The Catalan fair registers 122,000 visitors, 16,000 less than in 2018. RetroBarcelona is consolidated as an essential space for the retro world in Spain.
NiceOne Barcelona (N1B), formerly Barcelona Games World, has finished this weekend its fourth edition with the purpose of expanding the festival to other areas of digital entertainment, beyond conventional consoles and video games. And it does so withstanding the type, although it has lost visitors compared to 2018. 122,000 according to the organizers for 138,000 of the last BGW. The festival organized by Fira de Barcelona has been held from November 28 to December 1 and has had a hall of more than 60,000m², 198 exhibiting companies and 320 gaming terminals.
In this fourth edition, the festival has been the showcase for the presentation and launch of some new and expected titles such as: Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (Bandai Namco Entertainment), Nioh 2 (Playstation) or Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo), in addition to dedicating a large part of its space to eSports (Iberian Cup of League of Legends), and with special novelty, to technoSports, a new modality that combines eSports with augmented reality (RA).
Iron Man VR (for Playstation 4), has been one of the games that has had a high participation rate within the VR genre in a room that has accused the lack of more news and variety of proposals and upcoming titles.
Experiential immersion, a highlight of this edition
Under a more experiential and entertainment-oriented premise, visitors to this edition have been able to experience a first-hand immersion based on the Man of Medan game (the first title of the Dark Pictures Anthology series by Bandai Namco Entertainment) with the recreation of Famous video game ship under an atmosphere of terror, a Zombie Shooter Experience with a game space of up to 400m² using state-of-the-art laser tag weapons, as well as a new action game between teams by Vodafone Yu, which has allowed its Participants use a zip line located just over 7 meters high. This is the example of the type of experiences that the classroom had as its objective.
RetroBarcelona: An ode to nostalgia arcad
RetroBarcelona has also been present at the event with its seventh edition, hosting round tables on classic video games, tournaments, shopping areas and a large game area between consoles and arcades. This year, RetroBarcelona has commemorated the 30th anniversary of Game Boy, a clear nostalgic icon of the 90s, which inaugurated the era of portable entertainment. In addition, also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Konami, which has given us such important works as Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Gradius, Contra and Pro Evolution Soccer, RetroBarcelona has taken the opportunity to dedicate a tribute poster and do a long review throughout the brand trajectory
Rawal Rumble, one of the games under the “Catalan Video Games” label, the Catalan Institute of Cultural Companies (ICEC) of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat.
We do not forget the solidarity initiative Video Games for Food promoted by ASUPIVA (Nonprofit Association of Users of PC, Internet, Videogames and Arcade) since there have been many participants who have collaborated again in this edition, exchanging kilos of food for video games
A new approach aimed at digital consumers
One of the peculiarities of this edition has been its change of name and intentions, since as the festival officially announced, NiceOne Barcelona does not intend to position itself exclusively in the environment of video games, but also aims to be a reference within the field of digital entertainment and new gaming platforms. N1B intends to remain the benchmark for players, under the pretext that digital entertainment today no longer resides solely in video games, but that it increasingly configures a wider audience.
Josep Antoni Llopart, Director of NiceOne Barcelona, defined it this way: “From now on we want to bring thousands of gamers closer to the great world of digital entertainment in its entirety”.
And there are new important players such as Google Stadia in 2020, or large content producers such as HBO or Netflix that involve a social transformation, where the consumer changes the rules of the game deciding what, how and when to consume. Given this change of will, we will only have to wait until next year to see the course of the fair.
