This fake E3 month sucks because there's no curation (Guerrilla Collective, Future Game Show, PC Gaming Show)

[chrominance]

I won't lie, I took a nap in the middle of the PC Gaming Show and woke up to find it was still going.

That said, that's how the PC Gaming Show rolls every year. This year wasn't really any different in that regard, though it might have been longer than past years. And I think it's a bit silly to say that there's no value in giving a minute or two to each game in a long show. Not every game will be for everyone, and I think it's best to go in with the mindset that you'll find a small handful that are interesting to you. For example, thanks to the PC Gaming Show I now know Potionomics exists, and that game is basically designed for me. That was far less likely to happen at a big brand showcase precisely because shows like these are all about putting a wide variety and large number of games in your face.

If you don't find value in the show, just don't watch. It's not like you couldn't have predicted how this would go from the last few years they ran it. As for the Guerrilla Collective, Future Game Show, etc., I think most people could've figured out pretty easily what caliber of announcement you were going to get from them, especially given that the Guerrilla Collective took place over three days and telegraphed in advance that there'd be repeats.

 

[CRIMSON-XIII]

It would seem that Guerrilla Collective day 1 was apart of Geoff Keighleys Summer Game Fest, while day 2 was apart of IGNs Summer of Games.

I have yet to see the Gamespot label anywhere. I think it would be a lot cleaner if it was cohesive which event belonged to which outlet. And then some events are just events with Geoffs live reactions before and after and no involvement (don't get me wrong, i love predictions and reactions, keep doing it).

In any case, i say all this but I am not complaining because we got the Sony show (Ubi, EA and Xbox coming soon).. the IGN Expo 4 days was a bonus thing that didnt happen. The speedruns were entertaining enough, and there were a few trailers or games that interested me. It is just one aspect of what E3 would be. the IGN coverage portion of it. Next time, there will be more content.

 

[Mindfreak191]

It is really annoying, anyone know where I can find some schedules for the upcoming streams, I'm totally lost lol?

 

[Teamocil]

Geoff's Summer Games Fest should've been the hub for everything. If I wanted to find articles, links, dates etc that should've been where I could go to find it.

Instead it's a half assed iCal (and the calendar entries don't even have fucking links to the live-streams!!)

 

[bing]

Yeah, the PS5 reveal and tbh even the May Inside Xbox to an extent were better than anything else we've had so far.

 

[karnage10]

I enjoyed pc gaming show. Bought personal, got around 10 games added to wishlist.

Did not see the others.

Saw a bit of ps5 but starting with gta v was... Weird to say the least.
Will skip the console as with the exception of horizon and ratchet their games look extremely boring to me.
Fingers crossed hoping for Sony to being those games to a platform I like

 

[Dan L]

Not all games are going to be for everyone, to this end I have been watching these after the fact so I can skip through the games and parts that don't interest me personally

 

[Deleted member 16876]

The PC one was fine, just a bit too long.

I discovered a bunch of indies that looked reaally awesome but it sure as hell would have been better with more variety and better editing. PS5 is still the best one and a big part of that is the fact it was snappy and to the point.

 

[Mentalist]

Serious question tho, how many eyeballs do you think an indie game gets in these shows? you get a demo, or a trailer for a minute or so, and then its on to the next game, by the time the next game is on display, the previous game is already forgotten.

we had 3 massive indie game events on one day

June 13th
PC game show - 52 games shown in 75 minutes
Future game show - 35 games shown in 80 minutes
Guerrilla Collective day 1 - 44 games shown in 90 minutes

then on the 14th
Guerrilla Collective day 2 - 69 games shown in 120 minutes

that is 200 games in two days.. how much exposure do you think a game will get when its thrown at you like this.

There is no talk on any of these games because you need to watch a boringly presented show that is an hour to two hours long and you are lucky that you find a game you get interested in. its an overload to the viewer. I watched one of the easy allies reaction streams of one of these events and afterwards they maybe had one or two games they could talk about in a recap and they had issues even talking about those since it was such a dump of games (not in quality, but in load) that gets thrown at you.

Click to shrink...

Escapist indie expo.

Thursday (before the PS5 reveal)- 2 hours, 70 games shown
Fri-Sun- 3 days, 9 hours of streams each day, where most of those games get 30 min slots to either show an extended gameplay footage, or have someone play a demo + developer commentary.

Great format, imho. But no one's talking about them.

 

[spineduke]

i agree that the format isn't going to work in the long run. Better to share on a monthly basis using the same high polish format. Problem is, it'll probably be far more expensive than anyone wants to keep it going like that.

