GC taking place outside Leipzig needs green light from organizers

This year’s GC in Leipzig packed a lot of surprises for the videogame community, with the industry’s biggest movers and shakers flashing their biggest guns for the world to see. It’s not hard to see, then, why some people would want the event held in a bigger scale and in a different venue, for maximum digital entertainment nirvana. Rumors of this happening have circulated ’round the interwebs quite a bit, some of them stating that GC will indeed be taking place in a different location come 2009.

While this may seem like a good idea on paper, it may not be all that feasible, as the decision to move GC from Leipzig would need the express permission from the organizers of the convention itself.

This revelation comes from a representative of Leipziger Messe, the company who currently owns Games Convention and the GC brand. Since Leipziger Messe owns GC and all that entails, they have the final say on whether or not GC takes place in a location other than Leipzig.

They also went on to disprove the rumors even further. Not only would there be little chance of them granting the permission because this year’s location proved to be a huge success, but also that applying for the permission itself was a process that took two or three years of negotiation. Ouch.

So for those of us who were hoping to have GC take place somewhere closer to home, too bad. But yours truly doubts that the minor inconvenience of taking an overseas trip would affect gamers worldwide. It’s GC, after all!

This year’s GC in Leipzig packed a lot of surprises for the videogame community, with the industry’s biggest movers and shakers flashing their biggest guns for the world to see. It’s not hard to see, then, why some people would want the event held in a bigger scale and in a different venue, for maximum digital entertainment nirvana. Rumors of this happening have circulated ’round the interwebs quite a bit, some of them stating that GC will indeed be taking place in a different location come 2009.

While this may seem like a good idea on paper, it may not be all that feasible, as the decision to move GC from Leipzig would need the express permission from the organizers of the convention itself.

This revelation comes from a representative of Leipziger Messe, the company who currently owns Games Convention and the GC brand. Since Leipziger Messe owns GC and all that entails, they have the final say on whether or not GC takes place in a location other than Leipzig.

They also went on to disprove the rumors even further. Not only would there be little chance of them granting the permission because this year’s location proved to be a huge success, but also that applying for the permission itself was a process that took two or three years of negotiation. Ouch.

So for those of us who were hoping to have GC take place somewhere closer to home, too bad. But yours truly doubts that the minor inconvenience of taking an overseas trip would affect gamers worldwide. It’s GC, after all!