168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Summer Game Fest is almost here. The annual 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Geoff Keighley showcase has grown in both size and significance since its debut in 2020. Introduced during the height of lockdown as an alternative to the flailing E3, Keighley saw an opportunity to turn all eyes on hiꦬm and for huge industry partners to fall into his lap rather than the familiar embrace of the ESA.
Over the years, Summer Game Fes🌠t has also grown in scope to better reflect its spot on the global stage, with major industry players like Capcom, Bandai Namco, Epic, Nintendo, and so many more showing up to showcase their games to as many press and influencers as they possibly can. As a consequence, the calendar space once occupied by E3 as a hub for huge announcements, trailers, and previews has been well and truly replaced. I’m not the first to say this, but man, I miss what used to stand in its place.
The number of par♔tners listed on the is pretty stag༺gering. This is the only place to be if you’re announcing a big game this summer.
Remembering What E3 Used To Be
I attended the very last E3. It was my first🌳 time, as my employer at the time flew me out to LA to stay in a dodgy motel a short uber from the LA Convention Center, where I’d live and write from for the better part of 10 days. I was young, naive, and absolutely buzzing to be th꧃ere.
During this time, I wasn’t alone either, constantly bumping into fellow journalists and friends I had made across the industry during my few short years covering it. We all wanted both to do good work and to soak in exactly where we had found ourselves. Over the coming week, we would attend press conferences, preview upcoming games, and speak to many of the developers behind them in situations where we saw each other as equals. But even back in 2019, there were signs that this annua🐼l show was on its wa🧜y out.
I’ll never fo🧜rget jumping into Skype calls with friends to watch press conferences as they unfolded, laughing at cringe moments that, in the years since, have become legend.
Nintendo had already distanced itself from E3, opting to put on its Direct presentations very close to the show, rather than appearing or announcing games during its tenure. The same could be said for Sony, Bethesda, and Microsoft, all of which have begun hosting off-campus at other venues after streaming their own showcases ⛄online. E3’s initial purpose - announcing and showing off games to press and other members of the industry, like trade partners - was less and less necessary when modern technology allowed you to communicate with consumers directly. Why spend millions on building a booth or having an on-the-ground presence when you can save money while achieving the same results? SGF didn’t try to bring this back, it adapted to how things are.
Despite being horrifyingly aware of what the future might hold, I did my best to enjoy the experience regardless. Journalists and developers who’d been attending the show years before I started writing about video games remarked about how empty the halls were that year and how their schedules weren’t nearly as packed. They were worried about whether anything could fill its place, o🌃r if the ESA would actually listen and change its tune before the situation became too dire. As we know at this point🍸, it didn’t heed this call for evolution.
When E3 began charging fans to attend an event that was alre🅰ady a shadow of its former self, you knew the writing was o🍸n the wall.
In its heyday, however, when most of us were still reading gaming magazines and🅷 trying to download 360p gameplay videos on our dial-up internet, E3 was positioned as the ultimate place to be, a gamer’s dream where the biggest and best experiences were unveiled for the very first time.
It’s quite adorable rea𝔉ding old issues of PlayStation Underground oblivious to the live-service hellscape in which we currently reside, where games cost millions to make, and a single failure can spell a studio’s doom. The medium is so d🐠ifferent now, and during most of its infancy, E3 felt like both a marketing tool and a celebration of games made all over the world. I would struggle to describe SGF as anything more than the former
And How Summer Game Fest Can Never Take Its Place
Summer Game Fest takes place in a central LA location in which press, influencers, and developers come together to catch up and preview the latest upcoming releases within a setting that somewhat resembles E3, but can’t capture the same ludꦓicrous magic. As I mentioned earlier, various digital showcases from Sony, Microsoft, and other partners have already been announced to take place before, after, or during the show. While other highlights, includ🍨ing Day of the Devs, take place in collaboration with Keighley’s annual production.
I’m sure there will be exciting announcements and plenty of reveals I don’t expect, but with how video game releases and promotional cycles work nowadays, alongside knowledge I’ve accrued about the industry’s inner workings, it’s hard to truly look forward to things. I think I’ll be happier🎐 for developers finally getting to show off their work to a massive audience, even if it’s through one of the only big stages this medium has left. It’s quite ironic that so many big companies left E3 behind to present things on their own terms, only to inevitably be drawn back into the same whirlwind week of news they originally sought to reinvent.
Summer Game Fest was founded when E3’s corpse was still warm, pilfering it for any and all worth before giving the games industry no 🐓other choice but to promote its games under the show's growing umbrella. Perhaps I’m more cynical about it because, after years as a journalist and being worn down by the modern world, it’s hard to be excited about an event that, regardless of how it's presented, is designed to make as much money from its audience as possible.
Before the age of social media, before the proliferation of live service g🐼ames, and before I fully came to see myself as an adult, E3 felt like sಞomething different. A presence we might never get back.
