You all ready for four months of Geoff Keighley?
Summer Game Fest

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
It looks like Nintendo either hates their fans (unlikely), or they would rather just do their own thing that hasn't been announced yet. When you think about it though, a lot of these studios kind of already announced their own thing ahead of the Summer Game Fest even being announced. Microsoft already said that they were going to have a big Xbox Series X game showcase on May 7. There have also been a few rumors that Sony is readying an actual PlayStation 5 reveal, but a date for this reveal has not yet been nailed down yet. Even the Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition was already announced a while ago.

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."
These reveals will take place across a variety of streaming sites such as Twitch, Facebook, Mixer, Twitter, and YouTube. If you want these reveals, you will apparently have to go to each company's official channel. I kid you not, the press release literally says that these reveals will take place on "publisher owned and operated channels." I am personally assuming that Summer Game Fest's Twitch channel (that I only found by going to their website) will rehost those official publisher channels. Again, that's just my assumption since they don't specify that this is something they will be doing.

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.