 

[Deleted member 925]

All of these shows missed the mark completely. I watched a few with friends on Discord and everyone was in agreement, they just felt like a waste of time. I don't mind smaller titles being shown, but the pacing was terrible in basically every one of these shows.

 

[Alexandros]

They're not bad but they could certainly be trimmed down a bit. To be honest I think that the best thing about them is the accompanying special page on Steam where I can find the games/demos and I can quickly check out anything that catches my eye.

 

[Sota4077]

I can guarantee you most of the dislikes on the PC Gaming Show is because of the BLM shoutout.

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OK. You gave us a guarantee. Prove it. Prove that it was because of BLM. We'll wait...

 

[Deleted member 21709]

It is really annoying, anyone know where I can find some schedules for the upcoming streams, I'm totally lost lol?

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Summer Game Fest - Live Friday June 7 at YouTube Theater, LA

See the future of video games at Summer Game Fest, the game industry's new digital, global event! Returns June 7, 2024 at YouTube Theater in LA. Streaming live everywhere.

www.summergamefest.com

OK. You gave us a guarantee. Prove it. Prove that it was because of BLM. We'll wait...

Click to shrink...

But it is true. This could only be proven (I think) if you watched the actual streams and saw the response in chat/viewercounts when the statements were made.

Why do you think it is not true?

 

[Deleted member 44828]

deleted

 

[Aether]

Yeah. I've already mentioned that in a view topics. No curation.
I remember when people where happy that steam opened the fludgates...only to realize, you cant find the good games in the sea of bad and mediocre ones, because the curation was gone. And nobody has time to watch hundreds of store pages to find good games.
The same with those streams: platforming every indie games that puts a game together with unreal templates and store bought assets (mind you: not asset flips, just clearly higher quality models than the budget of the game allowed in some cases), etc, and you loose everybody, cause nobody is as bored to watch that the whole time.

And that was obvious from the get go, when everybody startet do anounce their own stream.
We knew, nintendo/sony/microsoft wont be there. The big ones probably will wait with the big anouncements for the streams of Microsoft/sony, or even have their own ones. Whats left? indies indies indies. And indies can be great, but there are so many of them, that you NEED curation.

 

[Aether]

Twitch or Youtube chat is always like that without mods.

I think the dislikes is more about no Bloodbourne and no AAA titles reveals.

edit: I still don't understand those people... We have pc gaming show since what? 2016? Is so rare huge announcments in the show. Is more about content from smaller devs.

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Yeah, but usually it is in one week, next to big conferences. You come for the big conferences, you stay with the smaller stuff, since its 3-4 days top. Here, no big anouncements, but a ton more longform streams and shows.

 

[thelongestj]

Agreed that the streams were too long, so I didn't watch any, but going through the games on that "e3 roundup" site and there are a lot that I am looking forward to playing.

Top 10 games from "fake e3" for me:

1. Lake
2. Dustborn
3. Red Sails
4. Stray
5. The Big Con
6. dont_forget_me
7. Wave Break
8. Paradise Lost
9. Ambition: A Minute in Power
10. NUTS

Downloading some of the demos for these games now and looking forward to trying them.

 

[piratepwnsninja]

And here I was just yesterday thinking that I was really glad that all these titles that generally fall outside of my vision during E3 were getting some dedicated time. I've probably added 20-30 games I'd never heard of to my wishlist since Friday.

 

[Patapuf]

I'm not sure what people expect from indie showcases.

I'm pretty sure with the money the PS5 presentation cost you can put out all these shows 10 times over.

And these are not a single organisation. Maybe don't watch all streams if seeing a game multiple times bothers you?


I'm also baffled at the "lack of diversity" comments. What genre do you think is missing from these shows? Aside from the "it has an AAA budget" genre.

 

[Deleted member 14377]

OK. You gave us a guarantee. Prove it. Prove that it was because of BLM. We'll wait...

Click to shrink...

Lmao, you wanna give "GAMERZ" the benefit of the doubt?

 

[Patapuf]

sure, still tho, its not a lot. especially with the amount of games. its easy to get lost in the crowd as an indie game and the same thing happens at these events.

now if it where a dedicated show during the summer, each friday, a new 10 to 15 games in a 30 to 45 minute stream like a nintendo direct, you would generate buzz for those 10 games each week. you can then give those 10 to 15 games a week a platform to shine on.


these events just felt like a truckload of games just gets dumped in a few days just to get rid of them, and barely anything gets picked up by the press or fans.
how many indie games form those shows have you seen discussed here?

Click to shrink...

There is no way any of these organisations have the money to put toghether a show over multiple weeks. and neither do the indies whose games are showcased.

