The Summer of Keighley is nearly upon us. I assume that is the alternate name that was being shopped around before they actually decided on the "Summer Game Fest." This whole thing is being labeled an "all-digital consumer celebration." The Summer Game Fest will bring fans "a season of breaking news, in-game events, and free playable content" from a variety of developers, publishers, and platform owners.
Summer Game Fest will run from May through August 2020. Oh yes, four months of this! Yay? We will see news and news from publishers and platforms like:
- 2K
- Activision
- Bandai Namco
- Bethesda
- Blizzard
- Bungie
- CD Projekt Red
- Digital Extremes
- Electronic Arts
- Microsoft
- Private Division
- Riot Games
- Sony
- Steam
- Square Enix
- Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Anyway, where was I? Oh right, the Summer Game Fest will have each publisher announcing their own specific events in the coming weeks. Again, I'm not really sure why Keighley had to get involved when it seems as though literally everything is still up to the studios themselves. Let's see what the curator for the Summer Game Fest has to say.
"In these uncertain and challenging times, it’s more important than ever that video games serve as a common and virtual connection point between us all," said Geoff Keighley, curator, Summer Game Fest. "SGF is an organizing principle that promises fans a whole season of video game news and other surprises from the comfort of home."
What is specified in today's press release is the fact that "Geoff Keighley will host special pre and post shows for flagship publisher events." He is also partnering with iam8bit in order to "produce a showcase highlighting upcoming games." Keighley is also hosting and producing Gamescom: Opening Night Live, which is billed as "a spectacular, industry-wide finale to the SGF season."
In short, Summer Game Fest is a bunch of publishers and studios literally making their own announcements on their own channels while Geoff Keighley does a little pre-show and post-show thing for each event. I get the strong feeling that if you took out Keighley's involvement entirely, these companies would have already done these exact same things anyway. Probably. Very, very probably.
This entire thing is so completely unnecessary. Keighley himself even called it a "TV guide to what's happening." He says the Summer Game Fest came about because "it just seemed like publishers, fans, and the industry needed some kind of central organizing principle this year."
Did they really though? I don't believe these studios needed Keighley's guidance in this. Events from a number of studios seemed as they were progressing just fine without his involvement. If nothing else, this looks like a way for Keighley to get his foot in the door in getting rid of E3 for good. After all, his growing disdain for E3 is no secret.
As far as how necessary this is, i think it helps, not all consumers are tuned in enough to navigate around and find all the announcements from the various publishers, this offers them a single channel for people to tune in to, maybe it also appeals to smaller games to appear on the same show as the bigger names.
If this was a 2 week event it might have pushed some companies away who would have had to rush to put something together, or just do their own thing when they're ready, so having it happen over 4 months probably gave more publishers reason to join in.
The only thing I can see here is that this is being done to bolster Keighley's own ego or sense of self-importance. The hero of the E3 alternative, as it were. Make it seem like he's doing something when even he admits that this whole thing is nothing more than a TV Guide for the events that were already planned (as linked in the news). It's entirely pointless in pretty much every regard.