Five lessons from Summer Game Fest, 13/06/2024
Xbox consoles! New games! Industry in a holding pattern!
I summarise Summer Game Fest so you don’t have to
The Premier League is coming home to Football Manager
Taskmaster VR isn’t the biggest release of the week (but I pretend it is)
Good morning VGIM-ers,
I’ve got some great news to kick off the newsletter this week. The first ever VGIM Business Breakfast secured a sponsor within two hours of the last mailer hitting inboxes. Woof.
Big Games Machine, a full service Marketing and PR agency giving games companies a hand with B2B and B2C comms, has stepped up to the plate to cover the venue costs, pony up for the pastries and fund my extravagant rider.
Two thirds of the free tickets for the Business Breakfast have already gone ahead of our date with destiny on Wednesday 10th July.
If you’d like to say hello, hear from bona fide experts about the future of the games media and meet other lovely VGIM readers, thwack the button below.
And if you want to support VGIM because you’re well nice, remember that you can become a paid VGIM Insider for just £40 a year OR you can stump up to sponsor the newsletter through my store front here. Go on, you know you want to.
Anyway, let’s VGIM shall we?
The big read - Five lessons from Summer Game Fest
After the storm, the calm. Summer Game Fest, and the vast majority of the 20 odd events that followed in its wake, has passed.
But what did we learn from this year's cavalcade of game trailers? What does it say about the industry today? And where are we going for the rest of 2024 and into the (hopefully) sunlit uplands of 2025?
Here are five things that I learned in no particular order. Onwards!
1) Summer Game Fest stream shows an industry playing for time
Ahead of Summer Game Fest, Geoff Keighley - the high priest of video game hype - did something unusual: he played down expectations around the event.
In a Twitch stream leading up to the event, Geoff gently warned fans that this year’s show was “largely focused” on existing announcements rather than barn door blowing off new releases.
And it turns out he wasn’t lying. Yes, the Summer Game Fest main event did offer us the thrills of a Civilization 7 announcement (praise be to Sid) and a Lego spin off for the Horizon series.
But for the most part, Summer Game Fest did exactly what Geoff promised it would, revealing new information about games we’re already familiar with - such as Valorant’s arrival on consoles - or teeing up announcements at other events later in the week (e.g. Ubisoft’s teaser trailer for, erm, a Star Wars: Outlaws teaser trailer a few days later).
So yep, it was a showcase that lacked stardust. But with the games industry experiencing a year that’s equivalent to throwing on some bossa nova music while whacking up a “we’ll be right back” title card, it’s fair to say that this was probably about as good as we could expect, right?
2) Call of Duty at the heart of Game Pass argument
WRONG! While everyone else made like Dave Brubeck and took five, Xbox decided to let off fireworks in a hand grenade factory by throwing down big release after big release - new Perfect Dark! A Gears of War prequel! Another Doom game! Super Hans in Fable! - during its Showcase.
Predictably, this dominated the week’s agenda for the best reason possible: it showed us lots of cool new games! And while questions remain about when exactly we’ll see them all, it did - refreshingly - provide everybody with something to talk about and look forward to (a rarity for Xbox this generation).
But even though my eye was caught by fancy suitors (why hello, more footage of Avowed), it was the game that was shown at the front of the showcase that really mattered: Call of Duty.
It’s fair to say the revelation of the trailer for the sixth Black Ops title at the start of the showcase did not get my pulse racing.
But with Microsoft confirming that the game is practically literally at the front of its plans for building its a Game Pass empire (provided you pick the right subscription tier of course), it was a reminder that it’ll be the performance of COD - rather than the lovely wider portfolio of titles unveiled this week - that’ll define Xbox’s fortunes after it deploys in October 2024.
3) Those Xbox leaks were right after all
Last September, Xbox fell victim to the mother of all self-inflicted leaks. The company’s roadmap to the end of the decade was accidentally shown to the world following the botched upload of a welter of private documents to a website as part of an ongoing lawsuit.
At the time, Phil Spencer did what every sensible executive would do in such a situation: cast doubt on them. Of course, it’s tricky to do that when you’ve submitted those documents as evidence of your future actions to a court of law. But Phil gave it his best shot by claiming on social media that the leaked folio consisted of “old emails and documents” and that the real plan for the company would be shown later.
