Summer Games Fest Needs Cheese

Summer Games Fest, or ‘Keigh-three’ as it’s been dubbed since Geoff Keighley began the official show as a replacement to E3 (along with claiming every other showcase as a part of it) has brought together publishers from all platforms, all over the world, to show off their latest titles in June and celebrate the future of gaming. But it doesn’t have the magic E3 used to, and I think I know what’s missing.This year’s Summer Games Fest starts on Friday 5th June, just a week away, so let’s talk about what the problem is, and what they could do to make it special.

For the sake of this article, I’ll use Keighley’s approach to Summer Games Fest and include the Xbox showcase on June 7th and the Playstation State of Play on June 2nd - I’m fairly sure Nintendo will probably show up at some point too for a Direct – basically everything that used to make up E3 back in the day.

For years now, I think all of the major publishers have struggled with the idea of these big showcases. When it was E3, it was the big focus of the year and every show felt like it was stacked with fresh surprises. New consoles would be announced, big-budget trailers would make their debut, and there was a sense that this was the one time of year where games were taken seriously, with its lavish productions and star-studded ensembles taking the stage.

But now that’s just another Tuesday. Thanks to the internet and the size of the gaming industry, we’re constantly bombarded by news, reveals, trailers, events, and celebrities explaining why they love Call of Duty. Between Summer Games Fest itself, numerous Xbox Showcases, Playstation State of Plays, Nintendo Directs, Tokyo Game Show, The Game Awards, and dozens of smaller reveals shows, there’s barely a month that goes by without something that wants you to believe that it’s as important as E3 was.

With all of these events and showcases, of course the content gets diluted. We already know that Playstation’s upcoming State of Play will focus on Wolverine, which we’ve already seen. We can guess that the Xbox Showcase will be largely about Fable 4, Gears of War 6, and Call of Duty 23 (this really will be the 23rd main series entry). We don’t really know what will be at Summer Games Fest, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see War Dogs and updates to things like Final Fantasy XIV. We already know about those games because of all the posts, trailers, and leaks from across the last year, but what else can developers do?