After PlayStation Showcase earlier in the week, the annual commercial circuit for the summer began seriously with that two-hour showcase by the name of Summer game festwho had Teasesconsequences, and completely new games gallore.
PAR for the course for SGF and host Geoff Keighley, who both tried to step during this decade as the once and a glorious business show King E3 gradually passed away. But the this -year -old odd air about it, even before a Splitgate 2 Developer walked onto the stage with ”Make FPS big again hat“(Really) before smacking” the same Call of dutyAnd revealing the battle Royale regime of his shooter.
Many of this weirdness is because the games industry goes through it now. Passed more than a week since EA killed his A game of black panther And developer Cliffhanger, and industrial layoffs have only lasted since then. Time stops for no one, and since 2023, there have been reductions in the dozens or hundreds, sometimes daily, even monthly. What we thought was just “survive til ’25” in 2023 or 2024 is now just “survive” as Games and their studios Die in the blink. Combined with what feels a strange dumb Nintendo -Switch 2 launch and the US government in crossing Another round of bullyingOf course this business show feels funny.
Other factors to this strange feeling owe to a summer game -a party. It is never clearer when the industry pursues trends than such an event, which has had many souls and roughness and gunmen of space, a competitive and extraction variety. The popularity of the two genres seemed to wear on viewers and remind us how we easily tired things we once liked. Compared to the PlayStation showcase earlier in the week, SGF also felt less consistent in what it had to offer: Resident Evil Requiem And Wu-tang: rise of the cheat There were pleasing heights, other trailers seemed to be polite or not really landed.
More problematic, five years in, a summer game -a party still feels that it has no real identity of its own beyond extension of the annual year -end prizes. These ceremonies and accompanying game reveal have substantially different energy thanks to musical performances, famous appearances and usually joyful Muppet Gags. Without those, SGF feels less “fun” due to lack of a better word. It wants to be E3, but the great printmakers we tuned could sometimes be bad, as heads for game publishers were high of their own supply or excessive in nonsense they It seemed to think it was fun. This cannot be that way, because publishers have their indispens, more regular shows, and it does not want to be perceived as disrespectful to the medium and its public happy to receive recognition, but not the criticism with it.
Previously, Keighley caught Flack for failing to acknowledge the industry’s struggles, or do so awkwardly. This year’s summer game party opened with him highlighting the current 2025 crop of best-selling games, some of which came from teams much smaller than your average studio Triple-A. Expedition 33’s was the greatest and worst criminal of this “honor”; Since the revelation and launch of the RPG, it has been praised as a triumph for a developer with a main rate in the small dozens. But it is Seven-minute credits to show that this is not the true story: yes, sand 33 or 34 employeesBut it also had third animators, QA entrepreneurs and localists (and more!), Who helped make a fantastic debut.
Keighley emphasizes those little teams – one guy made Brawler with only the help of Nine of his friends!“It turns out what was probably a good-natured recognition of in additional fuel for the fiery division between indie and triple-A developers at a bad time for both.” The storytelling around game development (and who makes them) is pretty bad thanks to ongoing layoffs and an increased player -persecution, and this is likely to aggravate things. It is a moment that best represents the bilateral sword of the eminence of Summer Game Fest and this particular industrial head: sooner or later, in the middle of the whole flash and celebrating this window into the industry, someone sucks things by putting their foot in his mouth.
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