Introducing The Game Festival, a series of over a dozen game demos available for 48 hours, UPDATE: Demos live now

[Deleted member 51691]

LOS ANGELES (December 11, 2019) — This Thursday get ready to watch, celebrate and now play what's next from the video game industry. Today The Game Awards founder Geoff Keighley announced The Game Festival, a new digital consumer event concept that ushers in a new era for The Game Awards, which live streams for free across more than 60 global digital networks.

The Game Festival is a first-of-its-kind digital consumer event that brings the magic of hands-on gameplay demos to fans around the world. For 2019, The Game Festival will launch a digital pilot program on Steam. The Game Festival will feature more than a dozen first-look game demos, available to play for a limited 48-hour window before they are removed from Steam.

"Six years ago I bet everything I had to create The Game Awards as a way to celebrate our passion for gaming," said Geoff Keighley, creator, The Game Awards. "Now feels like the right time to take the next step with The Game Festival, a completely digital approach to the consumer event space. Let's face it: Not everyone can attend a physical trade show or consumer event. The Game Festival is designed from the ground-up as an event without barriers, extending the benefits of a physical event to the global gaming community that watches The Game Awards."

As part of the pilot Game Festival on Stream, more than a dozen games are scheduled to be playable. Some of the games that will release free, limited-time demos include:

System Shock (Nightdive Studios)

Eastward (Pixpil/Chucklefish)

Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus)

Moving Out (SMG Studio/Devm Games/Team17)

Röki (Polygon Treehouse/United Label)

Chicory (Greg Lobanov)

Wooden Nickel (Brain&Brain)

Haven (The Game Bakers)

Heavenly Bodies (2pt Interactive)

Acid Knife (Powerhoof)

The Drifter (Powerhoof)

CARRION (Phobia/Devolver)

SkateBIRD (Glass Bottom Games)

Alongside the Festival, Steam will air The Game Awards live in 4K Ultra High Definition, feature The Game Awards Sale, and offer Steam viewers the opportunity to win a Valve Index VR headset and free game drops throughout the live broadcast.

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https://medium.com/@geoffkeighley/introducing-the-game-festival-9d319cf7a579

 

[salromano]

*48 hours

 

[Deleted member 9317]

Update: DEMOS ARE UP!!

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/thesteamgamefestival

System Shock (Nightdive Studios)
Eastward (Pixpil/Chucklefish)
Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games)
Moving Out (SMG Studio/Devm Games/Team 17)
Roki (Polygon Treehouse/United Label)
Chicory (Greg Lobanov)
Wooden Nickel (Brain & Brain)
Haven (The Game Bakers)
Heavenly Bodies (2pt Interactive)
Acid Knife (Powerhoof)
The Drifter (Powerhoof)
Carion (Devolver)
SkateBird (Glass Bottom Games)

 

[CHC]

Damn that's a good list! I wonder how different the demo of System Shock will be to what they released on GoG a couple years back. It was very basic but had a great aesthetic, and I know they've basically rebooted the whole project since then.

Also looking forward to trying Eastward and Carrion, hoping that I have the time to actually do so.... small window of opportunity there.

 

[Dest]

thank u geoff

 

[KoolAid]

SKATEBIRD DEMO

GOTY

 

[wwm0nkey]

Woooo! Excited to see the System Shock improvements!

 

[Kalentan]

That's really cool. I hope to try out System Shock.

 

[Deleted member 9317]

Edit: Thank you mods.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

sheeeyit

 

[SteveWinwood]

that multi store future thank you for the competition

 

[AvernOffset]

This seems like a really cool way to give these games some visibility.

 

[HammerOfThor]

Wow cool. I'd love to see this used at E3 time for those who can't make it to the show.

 

[Calibro]

Totally fucking rad! Looking forward to trying all of those (SkateBird especially)!

 

[Sedated]

Naisu

 

[Deleted member 9317]

Note: these demos are PC/Steam only.

 

[Serene]

Ohhhhh nice!

I've really been looking forward to Spiritfarer and Eastward so I'll have to check those out.

 

[Calibro]

Totally fucking rad! Looking forward to trying all of those (SkateBird especially)!

 

[BrucCLea13k87]

Awesome, I really wish other gaming events would follow heed.

 

[YaBish]

Oh shit I can play a demo for Haven?!

One of my most anticipated rn. Eastward, Spiritfarer, and System Shock too!

 

[Deleted member 15428]

In for Haven.

