicates the hard drive twenty times and installs the game disks in all the PCs before game night. While preparing, I quickly learn that I not only need a PC, but also a monitor from university: It has a ratio of 16:10 (1920 x 1200 pixels), which is less typical for games, and which I sometimes cannot adjust when setting up at home.
The university still hoards a handful of old tube televisions, to which I connect all sorts of old and new consoles, from the Super Nintendo to the Dreamcast to the Wii. Particularly popular then and now: the drum game “Donkey Konga” for four players on the GameCube. Over the years I have been purchasing more and more screens for events; now there are around 100.
2007
René Meyer
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To top it off, a friend (former games journalist Nico Kuhn) brings the brand new PlayStation 3 and flat-screen TV. The museology faculty lends me two table display cases in which I display handhelds and a variety of game storage media. During game night, the student council offers sandwiches and drinks for a small fee.
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As an opening, Jörg Müller-Lietzkow (now President of HafenCity University Hamburg) speaks about “Fascination Gaming – State of the Art”. The inclusion of the then popular online world “Second Life” was also state of the art: a place was created there for game night; and at the same time it is beamed into the event via a projector.
All of this is a lot of effort for a few dozen visitors. Some are students who get credit for attending the lecture series. Some are friends. But everyone is having fun. And so the idea of repeating the game night a year later, in 2008, was born.
Game night is getting bigger
In the third year of 2009 things are slowly gaining momentum. The collector Torsten Othmer (who founded an Atari club with a friend in 1986) brings a number of other devices with him; including Amiga, Atari ST and Apple II. And we are setting up a cinema corner in which classics like “Tron” and “Wargames” are shown on a projector.
In its fourth year, Game Night has grown significantly in size. A network of eight Atari STs is set up on which “MIDI Maze” can be played. A kind of “Doom” precursor from the 80s. The game music web radio PARALAX comes from Wuppertal and is streaming the event. A playing field is being set up for the university’s soccer robots, who have already become world champions and runners-up several times. In the fifth year, together with the Midimaze.de team, we have created a network of breathtaking 16 Atari STs.
But now the university’s small Zuse building, which has neither seminar rooms nor lecture halls and instead contains offices, has reached its limits. The offering attracts several hundred visitors who crowd into the narrow corridors. The dichotomy due to its origins as part of a lecture series is also becoming increasingly disruptive: the opening with lectures and presentations from 4 p.m. is now two and a half hours long. It takes place in the adjacent building across the street because there are no larger rooms in the Zuse building.
And a friend honestly says, “Dude, game night is boring.” Indeed. There’s not much you can do other than sitting down at a PC or console. At that time I got to know the Living Games Festival in the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum. It’s much more spacious and offers so much more: indie developer booths, talks and interviews, digital art, a bar and booths for chatting. I want that in Leipzig too.
Relocation
The computer science professor Klaus Bastian, with whom I now play game night as a couple, has a tempting suggestion: moving from the small Zuse building to the magnificent and considerably larger Lipsius building with its foyer, many seminar rooms, several lecture halls and pools and the cafeteria.
In order to fill the space, I am recruiting exhibitors. The Leipzig computer game school brings notebooks that run Minecraft. There are the first tournaments; and indie developers are slowly gathering too. They are difficult to win: no time, nothing to show, no hardware to take to a trade fair. It is initially easier to acquire university projects.
There are so many lecture halls that we can set up a cinema hall in addition to a lecture room. In order to make the fascinating documentary “Moleman 2 – Demoscene” accessible to everyone, I have been translating the subtitles into German for two weeks, and still without AI. Only one spectator comes to the premiere: my father-in-law. The following year I took “revenge” and ran the film on a continuous loop. That helps.
However, the idea of including board games and table tops turns out to be a hit; secondly, to move them to the huge cafeteria, the most beautiful place in the university with its glass roof, terrace-like levels and many plants. Board games and card games go well with computer games and are now a popular area at many trade fairs and festivals.
What’s beneficial: At the same time I’m organizing the Retro Area at Gamescom; and both grow and fertilize each other. I can attract Leipzig exhibitors to Cologne; I tell Gamescom exhibitors that game night is just as nice. Sometimes that works.
The Long Night of Computer Games grows step by step by floors and rooms until it covers several thousand square meters and attracts several thousand visitors.
University as an event location
A college is a practical place for a gaming festival. Everything you need is already there. Tables and chairs for exhibitors, lecture rooms, internet, projector, sanitary facilities, a dining room. And a large public event is a good opportunity for the university itself to present itself and the work of students. The game night has been cooperating with the university information day for years. Both practically merge into one another. What didn’t work out, however, was becoming part of the Museum Night.
The first game nights do not have a fixed end. Later we set the end time at 3 a.m. This causes problems for some exhibitors, especially those who had to travel a long way. And now there are increasingly families among the visitors. So we move the times from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. to 2 p.m. to 1 a.m. Today the event ends at 11 p.m.
Marketing without a budget
The number of visitors grows with the offer. But how do you get the word out about an event other than through word of mouth? One component is A2 posters. There aren’t many of them, but I place them in prominent places in the college. At the front door, in the elevator – nothing is sacred to me. They even use contacts to get to the university’s computer center and to universities in other cities. The smaller A3 format is distributed to schools.
A second component is an inviting website that makes you want to attend the event. Well structured, lots of photos. At first glance you should think: I want to go there. To do this, I’m brushing up on my knowledge of HTML and CSS and learning a bit of PHP to design a contributor registration form.
A third component is social media. I post in retro forums like Forum64, create and maintain a Facebook page and use the Leipzig gaming scene mailing list I maintain.
The fourth building block is the good old press release. The university has a mailing list anyway, but I’m setting up two of my own mailing lists: one for the local media such as daily newspapers and radio, one for the national gaming and computer press. The third game night in 2009 even made it onto Heise.de.
Handover of the baton after ten years
As the size of the event increases, so does the effort. I put several hundred hours into preparation every year. Acquiring and advising exhibitors, lecture program, preparing the sample calculator, maintaining the website and Facebook. To do this, I continue to build a lot of devices, sometimes thirty consoles and home computers, all with CRT screens, and bring hardware for other exhibitors. For Klaus Bastian, retirement beckons; and so after ten years we decide to hand the game night into other hands.
Since 2017, it has been the responsibility of several professors and is closely integrated into the studies. That and the manageable costs ensure their continued existence. Annual project managers are master’s students in media management. Media technology students host an e-sports tournament that is moderated and streamed. Even in the “Studium generale”, which promotes general knowledge, you can collect points by helping out.
New minds lead to new ideas. An integral part of the game night since 2020 has been a scientific conference, the Science MashUp. And artists are added as a further area.
Of course, I will still be there as an exhibitor. Even if the respective organizational team regularly groans when they receive another unsolicited email with suggestions. First and foremost, I’m glad that the spirit of the event has been preserved: a carefree festival of gaming culture, free of charge, broadly diversified, which networks the scene and makes it visible. A place where there is easily room for many ideas – even for a Carrera racetrack from back in the day.
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