GAMEHOTEL 'BOSS SUITE' AT GAMESCOM COLOGNE - SUMMER NIGHT ROOFTOP EXTRAVAGANZA

On a beautiful summer evening, the latest edition of the celebrated international event series Gamehotel brought together leading figures and guests from the global game industry for a rooftop party and talk-show extravaganza at Gamescom Cologne.
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The night before the Gamescom Cologne opening, the penthouse of the Microsoft building overlooking Cologne‘s Rheinau harbor set the stage for the Gamehotel Boss Suite. Gamehotel founders Tina Cassani and Bruno Beusch hosted a talk show extravaganza and rooftop party featuring a roster of heavy hitters from the global game industry. British game industry legend Peter Molyneux, creative director of Microsoft Game Studios, jetted in as Gamehotel’s special guest. Molyneux engaged in a lively exchange with the host, discussing the future of interactive entertainment.

Rooftop Extravaganza with a World Class Lineup
The extraordinary richness and diversity in current interactive entertainment was illustrated by two other leading figures of the global games industry: Patrice Désilets, creative director of successful action-adventure Assassins Creed, and Matias Myllyrinne, studio head at Remedy, the developer of the much-anticipated psychological action thriller game Alan Wake. Sharing insightful anecdotes they showed how complex narration techniques move the games medium into the realm of one of the most compelling entertainment forms of our time.

East and West
Petri Purho, Finnish creator of the acclaimed Crayon Physics Deluxe game, demonstrated that he is one of the gaming industry’s hottest young minds. The maverick of game developers boldly accepted the live challenge to design a game based on themes indicated by the audience. He completed his task in just five minutes - a performance that was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Japan’s Keiichi Yano, one of the world’s most inspiring game creators, engaged in an enthralling conversation on the shared gaming influence between the East and West. He blew the audience away with a song from his latest karaoke game Lips Number One Hits, performing a duet with Steven Poole, aka Trigger Happy, a long-time columnist at Edge Magazine.

Alex Rigopulos, the CEO of Harmonix and mastermind behind the successful music game franchise Rockband drummed up even more excitement. In a setting reminiscent of the legendary London rooftop concert by the Beatles, he demo’ed the upcoming Beatles Rock Band game on the skyscraper’s terrace.

Boss Battle
Among the show‘s many highlights was the Gamehotel Boss Battle. The contest put the guest stars’ creative power to a final test. The dream team composed of Peter Molyneux and Keiichi Yano came up with an innovative concept of a game to be played on the moon, and was voted the winners by the audience.

„A world-class lineup celebrating games and discussing fresh trends, all at a spectacular venue - the Gamehotel Boss Suite was the perfect warm-up to a great trade fair week,“ said Gamehotel co-founder and executive producer Tina Cassani.

"We're very excited to be the main sponsor of Gamehotel, a unique event celebrating the world’s most creative figures who continually reinvent the magic of interactive entertainment," said Jens Tinapp, Head of Marketing, Entertainment & Devices, Microsoft Germany.

Attendees were also entertained by Scottish musician Greig Stewart, who performed legendary game music tunes on a Theremin, a musical instrument controlled with electromagnetic waves without contact from the player. The audience continued the conversation with the guest stars as the talk show segued into a rooftop party, wrapping up the soirée in style.