Unsettled from the moment I got off my Metro bus, I kept moving. I entered a pocket of silence, punctuated only by incredibly distant honks and the occasional staff golf cart. Summer Games Fest was hosting its big kickoff event here, and the absence of noise told me I was nowhere close to the main event yet.
The YouTube Theater occupies a corner of the massive metal tube that is SoFi Stadium, flanked by the Kia Forum, NFL headquarters, and other havens of corporate synergy. It’s all private property, as many signs are eager to remind you. The quiet should have been soothing, but instead it just added to my unease.
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Where were the loud gamers? After doing three quarters of a lap around the stadium and eavesdropping on another conversation at the credentials entrance, I finally found them. The pre-show playlist was blasting, the promised food trucks on display, and the line at the door already threatened to spill over to the next street crossing. I sighed, gauged my options, and joined the line. Lunch would have to wait.
The crowd was a feature, not a bug: this was the first Summer Games Fest to have a general public audience. After the sudden termination of E3 2023, Summer Games Fest seemed like an easy layup. All Geoff had to do was give the gamers something to see. We poured in through the doors at 11, pockets of people stopping at arcade machines and peering at the signage.
I did another grim internal calculation and bought a $5 Aquafina at a concession stand. Eventually, the theater doors opened and I found my seat. Gamers to my left and right, gamers behind, and what I’m pretty sure was the Lysfanga team directly in front. (Congrats, y’all!) After a safety video and a debriefing from a staff member, the lights dimmed and the show began in earnest.
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Things To Come
The Summer Games Fest presentation had a lot of things to show but nothing to say about it. Interviews, transitions, even commercial tie-ins were merely part of the drip feed to the next Big Reveal™. The bizarrely worded Final Fantasy ad from Doordash showed the loose limitations of the approach: Geoff had to sheepishly pause midway through as the crowd roared in anticipation, only to grimace apologetically as the other shoe dropped.
As an industry bellwether, there were certainly some interesting trends, but it’s hard to say whether Summer Game Fest itself really noticed. More free-to-play and mobile games crept into the periphery. HoYoVerse, Pearl Abyss, Pocket Pair and Amazon Games all threw their hats in the ring, signaling, welcome or not, that the business model is here to stay for at least the next calendar year.
Multiple franchise reboots of existing IPs, like Prince of Persia and Mortal Kombat 1, kept the focus on modernizing and streamlining those worlds. Baffling celebrity appearances—Nic Cage in person, Will Arnett videoing in from the all-white extraterrestrial pod that abducted him—were peppered in throughout the show. (If you are the godchild or grandbaby that strong-armed Nic Cage into Dead By Daylight, first of all, hell yeah! Second of all, please get in touch.) Nicolas Cage said it plain and simple: games introduce you to a whole new audience.
Not form, not medium, an audience. The eyeballs were here. The numbers would keep going up. Summer Games Fest was working as intended: filling the commercial vacuum that the absence of E3 left behind.
A Force for Net Positive, Not a Force for Good
Summer Games Fest is quick to remind you it is a positive force in the industry. Callbacks to past presentations, epic reveals, indie games were…featured more than once! Nevertheless, the people involved with the actual work feel cordoned off from the main stage. I don’t want to take the shine off these development teams’ big moment. I’m sure seeing your game on display (especially at a big event like Summer Games Fest), a real crowd appreciating all your hard work, is incredible. But the main Summer Games Fest presentation is not a team player. It never has been.
The big presentation is largely a series of large companies patting themselves on the back, releasing one more trailer for the content-churning machine. The more interesting titles were relegated to one-off trailers, often presented without comment. Smaller teams deserve better at all levels, not just in carefully categorized presentations later in the week. I want artists and programmers and QA testers on the big stage, not tucked into the crowd as their sizzle reel fires off on the screen.
All Hyped Up and Nowhere to Go
I have complicated feelings about Geoff Keighley, and seeing him in person did nothing to dispel that. He was a consummate professional, for good and for ill. Geoff delivered his talking points with ease, but stumbled when he tried to share space with others. Interviews with developers felt leaden, attempted ad-libs fell flat. None of the thrill in the room came from him.
Geoff’s friendly, cordial, enthusiastic to a point, a straight, cis white man—everything that gives you a natural leg up in this industry—but he was absolutely stymied by the crowd. He wanted our enthusiasm, but when it spilled outside of the bounds of an industry presentation, he was at a visible loss what to do with it.
Look, I sympathize! I’ve had a number of jobs I entered only to realize I am bad at, but it’s past time Geoff Keighley has a long look at the structure of his Summer Games Fest and let someone else take up hosting duties. Maybe a woman? A person of color? Just spitballing here based on those notable absences, Geoff.