 

[ScreamingMadden]

Man getting to demo SkateBird, Spiritfarer and Chicory is really nice! I hope this Festival gives Chicory more attention. That game looks helluva charming and has a great concept where you need to color your world which suddenly has no color. You're also a dog whose named after your favorite food and made by the same guy who did Wnadersong. I have the upmost faith Chicory is gonna be good.

 

[Captain of Outer Space]

That's neat, but like a lot of betas, I may download some and never play them because I have too much else going on.

 

[MaffewE]

For clarity, the demos will also stop working when the 48hrs is up, so don't just download them and think you'll get around to it later!

https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/status/1204813607596244992

 

[Temperance]

Cool will check them all out.

Reminds me of Microsoft doing E3 demos for the 360 one year.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

Geoff is killing it. My only worry is that I haven't finished Death Stranding yet - hopefully I won't get spoiled.

 

[SlipperyMoose]

This is a really cool concept! I would like to see more like this.

 

[Inugami]

This is what a lot of us have been wanting from E3 for over a decade, glad to see someone is finally pushing the concept to reality!

 

[the_wart]

Okay TGA are still dumb, but Geoff you done good.

 

[Lukar]

That's really damn cool. I loved the first demo for System Shock, can't wait for this.

 

[Adulfzen]

With cloud gaming, companies like Sony and Microsoft could also release demos for their big releases without the worry of having their stuff datamined. Hopefully this concept could be explored for other events beyond TGA.

 

[Remark]

I've been hearing about this type of concept for a while. Glad someone is finally trying it out.

 

[Deleted member 16657]

Geoff really making moves, this can only get better as streaming services become more mainstream. "Liked the trailer? Click here to play it right away!"

 

[Tregard]

Fantastic idea, something I've always wanted in regards to E3.

 

[Deleted member 9317]

Geoff really making moves, this can only get better as streaming services become more mainstream. "Liked the trailer? Click here to play it right away!"

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You just explained Google Stadia. That's their goal with Stadia and YouTube integration.

 

[samred]

This is what a lot of us have been wanting from E3 for over a decade, glad to see someone is finally pushing the concept to reality!

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If the Google Stadia team could yank heads out of each other's asses for even a minute, they would *slay* with an instant-streaming public "game expo" of upcoming and unreleased fare. But I'm just going to guess that Microsoft will beat them to this idea, too.

 

[Deleted member 13101]

Great concept, very positive. Still, these are ultimately just playable demos with expiring access. Sometimes these don't even make it to an E3, so it's good to see here anyways.

But the cynical part of me says the limited time window will do more for popular game streamers than it will for the general Steam public.

This also would have been a good beta use case for game-streaming services. I see others have recognized this too.

 

[VirtuaModel]

Great work by Geoff as always. There's several good titles in there, but the one I'm most interested in gameplay-wise is SkateBIRD.

 

[Deleted member 9317]

If the Google Stadia team could yank heads out of each other's asses for even a minute, they would *slay* with an instant-streaming public "game expo" of upcoming and unreleased fare. But I'm just going to guess that Microsoft will beat them to this idea, too.

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Another day, another human being forgot PSNow exists. From an editor, no less. *Ken Kutaragi sheds a tear*

 

[carlsojo]

Don't sleep on Carrion y'all

 

[Inugami]

But the cynical part of me says the limited time window will do more for popular game streamers than it will for the general Steam public.

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At the end of the day, the game demos are just marketing, and game streamers are, for better or worse, part of the video game marketing cycle.

I can understand the cynicism, but it's still a better idea for consumers who can't show up to live events to finally get a taste for the showroom. Heck, I'm sure game media will like it too since they can get footage easier, and it's not like they won't still have privileged access to developers for their articles.

 

[MrBob]

This is such a smart idea to get people to play the game early and be able to add them to their steam wishlist if they like it.

 

[TubaZef]

We complain and make fun of TGAs but they're definitely trying to do better.

This is pretty cool.

 

[Rosebud]

Skatebird!!!!!

 

[SweetBellic]

System Shock demo!? Does this mean a new trailer!?

*breathing intensifies*

 

[Deleted member 10737]

is there no game awards sale this year? i remember last year there was a sale for the nominated games on switch/ps4/xbo

 

[Deleted member 3294]

I'm all for the return of game demos being a thing, though not at all into them only being playable for a limited time.

 

[Exentryk]

Should have made a trailer for what these games are.

Still, cool stuff!

 

[Deleted member 9317]

Dp

 

[Deleted member 9317]

is there no game awards sale this year? i remember last year there was a sale for the nominated games on switch/ps4/xbo

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I hope so! I could use some Death Stranding discount.