These streams aren't hosted by megacorporations trying to sell you their stuff.

 

[aiswyda]

PC gaming show was especially a bummer bc it felt like the info I was getting was just...wrong in some cases?

they described some game as slay the spire esque—but from what I could tell it's jsut because it was a roguelike? No deck building :/

 

[Aether]

I'm not sure what people expect from indie showcases.

I'm pretty sure with the money the PS5 presentation cost you can put out all these shows 10 times over.

And these are not a single organisation. Maybe don't watch all streams if seeing a game multiple times bothers you?


I'm also baffled at the "lack of diversity" comments. What genre do you think is missing from these shows? Aside from the "it has an AAA budget" genre.

Click to shrink...

Its not what to expect, its "is it usefull" for those indies. If the numbers are in the mid thousands, then not that many people are realy watching the shows, so no exposure for the indies. With more curation and better coordination,/shorter streams more people would be willing to watch and see those indies. as it is, the time investment is to much to ask for most people, which leads to smal exposure for those indies.
On the other hand, it you pack them between big anouncements,you have a magnitude more people watching, and a lot of those would never watched indie stuff in the first place, so you can reach people that otherwise would not have seen your game.
As it is now, it mostly catherses to people that already are informed and watch out for interesting indie games.

 

[Milennia]

Sony and EA are going to be the only regular E3 events this month with ubisoft next month, everything else was so disjointed.

 

[CaptainKashup]

As someone who's not really into indie games, I'm really really bored by this Summer Game Fest.
Indies are important for the industry and giving them a plateform where they can get shown to a large audience is good. Sony E3 conference always had a segment of purely indie games for example.
But this year, it feels like it's JUST indie games.

 

[Djavanes]

I really liked all the events. So many games!!!

 

[HoodedSoldier]

With what's going on in the world. I can't complain. I'm happy with what we are getting. We should be grateful.

 

[CenturionNami]

All these Indie haters should be ashamed.

 

[What-ok]

These days are focused on human rights, BLM and pandemic concerns and not so much video games. That's just what I see in my community.

It comes as no surprise that the fake E3 is a meh situation.

 

[aiswyda]

How long they stretch out is def also an issue.

I planned my day around getting to watch the PC gamer show—saw online it was 2 hours long. At the 2 hour mark it was still going and only one thing I was even remotely interested in had been announced...
so I just opted to go back to doing actual work. They meander and I lose interest (had been on my phone for the last hour at that point).

curation was absolutely help a LOT

 

[Patapuf]

Its not what to expect, its "is it usefull" for those indies. If the numbers are in the mid thousands, then not that many people are realy watching the shows, so no exposure for the indies. With more curation and better coordination,/shorter streams more people would be willing to watch and see those indies. as it is, the time investment is to much to ask for most people, which leads to smal exposure for those indies.
On the other hand, it you pack them between big anouncements,you have a magnitude more people watching, and a lot of those would never watched indie stuff in the first place, so you can reach people that otherwise would not have seen your game.
As it is now, it mostly catherses to people that already are informed and watch out for interesting indie games.

Click to shrink...

There's no "big announcements" to get. Especially not in a console launch year where both, Sony and MS, will scourge up anything to make their new consoles look good.

The little remaining PC AAA titles will be at gamescom - because they want to maximise attention too.

Like, the one reason the PC gaming show was able to announce something bigger from time to time is that it was at E3. But that's gone so..

And indies get exposure from WOM, which these shows contribute to. There's no world where these shows hurt exposure as there's precious few occasions for these games to get any in the first place.


Lastly, i'd like to call out that not everything at the PC gaming show is "indie". Some of those games have audiences in the millions (like say, Tarkov). But because this forum and much of the press is console focused people don't even realise it.


Just to be clear, these streams are marketing events first and foremost. It's in the interest of the hosts to make it interesting, so people watch it. But there's constraints that will compete with that. And those constaints are way more visible in smaller events. The biggest one being devs actually be willing to be a "big announcement" for free when a console manufacturer could pay you (or you can host it on your own for maximum attention).

 

[Mentalist]

PC gaming show was especially a bummer bc it felt like the info I was getting was just...wrong in some cases?

they described some game as slay the spire esque—but from what I could tell it's jsut because it was a roguelike? No deck building :/

Click to shrink...

Every game where you get a branching map of rooms or arenas these days is "Slay the Spire"-like, *shrug*

Warlander reviews used that; Focus's new Aztek roguelite is being described as doing that;
It's weird, but it's a trend now.

 

[Svejk]

You know things are bad when Sony had the best stream.

