On March 30th, 2023 it was reported by IGN’s Rebekah Valentine then later confirmed by E3’s official Twitter account that the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was canceled. This was primarily due to a lack of interest from major gaming companies to participate in the event. E3 was already dealing with issues from console manufacturers holding their own events like Nintendo Directs, PlayStation not attending or having off site shows, and the Game Awards. Then the struggling show was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and Summer Game Fest pounced quickly to became the de facto E3 replacement in the summer of 2020. It’s entirely possible that E3 may never return, at least in a recognizable format, so what is Summer Game Fest’s future?
In the end, Nintendo Directs were really the format that did the biggest damage to E3, as other companies saw they could get publicity much cheaper than floor space at E3 and/ or hold offsite events. Summer Game Fest, Xbox Showcases, and PlayStation State of Plays borrowed liberally from the Nintendo Direct formula and benefited from it.
Now the resident king of summer game announcements is Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game fest, but how secure is the crown and what are the possible futures for the event?
Competing with Himself
Geoff Keighley also runs the yearly Game Awards show (TGAs) every December, a night dedicated to honoring game developers and their creations. This show is a widely supported and covered event by the gaming industry with a large audience that tunes in for announcements and awards. The industry participation and the awards are the glue that holds the Game Awards together, hence why so many companies want to reveal their games and make announcements at the event. But what is the glue that holds Summer Game Fest together?
Smaller Digital Events
Many game companies participate in
Summer Game Fest, but we’re already seeing splinter events throughout the year. Nintendo does
Nintendo Directs whenever it wants, as do PlayStation and Xbox for their showcases. They don’t need Summer Game Fest to get attention and will get live viewers and media coverage whenever they hold them, such as Xbox’s recent showcase on January 25, 2023. Like PlayStation and Nintendo, they concentrated on games releasing in the near future. Even the executive director of the ESA acknowledges that it’s a “
significant investment” with strong economic headwinds and companies’ economic sustainability affecting it.
I think this leaves Summer Game Fest as a show catering more to 3rd party developers, but what is the glue that holds the event together? What’s stopping big 3rd party publishers from holding their own online events whenever it best suits their needs? Whenever they do it, they will likely get media coverage and the advantage of not being packed in with numerous Summer Game Fest announcements. Last year already had
numerous smaller events spread out throughout the year, and were covered by gaming outlets.
Then there’s smaller independent publishers, and developers who are most likely to continue participating in Summer Game Fest, but what stops them from grouping together and making their own showcases that are timed in a way to not be during a clogged time of game news? We could arrive at a situation where we end up with smaller, more spread out events throughout the year, like how
Day Of The Devs did a November show last year.
There’s also the possibility that E3 makes some kind of resurgence as a purely digital event. E3 has only cancelled this year’s event and the ESA executive director expressed they aren’t giving up on some kind of
return. E3 has huge brand recognition with fans but with so many publishers unwilling to participate this year, one is left wondering how good E3’s future relationship with publishers will be?
My Take On Summer Game Fest’s Future
Based on that, Summer Game Fest is in a precarious position, unless Geoff Keighley finds the glue to hold it together. He could make deals that make publishers that want to show at the Game Awards conditional to participating in Summer Game Fest, but that’s a risky tactic that could lead to backlash from publishers not wanting to be controlled.
So what are Keighley’s options for preventing competition and holding the show together? Besides the aforementioned conditional agreements, the only other way I can think of is fan support/ demand for a summer gaming event, but they may be satiated by the more regular and spread out gaming news cycle. The last option, an extremely unlikely one, is Summer Game Fest making a deal for the Electronic Entertainment Expo name from the Electronic Software Association.
For those craving in person events, this could lead to significant growth of events like PAX. There’s also a loss to the community that, at least pre-COVID, got an
economic boost every summer. Restaurants, hotels, the event center and other local businesses were likely rooting for a big return of the show, same with some journalists and gamers I’ve spoken with. Right now Summer Game Fest has wrestled the crown from E3 and sits atop as the premier summer gaming event, but how long will it last?