Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest Seems Unstoppable 1
Image: Push Square

While we had very clear and obvious issues with E3 through until its eventual demise a few years back, we’re not really convinced Summer Game Fest has proven an adequate replacement really.

But the reality is that the show, under creator Geoff Keighley’s industrious stewardship, is going from strength to strength to strength. Across all platforms it pulled in 50 million views in its latest iteration, up 89% year-over-year.

It’s worth mentioning that Sony’s recent State of Play, while technically not part of Summer Game Fest, was also the most watched ever – considerably more than any E3 press conference, by the way.

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Summer Game Fest consists of more than just Keighley’s stage show, but also encompasses a hands on event named Play Days in Los Angeles. Some of the titles shown to media this year included Pragmata and Sonic Racing CrossWorlds.

We personally thought this year’s livestream was a little light on meaningful content, although we understand that’s largely out of Keighley’s control.

The problem with having an independent party create this event, however, is that it requires publishers to purchase advertising slots in order to cover its costs – and that leads to overly long running times which tend to overstay their welcome.

[source eurogamer.net]