ECTS, GDCE and SCoRE dropped

The British videogames trade event calendar has received another major blow, with the news that media firm CMP is pulling out of the market entirely - meaning an end to ECTS, GDCE and retail show SCoRE.

The news, confirmed today by representatives of the company, comes hot on the heels of the cancellation of another major British games event - consumer show Game Zone Live, which was to take place at the ExCeL exhibition centre at the start of September.

Andy Lane, who headed up the group at CMP responsible for the British trade events, has been made redundant as part of the company's decision to withdraw from the sector here - although it remains committed to the games event business in the USA, with only Britain being affected by the decision.

While ECTS has been widely seen as being in decline over the last few years, and was last year directly challenged by the ELSPA-backed European Games Network event, the demise of the European Game Developers Conference - generally seen as a success - comes as more of a surprise.

With Game Zone Live cancelled, ELSPA has assured the industry that EGN will go ahead regardless, albeit possibly in a new venue. However, no announcement has been made regarding EDF, the European Developers' Forum event, which ran alongside EGN last year as a rival to GDCE.

CMP's decision to leave the market means that only two specialist trade events now survive in the UK - EGN, and the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival (EIEF), which takes place as part of the wider Edinburgh International Festival in August.