 

[aiswyda]

Every game where you get a branching map of rooms or arenas these days is "Slay the Spire"-like, *shrug*

Warlander reviews used that; Focus's new Aztek roguelite is being described as doing that;
It's weird, but it's a trend now.

Click to shrink...

:( a huge bummer. At least to me a defining feature of it is the fact it's a deck builder—so everytime I see one that ISNT a deck builder I'm instantly bummed

 

[GuitarGuruu]

That Future Gaming Show was pretty odd honestly, such a weird mash of titles.

 

[Aether]

There's no "big announcements" to get. Especially not in a console launch year where both, Sony and MS, will scourge up anything to make their new consoles look good.

The little remaining PC AAA titles will be at gamescom - because they want to maximise attention too.

Like, the one reason the PC gaming show was able to announce something bigger from time to time is that it was at E3. But that's gone so..

And indies get exposure from WOM, which these shows contribute to. There's no world where these shows hurt exposure as there's precious few occasions for these games to get any in the first place.


Lastly, i'd like to call out that not everything at the PC gaming show is "indie". Some of those games have audiences in the millions (like say, Tarkov). But because this forum and much of the press is console focused people don't even realise it.

Click to shrink...

Well, yeah, but thats one of the problems. One because of the time frame (to short for complext coordination), second: because every outlet started something, since they saw a chance.
It should be in the interest of bigger publishers to to coordinate.

"hurt expose" : i did not say that. It is just whoelfully less effective in giving indies exposure than the previous model was in my opinion. yeah, every exposure is good, but as an indie i would start to think, maybe pause here, and invest my time for promotion in a different channel, at a different time? if i get only 7k views here, next to other games, maybe finding a hand full of mid sized streamers can be more effective?
As it seems the organizers published every trailer, so not much cost. But at the same times, it is a cost to organize this, and without sponsors its probably to expensive... and if the views are this low, sponsores could jump.

Not only indies: shure. Persona 4 was also not an indie game. But the view counts speak for themselves: hundreds of thousands on old conferences and streams compared to streams that dont even break the 10k mark.

Im not against indie focused events. But for next time, they need to restructure this and focus it more.
Example idea: make it 1 structured event, where the first 2 days you get all the anouncements, maybe let every outlet koordinate one segment, so that nobody feels left out. And if somebody wants to know more about the games, watch interviews, etc, have 3 days of aditional information in longform streams, like the treehouse ones.
This is not the only way, but as it is its broken.

 

[NCR Ranger]

And here I was just yesterday thinking that I was really glad that all these titles that generally fall outside of my vision during E3 were getting some dedicated time. I've probably added 20-30 games I'd never heard of to my wishlist since Friday.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I added a few games that would have been lost otherwise as well.

Don't care what anyone says, for me Persona 4 Golden being announced for the PC was a hype moment. Even with it being leaked so early I was giddy. The rest of it was about what I expected. Some minor updates on big titles and a bunch of indie stuff. The only people I feel bad for were those expecting more than an EGS announcement for Disco Elysium.

 

[KtSlime]

I haven't been able to follow much of the announcements, not really sure when videos are, who they are from etc. E3 and other game shows made it nice and easy to know what was going on. Especially threads relating to them, easy to find who and when presenting and then often they were edited to include what was actually shown.

It would be nice if there was a thread like that rather than individual threads that get lost.

 

[EVIL]

There is no way any of these organisations have the money to put toghether a show over multiple weeks. and neither do the indies whose games are showcased.

These streams aren't hosted by megacorporations trying to sell you their stuff.

Click to shrink...

literally string 10 trailers or game play footage back to back with some sauce around it. I dont see how that is expensive in this day and age. and no I dont mean a big host, just have some dude talk you trough it, maybe have a small interview with a few of the devs, just audio.

The point is, its better to have a weekly showcase during summer with a tight focus of games each week than to have a few mega streams where you just dump a bunch of trailers of indie games all at once and let the audience figure out whats what.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

I've been seeing a lot of people compare these shows to the PS5 one in terms of games shown.

I think that says a lot about expectations here on Era.

 

[RodrigoRussano]

The PS5 reveal was absolutely amazing.

The rest? Mediocre at best.

 

[Mentalist]

Well, yeah, but thats one of the problems. One because of the time frame (to short for complext coordination), second: because every outlet started something, since they saw a chance.
It should be in the interest of bigger publishers to to coordinate.

"hurt expose" : i did not say that. It is just whoelfully less effective in giving indies exposure than the previous model was in my opinion. yeah, every exposure is good, but as an indie i would start to think, maybe pause here, and invest my time for promotion in a different channel, at a different time? if i get only 7k views here, next to other games, maybe finding a hand full of mid sized streamers can be more effective?
As it seems the organizers published every trailer, so not much cost. But at the same times, it is a cost to organize this, and without sponsors its probably to expensive... and if the views are this low, sponsores could jump.

