Gamescom Opening Night Live took place earlier today, and like I've done every show since leaving My Old Job, I didn't watch it. You didn't need to watch it either. If you did, though, or are only now catching up on some of the reveals, have you ever wondered how much it costs to get a game in front of that many eyeballs at the same time?
As we've learned from Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest, these things don't come cheap! In Gamescom 2025's case (thanks to Christopher Kassulke for first posting these), prices ranged from a downright affordable (RELATIVE) €70,500 (USD$82,000) for a 30-second spot in the pre-show, and went all the way up to €465,000 (or USD$520,000 at time of publishing) for 180 seconds in the main event.
Here's the full breakdown:
ONL Pre Show
30 Sec - 70,500.00 EUR
60 Sec - 102,500.00 EUR
90 Sec - 135,000.00 EUR
120 Sec - 167,500.00 EUR
150 Sec - 200,000.00 EUR
180 Sec - 232,500.00 EUR
ONL Main Show
30 Sec - 140,000.00 EUR
60 Sec - 205,000.00 EUR
90 Sec - 270,000.00 EUR
120 Sec - 335,000.00 EUR
150 Sec - 400,000.00 EUR
180 Sec - 465,000.00 EUR
Note that not every trailer making up the show was paid for like this. Again, like Summer Game Fest, access to the showcase could come via one of two ways: a "sponsorship" slot, which is paying the prices above, or as an "editorial" slot, which were reserved for "brand new game announcements and breaking game news to drive awareness/audience during the livestream", and which came "without additional costs".
For those that did spend, that's a lot of money. Especially when you consider a lot of these bigger companies aren't just stumping up for a trailer or two, but for booths and other deals (like €75,000 for an 'event module') across the multiple days.
Hope it was worth it! And by worth it I mean that for over half a million dollars you got your trailer near the top of a website's "ALL THE STUFF WE SAW AT GAMESCOM OPENING NIGHT LIVE" blog, and not buried somewhere near the bottom.
UPDATE 9:10pm, August 22: Felix Falk, managing director of the German Games Industry Association, has told GI.biz "Of course, you can place some advertisements in Opening Night Live, but the vast majority of the content is free. No matter if you're a AAA title or indie, as long as your content is brilliant, Geoff will decide to put you in a show, and it doesn't cost you a penny."
"Vast majority" doesn't mesh with what we've been told, particularly with regards to the main show, but it does at least expand on the idea of the "editorial" slot mentioned in the original story.
