Gamescom is supposed to be a celebration of video games. Instead, Germany’s political, media and institutional establishment has discovered that a gaming convention is a fantastic place to parade its priorities in front of hundreds of thousands of young people.

And gamescom is playing along.

The NGO Amadeu Antonio Foundation is present. Demokratie leben! / Live Democracy! is present. Government and security institutions are crawling all over the event.

Steinmeier’s Democracy

Apparently a gaming convention now needs a political blessing from the highest levels of the German state before it can get started.

This is not what gamers needed from gamescom. Nobody bought a ticket because they desperately wanted to hear a politician explain democracy. Nobody travelled to Cologne to be reminded that the Federal President approves of open society rhetoric.

But the political establishment understands something that the gaming industry sometimes seems to forget: gamescom gives them access to an enormous audience that doesn’t normally show up for political events.

They bring speeches, campaigns, initiatives, messages and photo opportunities with them, and gamescom provides the stage.

From “Killerspiele” to Cannon Fodder

And then there is the German Armed Forces.

For years, the German political-media complex called video games “Killer Games.” We were told that virtual violence was corrupting young people, making them aggressive and turning gamers into potential killers.

Now the same establishment has discovered that the Killer Game generation is actually very useful.

The German Armed Forces have brought a huge presence to gamescom for years, showcasing drones and military technology to exactly the generation it once lectured about the dangers of simulated warfare. The message has changed completely. The gamer is no longer the problem.

They want Gen-Z looking at drones and seeing technology, opportunity and a career. They want the generation raised on virtual battlefields to become comfortable with the real machinery of war.

The BND (Germany’s foreign intelligence service) has joined the party as well, deciding that nothing says “intelligence service” quite like putting an employee in bunny ears at a gaming convention.

Then there’s Rheinmetall. Because apparently a defense contractor handing out tank socks is perfectly normal at a gaming convention. Play a little game, get your military merch, and suddenly the war machine looks like just another part of the fun.

The Amadeu Antonio Foundation Doesn’t Belong Here

And then we find the NGO Amadeu Antonio Foundation among others at gamescom.

The Amadeu Antonio Foundation was founded by Anetta Kahane, the daughter of Jewish communists and a former Stasi informant. And now this political organization has planted itself inside gamescom.

The same foundation that advocated restricting memes and has promoted narratives connecting right-wing politics with the terrorist Christmas-market attack in Magdeburg.

Gamescom isn’t a political education center, and gamers aren’t an audience waiting for an NGO to decide which jokes, memes or opinions are acceptable.

Yet here they are, inside one of the biggest gaming events in the world, surrounded by the very people whose culture they despise.

Gamescom has no business handing them a platform in the middle of a gaming convention.

ARD: Pay for Your Own Indoctrination

And of course ARD is at gamescom.

A gigantic booth from Germany’s public state broadcasting empire, funded by the €18.36 monthly broadcasting contribution forced on households across Germany.

And what do Germans get for their compulsory contribution?

ARD has lost relevance with younger audiences, so now it follows them into gaming. Gaming influencers, gaming content, all paid for with money people are forced to hand over.

Instead, ARD has to buy its way into the room.

Gamescom or Government Expo?

Walk around Gamescom and the absurdity becomes harder to ignore. A hairdresser, Subway, politicians, the Bundeswehr, Rheinmetall, ARD, political NGOs and government-backed programs are all fighting for space and attention at what is supposed to be a gaming convention. At some point, it stops looking like a gaming event and starts looking like somebody accidentally booked the entire German establishment into the wrong exhibition hall.

And yet, for all this talk about openness and democracy, Gamescom apparently does have one very clear idea of who should not be allowed through the door.

Because while the state, its broadcasters, NGOs and even the defense industry are welcomed into gaming culture, the AfD was told “Not Welcome.”

That is quite a statement for an event that has spent the entire convention inviting institutions and political organizations into a space that is supposed to belong to gamers.

Gamescom is apparently open to politics, just not all politics.

And the people making that decision aren’t hiding behind the usual corporate PR either. Felix Falk, managing director of the German games industry association game, openly defended the exclusion, saying the industry stands for “the free democratic basic order,” “diversity,” “respectful coexistence” and “an open society.”

The issue is the hypocrisy of preaching openness while putting a giant “Not Welcome” sign on the door for millions of German voters.

Gamescom Betrayed Gamers

Gamescom didn’t just betray gaming. It betrayed the players.

It opened the gates to institutions with agendas hostile to the culture and gave them direct access to the people inside it.

Gamescom took a generation of gamers who came there for games and placed them directly in the path of institutions trying to recruit them, influence them and reshape the culture around them.

Now it’s time to chase them back out.

If Gamescom has forgotten who this culture belongs to, we’ll remind them.