Not only indies: shure. Persona 4 was also not an indie game. But the view counts speak for themselves: hundreds of thousands on old conferences and streams compared to streams that dont even break the 10k mark.

Im not against indie focused events. But for next time, they need to restructure this and focus it more.
Example idea: make it 1 structured event, where the first 2 days you get all the anouncements, maybe let every outlet koordinate one segment, so that nobody feels left out. And if somebody wants to know more about the games, watch interviews, etc, have 3 days of aditional information in longform streams, like the treehouse ones.
This is not the only way, but as it is its broken.

Click to shrink...

You are literally describing what the Escapist did.

Except Sony moved their presentation to the same day, so no one watched it.

 

[Kitsune86]

The most annoying thing for me is the same games showing up multiple times with the same trailers. What's the point of that?

Click to shrink...

Chances are the developers of these games were either submitting their titles manually to multiple shows in the hopes of getting in OR were approached by multiple.

Just like awards considerations, it can be really cutthroat to get your game any kind of visibility and so submitting smaller works to multiple of these is one way of trying to get word of mouth out there.

Our game, That Tiny Spaceship thankfully made it into Indie Expo Live last week and we got about ooooh 15 seconds of on air coverage and a couple news articles. You never know with smaller games how it will be covered if at all and it can take weeks to prep this stuff.

 

[Kingpin Rogers]

PC gaming show was pretty good, I'm going to just assume the people disliking it have bad taste.

 

[Dphex]

They should have done ONE monthly show, trailer after trailer with gameplay snippets like a sizzle reel. how it is done now, it is confusing and frankly just too much.

 

[Aether]

You are literally describing what the Escapist did.

Except Sony moved their presentation to the same day, so no one watched it.

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I watched it, thats when i realized that nobody watched it (hovered around 7-8k, no threads whatsoever till it was over)

And it fellt kinda long? 2 hours, trailer after trailer, a lot of them not really special. Had pacing problems. Still okay.

But take that, consolidate the other ones with their shows, all to the same day, and with that you have a big enough footstep that giants like sony think "maybe its not okay to piss of all our colegues".... and be more present, if everybody advertizes their show, it overwhelms. If everybody advertizes the same, it gets more ingrained.
As it was, PC Games Show, Guerilla thingie, Escapist, summer of games,... its to scattershot.

Amusingly: i waited the whole escapist indie showcase for Solar Ash, to see it at sonys show, unexpected.
Now give me Silksong!

 

[Mentalist]

I watched it, thats when i realized that nobody watched it (hovered around 7-8k, no threads whatsoever till it was over)

And it fellt kinda long? 2 hours, trailer after trailer, a lot of them not really special. Had pacing problems. Still okay.
But take that, consolidate the other ones with their shows, all to the same day, and with that you have a big enough footstep that giants like sony think "maybe its not okay to piss of all our colegues".... and be more present, if everybody advertizes their show, it overwhelms. If everybody advertizes the same, it gets more ingrained.
As it was, PC Games Show, Guerilla thingie, Escapist, summer of games,... its to scattershot.

Amusingly: i waited the whole escapist indie showcase for Solar Ash, to see it at sonys show, unexpected.
Now give me Silksong!

Click to shrink...

We had a thread going during! lol.

And the next 3 days I tuned into the stream/watched replays when they showed the games I was most interested in. A few of the really cool reveal have next to no info, though, so it feels a bit disorganized. But overall, I really liked that format.

with all the other stuff going on, though, YT viewers hovered around 100 people most of the time, though.

 

[Birbos]

Not to mention a ton of repeated games across all events. I guess thats to be expected but some of them were very uninteresting and seeing them over and over made the events even more boring.

 

[Aether]

We had a thread going during! lol.

And the next 3 days I tuned into the stream/watched replays when they showed the games I was most interested in. A few of the really cool reveal have next to no info, though, so it feels a bit disorganized. But overall, I really liked that format.

with all the other stuff going on, though, YT viewers hovered around 100 people most of the time, though.

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Ok, maybe i found the wrong one, the one i found was 4 pages long, probably the anouncement thread.
it did go unter between the "what do you expect sony to show" threads ^^"

Yeah, the format was fine, inspired by nintendo and their treehouse. The problem was not, that the format was bad, the problem was that it was ONE of many to know of/schedule. Not their problem, more a general industry problem, causes because it was all made up in a month, instead of 6 like it is usually done.