Indie developers report laptops and a Steam Deck stolen from Gamescom booths

Several indie studios say hardware was stolen from their Gamescom booths overnight, with one solo developer calling the loss “a huge blow financially and mentally.”

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Several independent developers exhibiting at Gamescom in Cologne this week say laptops and other equipment were stolen from their booths overnight, with at least one solo developer describing the loss as effectively ending his show early. The organisers have confirmed they are “aware of stolen hardware” but say the cases are individual incidents rather than a systemic problem.

Gamescom is, according to Kotaku's report, the world's largest gaming event, drawing over 350,000 people a year to the Koelnmesse in Cologne. For big publishers that scale is a marketing opportunity. For a solo indie developer, it is a single, uninsurable roll of the dice with a laptop full of unreleased work on the line.

What happened overnight in Cologne

According to Eurogamer's report, Ryan Laley, the solo developer behind the asymmetrical survival horror game Mimic, posted a video on X saying his booth “got raided last night” and that other exhibitors had been hit too. He said the thieves left the chargers behind and took only the laptops, that he had filed police reports, and that he did not expect to see the equipment again. “This shit's expensive,” Laley said, “and hard to do all by yourself. And to have this happen is beyond frustrating. It's heartbreaking.” Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt Red replied publicly, offering to “check the Arasaka hardware archives” and send Laley some kit, a fittingly odd gesture for an industry that runs partly on in-jokes.

Laley was not alone. Publisher iam8bit told Eurogamer that two of its laptops disappeared from the business area overnight “despite the presence of Koelnmesse security,” machines it had been using to demo Petal Runner and Escape Academy 2 to media and creators. The company said the theft had disrupted a packed appointment schedule and put unfinished builds at risk of leaking. Tessera Studios, maker of The Zibbo Show, said its booth in the Indie Area was broken into earlier in the week when someone forced open a storage cabinet and took two laptops and a Steam Deck containing personal, company and what it called critical information. Tessera also said it had heard of similar thefts at the Games from Spain booth and elsewhere on the show floor, a claim repeated across the thread on r/gamedev that first pulled these accounts together.

Insurance is the exhibitor's problem, not the venue's

A third studio, Ukiyo Studios, made a more pointed claim: that Gamescom staff blocked it from filing a police report after a theft two years ago, telling the studio “it makes Gamescom and the city of Cologne look bad.” Ukiyo said it attends more than fifteen events worldwide each year and that Gamescom is the only one where it now insists on a dedicated locked storage room to pack away every PC and peripheral at the end of each day. That claim is unconfirmed beyond the studio's own account, but it fits the wider grumble running through this year's reports: that general security at the venue is provided by uniformed guards, while protecting an individual stand costs extra, and insuring the equipment is explicitly the exhibitor's job under the show's terms and conditions.

A response developers say is not good enough

Gamescom's official statement, quoted by Eurogamer, says the organisers take the reports “very seriously,” that all cases have gone to the police, and that investigations are under way. It also insists these are “individual cases” and that “at an event of this size, however, there will always be individuals attempting to take advantage of the situation.” The Outer Haven's write-up frames that response as insufficient given how many separate studios have now come forward. What remains unclear is how many thefts actually occurred, whether Ukiyo's claim about being discouraged from reporting an earlier theft holds up, and whether any of the stolen machines, or the unfinished game builds on them, turn up anywhere. For developers weighing whether a Gamescom booth is worth the outlay next year, that uncertainty is now part of the cost of doing business.

Sources

Image: videogameschronicle.com

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