The Game Awards put on quite the show last night. We saw the Xbox Series X, a PS5 game, and a whole bunch of slick trailers for new games and games we already knew about. During the second half, Geoff mentioned The Game Festival, a chance for all of us to play upcoming games without having to go to E3 or PAX.
Until tomorrow morning, there are 14 demos up on Steam of upcoming games, including System Shock, SkateBird, Spiritfarer, and more.
Last night, Geoff talked about how he believes something like The Game Festival could become the new way folks can get early hands-on with upcoming games. “That’s kind of the future where this all goes, is not necessarily these local events where you have to travel somewhere to play a game, but actually bringing games into your homes and the places you work and live to play.” (Geoff talks about The Game Festival around 2:07:44).
This year, it was a partnership with Steam – but Geoff says they plan to make it even bigger next year with The Game Festival coming to all platforms.
This is a fantastic idea. That’s what I love about technology. Keep knocking these barriers down. Maybe next year, instead of watching the new Hellblade trailer – we can play a snippet of the game. I hope the folks behind E3 were watching last night. Something like The Game Festival for that show would be epic. Imagine watching the big conferences and then firing up your platform of choice to play those games.
Things change in an instant, and people like Geoff are the ones rolling with the changes and coming up with new ways to engage with audiences.
E3 is still a grand spectacle, but it has lost some of what made it special. Now, developers and publishers can engage with their audiences in an instant with a livestream. Something like The Game Festival for E3 would be fantastic for everyone involved.
E3 is guaranteed to be big again next year thanks to new hardware, but I’m even more pumped to see what Geoff and company come up with for 2020’s The Game Awards.