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‘E3 killed itself’, not competition from Summer Game Fest, says Geoff Keighley

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
www.videogameschronicle.com

‘E3 killed itself’, not competition from Summer Game Fest, says Geoff Keighley | VGC

The host and producer says it was “heartbreaking” to see the show’s decline…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com

Summer Game Fest host and producer Geoff Keighley has rubbished suggestions that competition from his rival event was partly responsible for the cancellation of this year’s E3.

Keighley started Summer Game Fest in 2020 after he split from E3, where he previously held its Coliseum live events. At the time, he cited being “uncomfortable” with organiser ESA‘s plans for E3.

In an interview on the latest episode of the VGC Podcast, Keighley was asked how he felt about his reputation in some corners of the internet as “the E3 killer”.
I think E3 sort of killed itself in a way,” Keighley replied. “I understand why people say [SGF killed E3], but I think if anything, we created Summer Game Fest, and I built Summer Game Fest because I saw the wheels falling off the wagon of E3.

As someone who loves that time of year… for two decades, E3 was part of my life since I was a 15-year-old kid. [From] the first E3 in 1995, I went to every show. I loved it and it defined my summer.
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He added:

It was so exciting to me, and it was heartbreaking to see that start to fall apart. I think they had a relevancy problem, and then they also had a participation problem over the final years. So yeah, I think the question is, if we didn’t do Summer Game Fest what would happen? I think things would have just kind of really splintered apart this summer.
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I get the sentiment around it. It was sad to me that we had to decide to go off and build something new, but we did that all in partnership with the publishers, and our list of partners for Summer Game Fest did not change at all with the cancellation of E3 this year. Everyone we’ve been working with, we’ve been working with for months around Summer Game Fest. So there was a world where Summer Game Fest and E3 would have co-existed, and we had talked a lot to [E3 organiser] ReedPop about that possibility, because they were focused much more on a big trade event, and consumer event, and that’s not what we were doing with Summer Game Fest.
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Asked how it felt when it looked like Summer Game Fest and E3 might have been competing for the same pool of new game announcements, Keighley added: “I mean, we never really saw that.

E3 cancelled in 2020, after I’d pulled out, due to the pandemic, and I started Summer Game Fest at home in a spare bedroom, not even knowing what I was really doing – we were just trying to figure out a way to bring news to fans. 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.
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feynoob

feynoob

Banned
Sorry guys,E3 couldn't handle the great me.

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The Cockatrice

The Cockatrice

Gold Member
Well eventually people got tired of never actually getting what was presented at these cringe events. They were fun to watch but they disappointed more then actually delivered. Also, covid killed it. Eventually, Summer Games will die out as well. I mean the last ones werent that great at all. We only watch them because we got used to receiving crumbs of good shit instead of actual full meals of good shit. Now any kind crumb these scummy ass corporations show us, we jump at it. Sad world.
 
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feynoob

feynoob

Banned
The Cockatrice said:
Well eventually people got tired of never actually getting what was presented at these cringe events. They were fun to watch but they disappointed more then actually delivered. Also, covid killed it. Eventually, Summer Games will die out as well. I mean the last ones werent that great at all. We only watch them because we got used to receiving crumbs of good shit instead of actual full meals of good shit. Now any kind crumb these scummy ass corporations show us, we jump at it. Sad world.
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I think people like you need to stop with these stuff.
 
Northeastmonk

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
He’s been writing and crafting news about companies that have changed management multiple times with people always leaving. Geoff probably has a stronger foundation to the dream or vision of the industry. If that makes sense. The CEO’s making the billions of dollars don’t go anywhere, but they run the business. They aren’t the dreamers inside the studio.
 
C

crackajack

Member
Such events come and go. The Tokyo Game Show had more international relevancy before, when Japan was the pacemaker, and is now a sort of local event, Games Convention was replaced by Gamescom in Germany and neither have international relevancy and the ECTS is also a thing of the past and was sort of the E3 predecessor.

We had Sonys 2015 and 2016 presentations which is imho what these shows should be, but whatever, since Nintendo started Directs everyone thinks those replace the old formats and we get just trailers and no actual- in the grand scheme of things certainly useless- show, but I still miss them.
 
feynoob

feynoob

Banned
Northeastmonk said:
He’s been writing and crafting news about companies that have changed management multiple times with people always leaving. Geoff probably has a stronger foundation to the dream or vision of the industry. If that makes sense. The CEO’s making the billions of dollars don’t go anywhere, but they run the business. They aren’t the dreamers inside the studio.
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The guy has a game show talent personality, which makes his show unique.

I would rather watch his boring showcase, than other showcase. At least he can make it somewhat entertaining.
 
Mr Hyde

Mr Hyde

Member
It's good that Geoff continues to carry the torch. At least we get some exciting game news and shows now that E3 is no more.
 
