Dreamhack Leipzig – 13th- 15th of January 2017

by Miriam Mircea

Surprise! It’s just Dreamhack Germany’s second edition and I managed to be there, as always, with a nice shiny press pass. Because we take pride in being present at most important gaming, comics and movies events, weather in Romania or abroad, this one was a “must not miss”. 

I only could visit it on Friday, opening day, just after midday, when things were starting to heat up. People were coming, press presence was felt and the atmosphere started to build up. Mostly men and boys, from all over Germany and abroad were making their way through the snowy windy weather to reach the “gamers paradise”, as Dreamhack is dubbed.The female presence, although scarce, made quite an impact on the participants, in all the good ways. I was very pleasantly surprised by the organization and order, and mostly by how nice and helpful everyone was. Because I was on foot, I was offered the possibility to use the free Messe Shuttle Bus, which saved me from walking in the Blizzard (see what I did there?:). Getting the press pass was a no-brainer, as our small but brave agency is slowly starting to get known here in Germany, especially because of our constant presence at events like the Leipzig and Frankfurt international Book Fairs. So, let me get into it with details for all you who are gamers or simply curious. The event takes place in two exhibition halls at Leipziger Messe. Plenty of well- informed and helpful staff around, to guide clumsy people like myself, who managed to get herself lost twice in two hours So, the condition to play- visit the LAN is to be over 18. When asked if I was older than 18, I giggled like a schoolgirl. I was already enjoying it there  As I couldn’t spend too much time at the event, I went first to check out the LAN in Hall 4. Complete and utter darkness greeted me, along with joyful screams of the ones who had already started playing. It was, inspire of the feeling of silence, a good space to kick your enemy’s ass in games.The price for a place there was well over 100€, but for the gamers this was only normal and I could notice places were almost all taken. Some even went further and decorated their gaming stations with lights, flowers, toys etc. I made my way through the other Hall and learned that the Dreamhack Open Tournament offers a price of 100.000 US $ to the best of them all. Slowly the slogan “There can be only one” creeped in my mind.The idea of the Tournament is to let international Professional gamers face “Amateurs” or beginners. It all reminded me of football, with teams going through qualification phases, each gamers’ team composed of four players. The Grand Finale of the Tournament takes place on the last day. Samsung, one of the event’s main exhibitors and sponsors, organized  for the first time, a Tournament called “The Tentatic Tournament”. It goes down like this: 2 teams of seven players face each other in 10 different games, out of which classics like Counter- Strike 1.6, Warcraft 3, Rocket League, Speed Runners and Unreal Tournament 3. The teams were recruited with the help of social media, their captains having found the members mainly through Facebook, YouTube etc. Of course they all wanna win, as the losers will have to appear the next day at the event dressed as pink bunnies The thing that bums me the most is missing out on the cosplay contest, which takes place on Saturday afternoon. Its official partner is Nightshift Cosplay and its motto is ” from Cosplayers for the Cosplayers”. The Jury finds winners among the 30 participants, motivated also by the high money prices offered by the contest. The main prize is a full-financed trip to DreamHack Summer 2017, in Sweden, for two people. I’m gonna mention the event’s sponsors: Samsung, Logitech, Nvidia, ROG- Republic of Gamers- Asus, third worldwide from all the producers of consumers notebooks. Among the exhibitors there are : Amazon.de, Asus, Ballistix, Black Forest Games, Games Academy, Lioncast, Logitech, Monster Energy Europe ltd., and many others. What I personally, as a non-gamer, enjoyed most, were the Media Galaxy DreamStore and Virtual Reality spot. Many visitors were very keen on trying the simulator, the line was unending and I could barely get close to snap a pic or two. I’m pretty sure the atmosphere will be heating up in the following two days. The event looks very promising and I would love to witness its evolution during more years to come. Thank you to the organizers for a job well done. I would also love to see and meet Romanian gamers there. Call me sentimental, but I’m a patriot at heart. Or something like that:)