Laley reportedly lost all his laptops from his booth, while iam8bit said in its X post that it’s missing two laptops as well. Meanwhile, Tessera Studios had two laptops and a Steam Deck taken from its cabinet. Laley’s and iam8bit’s booths are located together in Hall 4.1, next to the west entrance gate, meaning they’re both easy targets for thieves looking for a quick score. However, Tessera Studios is in Hall 10.2, putting it quite far from the other two targets.
My #gamescom cut short. Our equipment was stolen last night from the booth.Police reports have been filed.At a loss for words to describe the feeling. Just defeated. Gonna do my best with what's left of the week. But a huge blow financially and mentally pic.twitter.com/dKpp3Of6df August 28, 2026
The cost of the stolen equipment will certainly be a huge setback for these developers and publishers, especially for smaller indie creators. However, the bigger loss would be the data on the machines, which often includes unreleased builds of the games they’re demoing at the expo. While they may have backup copies of their work stored in some of the best external SSDs , the fact that a copy of the games they’re working on is out in the wild and could potentially be leaked would chill the blood of any developer and could be “heartbreaking” for the team working on it.
“Today at gamescom we arrived at our station in the business area hall to discover that our two laptops had been stolen overnight, despite the presence of Koelnmesse security ,” iam8bit said in their X post. “These were machines we were using to demo iam8bit Presents titles Petal Runner and Escape Academy 2 to media and content creators during the show. On top of obviously disrupting our very busy appointment schedule, this theft has potentially put unfinished builds of these games at risk of being leaked.”
We were robbed at Gamescom.On Wednesday, we arrived at our booth in the Indie Area to find our cabinet forced open. Two laptops and a Steam Deck were gone.The devices contained not only our Gamescom demo, but also personal, company, and critical information.Here’s our story pic.twitter.com/ZghaSx9RJB August 28, 2026
“On Wednesday, we arrived at our booth in the Indie Area to find our cabinet forced open. Two laptops and a Steam Deck were gone,” Tessera Studios posted on X . “The devices contained not only our Gamescom demo, but also personal, company, and critical information.”
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Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/at-least-three-exhibitors-got-robbed-at-gamescom-2026-laptops-and-handhelds-with-unfinished-game-builds-stolen-from-locked-cabinets#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.