1D3 at gamescom 2026 Recap

A month later, the energy of gamescom 2026 is still with us. Here is a look back at our time at gamescom 2026.

Three busy days in Cologne brought together game developers, publishers, technology providers, payment companies, platforms and partners from across the industry. For the 1D3 team, it was a chance to reconnect with familiar faces, meet new people and have conversations that are difficult to replace with calls and emails.

Meeting the people behind the industry

Our stand became a meeting point for partners, clients and companies exploring new ways to grow their gaming businesses. A large part of our conversations focused on monetization, direct-to-consumer strategies, webstores, payments and the growing importance of building a more direct relationship with players.

Games industry is shifting. Developers and publishers now are looking beyond traditional app-store monetization and asking practical questions about how D2C can fit into their existing business without hurting conversion or player experience.

More than meetings

The best conversations always happen outside of scheduled meetings. Happy Hours, industry events and informal discussions across the venue created plenty of opportunities to exchange ideas, exchange experiences and talk about where gaming is heading next.

We also spent some time exploring the entertainment area and seeing what developers are building. That is one of the things that makes gamescom different from many other industry events: business, technology and the games themselves all come together in one place.

D2C remains a major topic

One of the hottest topics during the event was direct-to-consumer monetization.

Developers and publishers are exploring the ways to avoid high platform fees with D2C. Regulatory updates are creating more opportunities, but they are also creating new questions around implementation, conversion, compliance and user experience.

For us, these conversations were particularly valuable because they showed how quickly D2C is moving from an experimental idea to a real part of game monetization strategies.

Thank you to everyone we met

A big thank you to everyone who visited our stand, met with the team, joined us for a conversation or simply stopped by to say hello. Events like gamescom are ultimately about the people. The meetings, introductions and unexpected conversations are what make the trip worthwhile.

We left Cologne with new connections, stronger partnerships and plenty of ideas to continue working on. We are already looking forward to the next one.