The industry needed a replacement, and what emerged instead is scattered.
Each summer, the gaming world pauses to glimpse what lies ahead — and with E3 now gone, that ritual has found a new home. On June 8, 2023, Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest steps into the void, gathering publishers and players across time zones for a two-hour livestream of reveals, updates, and anticipation. It is less a single event than a signal: the season of announcements has begun, and the industry is learning to speak in many voices rather than one.
- E3's outright cancellation left a vacuum at the heart of summer gaming culture, and the industry is still negotiating what fills it.
- Summer Game Fest airs today at noon PT on YouTube and Twitch, promising two hours of cross-platform reveals for Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
- Expectations are measured — major studios may be holding their biggest cards for their own showcases, with Microsoft's Xbox Game Showcase following just three days later on June 11.
- The event represents a fragmented new normal: more announcements spread across more stages, with Summer Game Fest serving as the closest thing to a communal gathering point.
Summer Game Fest arrives on Thursday, June 8, 2023, at noon Pacific time — hosted once again by Geoff Keighley, the journalist behind The Game Awards. Viewers can tune in on The Game Awards' YouTube or Twitch channels for a showcase expected to run roughly two hours, covering game announcements, DLC reveals, and fresh footage across Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
The event's rise is inseparable from E3's fall. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, long the anchor of the summer gaming calendar, was canceled outright this year after its major players — Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony — declined to participate. In its place emerged a looser season of independent showcases, and Summer Game Fest, which Keighley launched in 2020, has grown into one of its most prominent fixtures.
Still, tempered expectations are wise. The showcase follows a familiar rhythm — opening spectacle, steady reveals, a closing moment meant to linger — but individual studios are likely reserving their most significant news for their own stages. Microsoft's Xbox Game Showcase on June 11 looms as a likely home for announcements around titles like Starfield or Fable. Summer Game Fest is not the whole story, but it remains one of the few places where the industry still tries to speak together.
Summer Game Fest is happening today. Thursday, June 8, 2023, at noon Pacific time—three in the afternoon on the East Coast, nine at night in Central European time. Geoff Keighley, the gaming journalist who runs The Game Awards, is hosting the livestream again this year, and you can watch it on either The Game Awards' YouTube channel or their Twitch feed. Set aside two hours. That's how long the showcase typically runs, and in that window, there will be game announcements, fresh footage, DLC reveals, and updates spanning Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
This event exists because E3 is gone. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, which for decades anchored the summer gaming calendar in Los Angeles, has lost its footing. This year it was canceled outright—Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and the other major players all decided not to show up. The industry needed a replacement, and what emerged instead is what people now call "Not-E3": a scattered season of independent showcases and livestreams throughout the summer months, each company and media figure carving out their own moment to announce what's coming.
Keighley started Summer Game Fest in 2020 as a midyear checkpoint, a place where multiple publishers could gather under one roof, so to speak. It's become one of the biggest gaming announcements of the year. The structure is predictable: an opening salvo to grab attention, then a steady stream of reveals and updates, and finally a closing announcement meant to send people home talking. But expectations should be tempered. Individual companies are likely holding their biggest news for their own events. Microsoft, for instance, has the Xbox Game Showcase coming on Sunday, June 11, and it's reasonable to assume that announcements about Hellblade 2, Starfield, or Fable might be saved for that stage instead.
The summer months have always been prime time for gaming news. Before E3 collapsed, that's where the industry converged. Now the announcements are distributed across a longer season, which means there's more opportunity to follow the news but also more fragmentation. Summer Game Fest sits at the center of this new landscape—not the only event that matters, but one of the few that tries to gather everyone in one place. Today's livestream is a chance to see what's on the horizon across all the major platforms, even if the truly exclusive reveals might be waiting for the showcases that follow.
Citações Notáveis
Summer Game Fest has been hosting a special gaming livestream midway through the year since 2020 as part of the "Not-E3" landscape of distributed gaming announcements.— Reporting on Geoff Keighley's role in the event
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Summer Game Fest matter if companies are just going to announce their big stuff at their own events anyway?
Because it's still the biggest tent. Not everyone watches the Xbox showcase or the PlayStation event. Summer Game Fest reaches across platforms and publishers in a way that no single company event can. It's the one place where a PC player and a Switch player and a PlayStation fan all show up at the same time.
So E3 really is just... gone?
Functionally, yes. The companies stopped believing in it. When Microsoft and Nintendo both said no, the whole thing collapsed. E3 had been losing relevance for years, but this year was the breaking point.
What happens if Summer Game Fest becomes the new E3? Does Keighley become the gatekeeper?
That's the risk, isn't it? Right now it's one event among many. But if it keeps being the place where the biggest announcements happen, then yes, he becomes more powerful. The industry is still figuring out what the new calendar looks like.
Are people actually excited about this, or is it just habit?
Both. There's genuine curiosity about what's coming—new gameplay, surprise reveals, that kind of thing. But there's also fatigue. There are so many showcases now that it's hard to keep track of what's happening where. Summer Game Fest at least tries to be a central moment.
What's the real story here—is it about the games, or about how the industry announces games?
It's about both. The games matter, obviously. But the fact that E3 died and this is what replaced it says something about how the industry has changed. It's more decentralized now. More fragmented. Summer Game Fest is trying to hold the center, but the center doesn't hold the way it used to.