Nautilus

Nautilus

Banned
He is right. E3 lost participants most likely due to the high fees it charge from companies, which makes no sense in the age of internet.

But more than anything, companies started to going independant in terms of delivering the news, and participating in E3, with all the costs and problems it came with it, became stupid.
 
AJUMP23

AJUMP23

Gold Member
I think E3 charged to much and the marketers learned they could do it without paying the ESA fees. The ESA priced themselves out of the game.
 
deriks

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Well, kinda

E3 was created because CES couldn't fit all the gaming companies. We didn't have streaming back in the day, so it was focused on the press. Things changed when broadband became big, by the start of the PS360 era, with press conferences going more to consumers. It became overwhelm. When Nintendo saw that could do a well recorded video and didn't need to spend a lot of money on a live presentation, people said that they're nuts to skip E3... that's how much you can go wrong with ego. Not much later the others saw this too and did the same thing. With no companies to present, the show is dead

They could do something to get people to it? Yes! Be more humble, fix some deals with the major publishers and just put some booths to have machines running the games that is show on their video conferences. Charge a little for people and there you go. Could go small in the start, but eventually things can change
 
Ribi

Ribi

Member
I think because we went for more of a "at home" approach with covid that e3 stopping for a year made everyone realize that they didn't need a physical in person platform to sell their products. E3 took what it had for granted. No one needed e3, e3 needed everyone else.
 
O

ozz ex machina

Member
I dearly miss E3. I hate all this shows split over the year. The hype of having all those conferences within 48 hours of each other. It was fucking electric.

Admittedly I'm 31 now. Maybe it wouldn't feel the same anyway. But I dunno man. I think it was just that damn good. But it's obviously been dead for years anyway.
 
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Aenima

Aenima

Member
H4ze said:
Covid killed it lmao
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No E3 really killed itself. SGF was born during covid. If i remember well, some publishers like Sony complained that E3 had a big tax in order to show ur stuff, and when u have to bring ppl from Japan to America, plus those taxes, it all adds up and was the reason Sony bailed out of E3 and started with a format close to what Nintendo was doing.
The Covid came out and E3 failed to organise an online event.

Props to Doritos pope for being better at organising these events. He now organises his version of E3 and his version of videogame oscars.
 
kvltus lvlzvs

kvltus lvlzvs

Banned
I hope we get the schlick hydrobot again this year

Edit: I remember in the early years of this when all the gaming journalist sites were acting like Geoff Keighley and the game awards had come to save the day, vidja jesus was going to bring something new to the table and free us from how shitty e3 had become. Wasnt on gaf or v at the time so I never heard anyone say anything to the contrary.

I, of course, didnt pay attention to it, nor did I any year afterwards.
 
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diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
ozz ex machina said:
I dearly miss E3. I hate all this shows split over the year. The hype of having all those conferences within 48 hours of each other. It was fucking electric.

Admittedly I'm 31 now. Maybe it wouldn't feel the same anyway. But I dunno man. I think it was just that damn good. But it's obviously been dead for years anyway.
Click to expand...

I think the only people who liked E3 were the fans, and maybe some of the smaller publishers like Devolver. But for everyone else, it was inconvenient, very expensive (I think the big publishers were spending $5M+ on their E3 presence), and time consuming. People were talking about E3 wrapping up well before SGF, that's for sure, and they tried to do different things like making it smaller and less expensive but people hated that too.
 
O

ozz ex machina

Member
diffusionx said:
I think the only people who liked E3 were the fans, and maybe some of the smaller publishers like Devolver. But for everyone else, it was inconvenient, very expensive (I think the big publishers were spending $5M+ on their E3 presence), and time consuming. People were talking about E3 wrapping up well before SGF, that's for sure, and they tried to do different things like making it smaller and less expensive but people hated that too.
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I think journalists used to enjoy it too. Hard work for them but some of the old gamespot behind the scenes stuff was cool man.
 
Lord Malachite

Lord Malachite

Member
I miss the epic showcases of fail.

Sony 2006
Nintendo 2008
Konami 2010
Microsoft 2013

So many amazing E3 memories with massive corporations performing critical fumbles for the entire world to watch. Without E3 I don't think we can have failures on so large a scale again.
 
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SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
What's funny is all Geoff did initially was broadcast everyone else's streams and called it Summer Games Fest. It was a very lazy and profitable scheme to take credit for everyone else's work.
 
LordBlodgett

LordBlodgett

Member
Summer Games Fest cannot compare to E3 at all. Having a weekend where all of the big players put on shows, and the consoles fought to get the best games at their conference was insanely more fun than the scattered small shows that stretch throughout Summer now. Besides, all of Geoff's shows are self congratulatory advertising filled wastes of time. I watch all of his shows (including the game awards) after the fact so I can fast forward through the literal hours of garbage.
 
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