Two years ago, direct flights from Israel to Gamescom were canceled. My team and I found ourselves checking bizarre airlines, looking for boats, and eventually flying to Cyprus. We slept there for a night and caught a flight to Germany the next day. It was expensive. It was mentally exhausting. When we finally reached the booth, we felt like we had survived a military drill.
Then I sent a message to Elena (Olena) Lobova 🔜 gamescom on LinkedIn. Reading her answers made my Cyprus connection suddenly sound like an all inclusive vacation.
I reached out to Olena, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Burny Games , to interview her for Inside the Game. I wanted to bring a different perspective. As an Israeli, waking up for work completely exhausted because of air raid sirens all night is not a theoretical concept. Dropping a Zoom call to run to a shelter is our reality. I knew she would understand exactly what I was talking about.