Well, they finally revealed the plan and it turns out it looks a lot like the one found in those old documents. The company’s announcement of three new Xboxes for launch later this year aligned perfectly with the leaked timelines for it to unveil two refreshed console variants named Ellewood and Brooklin. And miraculously, the specs of those two devices almost identically matched those of two of the three devices Xbox unveiled. What a coincidence, eh?
Now we do need to acknowledge here that the Xbox announcement didn’t entirely align with what was splattered over the Internet last year. A mooted ‘tube like’ redesign of the Series X hasn’t materialised (yet). The specs of the digital only edition of the Xbox Series S is lower than the 2TB version pitched in the leaks. And I would take a guess here that the failure to cram 2TB of storage into the digital version explains the decision to add on the third device in the range, which is the limited edition 2TB console with a disc drive.
But the important point to note isn’t that Xbox is following the letter of its plan; it’s following the spirit of it. And while it may be deviating from elements of its approach, this week’s revelation suggests that the industry can take the leaked strategy as gospel - allowing them to plan around Microsoft’s roadmap for at least another few years as a result of that..
4) Ubisoft’s chance to push Forward
Ubisoft has been experiencing a bit of an interesting trajectory over the past couple of years. The company had a poor 2022-2023 financial year, with a thin release slate across that time period forcing it to batten down the hatches.
However, its 2023-2024 financial results showed that the business is on the way back up. While times are still tough, as evidenced by its headcount declining by 1700 people, the release of Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the ongoing success of evergreen multiplayer title Rainbow Six: Siege powered it to a very healthy $2.5bn of net bookings.
So it turns out that this was a very good time for Ubisoft to have a good summer showcase. And fortunately, it did.
Ubisoft’s Forward event showed off a slate that has the right mix of major star power - Star Wars: Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows - and builds nicely upon some of its quieter success stories (e.g. DLC for its well received Prince of Persia Metroidvania).
With the rest of the industry in a holding pattern ahead of 2025, Ubisoft looks well placed to perform strongly within a weak market.
And given that the company is one of the only semi-affordable major gaming businesses still available on the public markets, a strong year now could prove to be very well timed for the French funsters.
5) There aren’t too many events (probably)
Finally, a note on the number of events that have taken place over the past week.
As I alluded to in the last VGIM, the Summer Game Fest event schedule was stuffed with nearly two dozen events organised by publishers, platforms, media outlets, events organisers and even independent communities showing off hundreds of games to their fanbases.
The result of this mass of shows was, predictably, a wall of noise. And even with games journalists doing their damnedest to pull apart the cacophony, the argument that E3’s demise has made keeping up with the summer schedule a bit of a nightmare gathered pace again.
However, that argument also kind of misses the point. Yes, the mad schedule makes it hard for industry watchers like us to keep up with things. But does it actually stop consumers from keeping track of the games they want to follow?
My hunch is that it doesn’t as much as we think it might. The reason the biggest publishers stepped away from the E3 model was because they were confident they could cut-through to their audiences more directly and at lower cost by going alone. There’s little from the last week that has suggested that approach is wrong.
And for smaller games businesses, the emergence of this wide range of ‘peer-to-peer’ conferences - whereby a brand, media outlet or community simply puts on a banging little show full of games they know their fans like - has given them the chance to trade off chasing a big mass media high in favour of directly reaching smaller, but more focused, audiences of consumers. This, in turn, reduces risk and cost of entry to the summer schedule, allowing the love to be spread a bit further.
So does this splintered schedule make building a nice tidy narrative around the games sector tricky? Yes. Does it mean we’re almost certainly going to have a hit title ‘emerge from nowhere’ that we’ll later discover was tucked into the back end of one of the fringe events? Almost certainly. And despite my optimism around smaller events, do I still feel that the number of shows is a touch top heavy and some won’t be back next year? Unfortunately, I do.
But given that one of the main reasons for the success of games has been its ability to establish viable audiences from what were previously thought of as ‘niche’ communities, I tend to think that the range and variety of events in the Summer Game Fest fringe schedule is a reflection that one of the games industry’s strengths is holding - meaning that the busy schedule is a positive sign about the vitality of the medium.
The best of the rest of the Fest
There was no Nintendo or Sony at this year’s Summer Game Fest. A Nintendo Direct is reportedly due next week, while Sony popped out its State of Play at the end of May. E3 this ain’t, I tells ya…
Innersloth, the makers of Among Us, announced a new fund for indie game creators called Outersloth. The fund is hands off (which means no publishing support), is backing games that need between $50k-$2m to fund - or finish - their title and it won’t put cash into Web3, VR or Early Access games.
