This is the first of our series of interviews at Spiel ’21

Messer Essen is huge. 8 halls. Each the size of very large aircraft hangers.

Our first vox pop interviews are with members of the public queuing and waiting for the fair to open.

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As you can hear, the doors have just opened to the main halls.

The massive polite queues morph into a steady flow of humanity into halls 1 to 6 containing Spiel.

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First stop, Hall 6, to talk with two Dutch publisher/distributors: Gam’inBiz and HOT Games at stand 6G117.

They are…

Michiel de Wit from Gam’inBiz

Wido Grimbergen from HOT Games, with contributions from Stephen and Joachim.

After talking we finished with an obligatory group photo.

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I’ll wrap up this episode with some thoughts on Spiel itself.

Quoting from the Wikipedia entry…

Spiel, or more formally

Internationale Spieltage, often called the Essen Game Fair after the city where it is held, is an annual four-day boardgame trade fair which is also open to the public held in October (Thursday to the following Sunday) at the Messe Essen exhibition centre in Essen

Essen is in the Northwest of Germany, not far from the Dutch border, well connected by road, rail and nearby airports.

Day tickets this year were about 14€ for a child and 22€ for an adult.

The Spiel is special.

Not only is it the largest game fair in the world.

It is special because it is open to everyone.

As a trade fair it brings, publishers, manufacturers, artists, game designers and everyone involved in games together to talk business (and play games).

But it is also for to the public and incredibly popular.

If you are into boardgames you should go to Spiel.

One of the Spiel’s greatest achievements has been the buzz produced by the “Spiel des Jahres”.

German for “The Game of the Year”.

The “Spiel des Jahres” is an award for family-friendly game design excellence, and while it started out as an award for the German market, its reputation has grown such that it is recognised internationally, not least because any game can be nominated, and the judges seem to have the knack for finding and applauding the best new games.

Spiel is really emblematic of industry in love with diversity and difference.

The game industry thrives on innovation, while acknowledging its history and appreciation for the classics, it is driven by novelty, new ideas, new games and variety.

And although yes it has a commercial corporate side, at its heart this community is all about the love of play. The delight of playing with others, competing, cooperating, learning something new, making and having fun.

We hope you enjoyed the podcast.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to the Game Chat on Design Talk (dot ie)

Acknowledgements

Music 

Title: One Love Hip Hop

Artist: PACMAN* ft. RHYZUP

Source: https://bit.ly/2txLghm​

License: Creative Commons - Attribution 3.0 - CC BY 3.0

Cover Art 

Title: Talking Spiel

Artist: Allen Higgins

Source: Instagram_Format_Post_b.png

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Podcast Licence

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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