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Airing a new game trailer during the Summer Game Fest seems to be a very lucrative business deal for showrunner Geoff Keighley. According to interviews conducted with public relations companies and anonymous insiders, a single two and a half minute slot will cost a studio $550,000.
"These shows are really fucking expensive." - An insider speaking on the cost of airing a trailer during Summer Game Fest
What isn't mentioned anywhere is if there are any fees associated with those brief interviews sometimes conducted with developers. Also not mentioned is how much friends of Keighley (such as Hideo Kojima) have to pay in order to get multiple trailers worth of air time.
On the bright side, these anonymous sources say that the prices for this year's show are no more expensive than last year's show.
If you add up all of the one- to two-and-a-half-minute trailers aired during last year’s Summer Game Fest, those price levels could translate into a $9.65 million haul for the main show alone. Of course, last year’s prices may have been different, and I don’t know how to account for shorter, 30-second trailers, nor the longer segments in which Keighley invites a developer onstage.
"As far as general brand awareness, the impact is pretty huge," one of them says. "The caveat here is that it depends on the placement and trailer length. Longer slots perform better and seem to drive more coverage, whereas short trailers don’t capture quite the same attention."
Summer Game Fest is more than just a single show. Keighley has made the annual event to encompass several different shows under the Summer Game Fest umbrella, in addition to the opening night show of the same name. The opening night event that Keighley hosts, the one where studios pay up to $550,000 per trailer, is just one of many events taking place across several days.
Smaller shows such as Day of the Devs, Devolver's showcase, Future of Play Direct, Wholesome Direct, Latin American Games Showcase, Future Games Show, and even the PC Gaming Show all offer opportunities for smaller studios to get some eyes on their upcoming games. Still, the number of people viewing these smaller events absolutely pales in comparison to how many tune into the opening show for Summer Game Fest.
This year's Summer Game Fest begins June 7 with the airing of the self-titled opening show at 5PM ET. I'd suggest reading through Esquire's entire article as it also touches on a few other subjects such as Keighley not talking about 2023's mass industry layoffs and more.