There’s a new Arkham game coming out! *cheers* It’s VR only! *boos*.
Why did someone commission Tim Robinson to make a I Think You Should Leave skit to promote the remake of Skate? I don’t know. But am I glad they did? Based on how many times I’ve said the phrase “knob the hell out of the slappy curbs” this week, the answer is “absolutely.”
Finally, let’s toast the contributions of some top VGIM readers to the Summer Game Fest fun. Jake Tucker produced a cracking PC Gaming Show, which featured Crescent Country from Electric Saint (kudos to you, Anna Hollinrake). Louise Blain revealed Blumhouse Games’s slate of horror titles during the Summer Game Fest main show, something that was well received by fans and media alike. Well done to you all (and to the other VGIM readers who also took part in the fun but who insisted on discretion/who I didn’t spot ahead of writing this round up). Hurrah!
Source: The Premier League
News in brief
Premier partners: The Premier League has announced a four year partnership with divorce causing time sink Football Manager. The top 20 teams in England will now feature in the game officially, bringing their logos, kits and likenesses into the game without forcing me to mod the f***er for the first time ever.
Voodoo magic?: French mobile game developer Voodoo has snapped up social media app BeReal for €500m. The company plans to bring ads to the social media platform, whose growth has largely stagnated since its rise to prominence in 2022
More job losses: Sumo Digital is cutting 15% of its headcount as it becomes the latest games business to suffer layoffs. The layoffs will affect staff in the UK, Poland, Canada, Czech Republic and India, with Timbre Studios in Canada closing down as part of the process.
CATty remarks: A claim has been filed against Valve in the Competition Appeal Tribunal in the UK on the basis it is “rigging the market” to force up the cost of PC games. The claim has been filed by Vicki Shotbolt, a campaigner most associated with pressure group Parent Zone who has serious historic beef with the games biz. VGIM’s advice? Pinch some nearby salt for this one…
Esports-washing: The Esports Awards has come in for significant criticism after signing a partnership with the Saudi backed Esports World Cup. The deal, which will see the awards relocate to Riyadh next summer as part of the inaugural 2024 tournament, has led to the resignation of a number of panel members who support the awards including host Goldenboy who said the event does not align with their “personal and professional values.”
On the move
The Gamer Network layoffs spreadsheet has been released online. Snap up great media talent here…Mike Verdu is shifting out of his role as VP of Games at Netflix to take up another post in the business…Marina Mello has nabbed a plum job as Global Director, Gaming & Interactive at BBC Studios…Joe Goulcher has jumped from the good ship Xbox to become Creative Director in the Creative Advertising department at Territory Studio…And Carola Pettinato has been promoted to Associate Game Designer at Criterion…
Jobs ahoy!
Google has a tip top Head of Games and Scale, Strategy and Operations role open in New York or California if you’re up for pushing forward its Play Partnerships teams…It’s technically not a video games job but if I didn’t include this Commissioning Editor gig at The Games Workshop at least 50 readers would punch me…As if that wasn’t exciting enough, Capture Age is hiring a Narrative Designer to write text for its work on Age of Empires II…Lucid Games would like you to become its new Lead Gameplay Programmer…And if you want to work with one of the nicest agencies in the biz, YRS TRULY is hiring for a Campaign Manager, Social and Influencer…
Events and conferences
MCV/Develop Awards, London - 20th June
Games for Change Festival, New York - 27th-28th June
Develop: Brighton, erm…Brighton - 9th-11th July
VGIM Business Breakfast, Brighton - 10th July
ChinaJoy, Shanghai - 26th-29th July
Games of the week
Taskmaster VR - Buy this game on a VR platform of your choice. You have thirty minutes. Your time starts when you finish reading this sentence.
Monster Hunter Stories - Raise monsters instead of hunting them? Pfft, ok then Capcom…
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance - Have you ever thought “I wish I could be a mighty demigod”? Then come on in, my friend.
Before you go…
Video games are at the cutting edge of entertainment, delivering life changing immersive experiences that captivate players and stun them with daring feats of storytelling that they’ll never forget.
They also offer people the chance to click a banana and keep count of how many times they’ve clicked a banana.
*waggles Ouija board* Hello, Roger Ebert? I’ve got something that I think you’re going to love…