This weekend I visited DreamHack in Stockholm with my oldest and his friends. He is 12. DreamHack is a convention for computer games and all things gaming related.
Spread across a large indoor arena with eternal dusk, plenty of seats await visitors to join in and play the latest computer games. Three large scenes with competitions and events. Shops and artists alley. One room with rows and rows of computers. Like the first LAN parties in the 1980s. The budget is higher and the hardware is better, but the core is still the same.
Serious business
This is big business. Esport tournaments with commentators drooling on forever about the future of gaming and how excited they are. Free giveaways thrown from stages to a crowd chanting the name of the sponsor. But it’s also small business and people doing things they love for fun. Like the cosplayers. I’m thinking how it must be for a designer to have someone pick up a character from a game you have created. Fans spending months on creating props and costumes and rehearsing scenes to play it out on stage in front of a large crowd.
But is also deadly serious. Young kids shooting pixels on screens. The Swedish Defence and the Swedish Police planting the idea of a future career with them. Mental health volunteer groups.
Cardboard
Stuck away in one corner I found a section for tabletop games. Asmodee, a giant in the world of boardgames, a side show for Embracer Group who recently bought the company. I like my games to have physical components and to have another human being sitting in front of me when I play. I’m old-fashioned that way I know. I got to check out Wingspan, Mandalorian, and Duel for Middle-earth.
Kids enjoyed themselves. Mission accomplished.
