AfD politicians are “not welcome” at Gamescom, the world’s largest computer and video games fair in Cologne, the head of the German games industry association has said, as federal, state and EU politicians from CDU, CSU and SPD attended the opening events.
Felix Falk, managing director of game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche, which co-organises the fair with Koelnmesse, told an audience after the opening that those who “fight democratic principles and an open society, as the allegedly AfD does, are not our partner and are not welcome at a Gamescom”.
He added that Germany was a country in which diversity, equality and democratic rights were upheld, and that the association stood for the liberal-democratic basic order, the rule of law and an open society.
The remarks drew applause.
The association has for years declined talks with the AfD and does not invite its politicians to its events, including the Gamescom Congress, which this year is framed around games, e-sports and democracy.
Falk has previously said the party does not correspond to the industry’s values. The policy predates the current fair.
Other politicians were invited. They included research minister Dorothee Bär (CSU), finance minister and vice-chancellor Lars Klingbeil (SPD), North Rhine-Westphalia minister-president Hendrik Wüst (CDU), and European Commission executive vice-president Henna Virkkunen.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first German head of state to attend Gamescom, opened the congress and toured the halls with Falk.
Steinmeier said digital games were culturally relevant and therefore relevant to democracy, for good and ill, and called for clearer rules against extremist and “democracy-hostile” content online. More than 40 million people in Germany play games, he said.
Gamescom runs until August 30. Organisers report a sold-out exhibition area.
The association and Koelnmesse have long treated the fair as a political as well as commercial gathering; hundreds of politicians from federal, state and EU level typically visit.
The political firewall is a choice by a publicly supported industry body and a city-owned fair operator, not a legal ban on ticket-holders.
Alice Weidel of the AfD attended unofficially in 2018.
The event and the wider German games sector receive substantial public money from governments led by the parties whose representatives were welcomed.
The federal government, a CDU/CSU–SPD coalition, has raised games funding to about €125 million for 2026, up from €88 million in 2025 and far above earlier levels.
Klingbeil has said the high level of support will be maintained. Tax credits for studios, promised in the coalition agreement, have not yet been implemented.
North Rhine-Westphalia, governed by the CDU, subsidises Gamescom side events. State support for accompanying programmes has been increased to more than €400,000, including about €225,000 for the Gamescom Congress co-run by game and Koelnmesse, plus money for the developer conference and investor events.
The state also funds games production via the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW.
The City of Cologne, whose mayor sits on the Koelnmesse supervisory board, has funded the Gamescom city festival with hundreds of thousands of euros in recent years (€250,000 in 2025; organisers have cited a higher figure for 2026). Koelnmesse itself is a municipal trade-fair company.
In a reaction to Brussels Signal, AfD MEP Mary Khan said “Gamescom showcases open worlds, just not open political debate. It wants Germans exploring limitless virtual worlds while placing very real limits on the political opinions it is prepared to tolerate. With the AfD leading the polls in Saxony-Anhalt, Gamescom will soon discover that political reality is not so easy to switch off.”
The remarks come days before the Saxony-Anhalt state election on September 6, in which the AfD is competitive.
German domestic intelligence has classified the party, or parts of it, as a confirmed right-wing extremist endeavour; that designation is subject to legal challenge.
