In a recent interview, Geoff Keighley gives his thoughts on the cancelation of E3 and whether the recent nickname for his Summer Game Fest event of "the E3 Killer" is fair. For a time, the summer became a major industry initiative to showcase all the big AAA titles coming both in the winter and into the following year. The Electronics Entertainment Expo featured all the biggest developers and publishers, creating a near week-long atmosphere of excitement and hype for the video game industry and players alike. In recent years however, E3 has struggled to stay relevant, especially in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic which not only made it impossible to hold large, in-person gatherings for a time, but also caused companies like Microsoft, Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo to rethink how they deliver news to fans. Instead of one major industry event, many studios opted to hold their own digital showcases at various points of the year. Geoff Keighley, an industry veteran well versed in holding major events like The Game Awards, even spun off his own showcase called Summer Game Fest. Due to all of these changes, E3 2023's attempted comeback was canceled, leaving Keighley's show as the big summer showcase event and earning it a reputation for being "the E3 killer." Speaking on a recent podcast, Keighley attempted to downplay the idea that Summer Games Fest was the ultimate nail in the coffin for E3. Instead, Keighley believes that E3 suffered from longstanding issues related to relevancy and participation over the course of numerous years. Even E3's current organizer, ReedPop, mentioned that interest just wasn't there in 2023 in order to justify the show.
Keighley went on to reiterate his love for E3, having attended for two decades and calling the show falling apart as "heartbreaking." The idea for Summer Game Fest originated in Keighley's basement after E3 canceled in 2020 as a way to bring video game news to fans. Summer Games Fest was being positioned as a livestreamed digital games showcase, not in competition with big Trade and Consumer event that E3 typically put on. As such, Keighley never envisioned the two as direct competitors and believed both shows could have coexisted, even revealing that one company planned to announce their game at SGF and then have it consumer-playable at E3.
And then, you remember, there was the digital E3 they did in 2021, which was kind of their stab at, I guess, doing something similar to what we did. And then it didn’t happen last year, didn’t happen this year. So yeah, I never really felt in competition with E3, we were doing something different. We were focusing on a big livestreamed digital show.
Regardless of whatever the future holds for E3, fans are only a few days away from getting some major reveals and surprises at Summer Games Fest. CD Projekt RED has recently announced that Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will be at Summer Games Fest, while fans are also expecting an appearance from Hideo Kojima and the first gameplay of NetherRealm Studio's recently announced Mortal Kombat 1.
Summer Game Fest will take place on June 8.