I had the pleasure to go to Gamescom this year, only for a Saturday though. Going to have to plan it better, get tickets and hotel/other accomodations early, that sort of thing. Not surprisingly, everything was sold out long ago.
I felt it was great, well organized, friendly and open despite all the trouble in Cologne lately (No removal of bottle caps or worse, having to throw away/consume any food and drink before entrance, plenty of bathrooms and places to refill bottles of water, no ID checking after entrance, etc.) and even could get in earlier than expected, at the North entrance. First booth I found was THQ-NordicGames, they have some really interesting games on there. A police chief simulator, a very pretty looking point-and-click called Silence, a turn-based strategy Vikings RTS, Spellforce 3 (to my happy surprise, also got myself a T-shirt) and a city builder 'The Guild 3" I believe it's translated. Had a conversation with one of the devs for Spellforce 3, turned out to be a fellow Dutchman halfway into the English conversation.
Another great thing was seeing Farming Simulator 2017 having center stage (literally) with plenty of people hanging around it with great interest. Seemed so out of place but very glad for the devs and fans. Another thing I liked was seeing a sequel to Vikings: Battle of Asgard called Wolves of Midgard, which played well so far in my opinion.
Overall there's way too much to see in a time span of eight or so hours, I've probably only seen 30% of it all, at best. Seems every publisher had at least a few interesting or even unique games on display and it seems like there's a rise of tiny publishers who are also bringing forth some pretty interesting games. Lots of indies too. Sad I didn't have the time to look into the Retro and more indies' area, last year that was really great to visit too.
Definitely been worth the cost since travelling to and from sure isn't cheap this time for me. I envy Germans who live nearby the Koelnmesse for this kind of event.