Geoff Keighley announces Summer Game Fest

Geoff Keighley today announced the Summer Game Fest, a digital, global festival that will consists of showcases, game trailers, free demos, in-game events and more.

The online festival already has the support of various companies, including: 2K, Activision, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Blizzard, Bungie, CD Projekt Red, Digital Extremes, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Sony, Square Enix, Private Division, Riot Games, Steam, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Other companies will join in the upcoming weeks. One well-known company missing here is Nintendo. Keighley hopes the Big N gets to join in since SGF is open to all console makers, game publishers and developers. Keighley had previously announced the Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition, which is now part of SGF. Meanwhile, Xbox is already planning one of its own.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, he doesn’t expect a demo of every game, specially since many people had to get used to working from home.

According to Games Industry, SGF “will be focused around individual games doing their own events and announcements, rather than each publisher or platform dropping everything at once.”

Along with the people at Iam8bit, Keighley will bring smaller companies more exposure.

While this new digital event will fill the void of a yearly, legacy trade show that is still looking for a new identity, Keighley is not sure yet about the future of SGF.

“[Events like E3] were such a formative part of my life and career. So how do we recreate that magic digitally? Is that inside Fortnite? Is it in Zoom meetings? How do we build that energy? I want to find that idea that will inspire people to want to get into games and be a part of it,” Keighley told Games Industry.

It’s time to play the future. pic.twitter.com/JZiPToqpjM

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) May 1, 2020

Introducing @summergamefest, a new season of news, in-game events, and playable content from the entire video game industry. May – August 2020, and a developer showcase with @iam8bit too. See you soon! https://t.co/Hp7WuLrjXk pic.twitter.com/DashSP4Q5I

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) May 1, 2020

A number of principles guide @summergamefest — Digital events, in-game events, and playable content. You already know about @Steam Game Festival, and today we're also announcing that @xbox is planning a playable Game Festival too this summer. More to come!

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) May 1, 2020

There are so many amazing @summergamefest events planned. The schedule launches soon on the website, and next Thursday @xbox will have a special inside Xbox Episode at 11 am ET / 8 am PT with Xbox Series X gameplay. pic.twitter.com/yGR35MW0bF

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) May 1, 2020

Let me just say, so happy to have such a diverse group of publishers and partners working with us on @summergamefest — both companies that traditionally do large scale physical industry events, and those that don't. We're all charting a new course here and will learn a lot.

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) May 1, 2020

[Source]: GamesIndustry.biz: Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest is his latest push to rally the industry. @GeoffKeighley (Twitter).