CAGGTUS Leipzig 2025: Gaming Heritage, Germany’s Last LAN Party and Cosplay Photography

Leipzig and its Unique Gaming Legacy

With CAGGTUS 2025, Leipzig once again demonstrated why the city still holds a special place in Germany’s gaming culture. Today the event is widely considered the last major LAN party of its kind in Germany, preserving a tradition that once defined the early years of PC gaming communities.

Yet the story behind CAGGTUS is much larger. To understand its significance, it is worth taking a brief look at Leipzig’s long gaming convention history.

From Games Convention to Gamescom

In the early 2000s, Leipzig became the epicenter of the German gaming industry’s public events through the Games Convention, first held in 2002.

At its peak, the fair attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors and functioned as a European counterpart to the American Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and Japan's Tokyo Game Show. Publishers, hardware manufacturers, and developers used the event to showcase upcoming games, new technologies, and major industry announcements.

For years, the Games Convention turned Leipzig into one of Europe’s most important meeting points for the gaming industry.

However, the event was eventually relocated to Cologne, where it was rebranded as Gamescom. For many gaming enthusiasts in Leipzig, the move felt like a significant loss of cultural identity.

Fortunately, the city’s gaming tradition did not end there.

The Evolution: Games Convention Online to DreamHack

After the relocation of the Games Convention, Leipzig introduced the Games Convention Online, focusing more strongly on online gaming, esports, and internet culture.

This event eventually evolved into DreamHack Leipzig, the European edition of the famous Swedish gaming festival. DreamHack combined massive LAN parties, esports tournaments, exhibitions, and community-driven gaming culture.

For several years, DreamHack kept Leipzig firmly on the map of international gaming events.

When DreamHack eventually moved on as well, Leipzig once again faced the question of how to continue its gaming heritage.

The Birth of CAGGTUS

The answer was CAGGTUS.

Designed as a successor that carries the spirit of earlier festivals forward, the event blends classic LAN party culture with modern gaming conventions.

The core concept includes several major components:

• a large LAN area where players bring their own gaming setups

• esports tournaments and stage events

• exhibitor spaces featuring gaming hardware and software

• community and creator areas

This hybrid structure allows CAGGTUS to maintain something many modern conventions have lost: active participation.

Instead of only watching games, visitors can still experience gaming culture directly.

The LAN Party: A Rare Tradition

The LAN party remains the heart of the event.

Participants bring their own PCs, monitors, keyboards, and headsets, connecting them to a massive local network. For several days the exhibition hall transforms into a digital playground where players compete in tournaments, join cooperative matches, or simply enjoy gaming together.

In the early 2000s, LAN parties were central to gaming culture. Today they have become increasingly rare, which makes CAGGTUS something like a living archive of that era.

For many participants, the event represents both community and nostalgia.

Gaming Meets Pop Culture

While gaming remains the central theme, CAGGTUS has gradually expanded into a broader pop culture festival.

Modern gaming culture overlaps strongly with other entertainment fields, including anime, streaming culture, and cosplay. As a result, the event features a growing variety of complementary attractions.

Among the highlights are:

• cosplay appearances and competitions

• retro arcade machines featuring classic titles

• a museum-style exhibition about video game history

These exhibits showcase the evolution of gaming from early arcade cabinets to modern competitive esports.

My Personal Focus: Cosplay Portrait Photography

Although gaming forms the foundation of the event, my own focus at CAGGTUS naturally lies elsewhere.

As a cosplay portrait photographer, conventions like this offer an excellent opportunity to capture creative costumes in dynamic environments. Many visitors attend the event dressed as characters from popular games, anime series, or other pop culture franchises.

This creates a perfect intersection between gaming culture and cosplay photography.

Unlike purely anime-focused conventions, gaming events often feature characters from franchises such as The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, or Cyberpunk, offering a visually diverse mix of costumes.

Between exploring the gaming exhibitions and observing the LAN area, I usually spend much of my time searching for interesting cosplay subjects, arranging spontaneous portrait sessions, and experimenting with different photographic approaches.

Events like CAGGTUS demonstrate how closely gaming and cosplay culture have become intertwined.

Why CAGGTUS Still Matters

In a time when many gaming conventions have become highly commercialized marketing events, CAGGTUS retains something special.

It combines the participatory spirit of classic LAN culture with modern elements such as esports, cosplay, and gaming exhibitions.

For visitors, this creates a unique atmosphere where gaming is not only presented as entertainment, but also as a shared cultural experience.

And for photographers, it offers a fascinating visual environment where gaming culture, community, and creativity meet.

Looking Ahead

By maintaining the legacy of LAN parties while embracing modern pop culture trends, CAGGTUS Leipzig continues to honor the city’s long history with gaming conventions.

If the event keeps balancing these traditions with new ideas, it will likely remain one of the most distinctive gaming festivals in Germany.

And for me personally, it will certainly remain an event where gaming culture and cosplay photography intersect in the most interesting ways.