Summer Game Fest 2024 - All News at a Glance
This year's Summer Game Fest 2024 was a little short on big announcements, but it still managed to showcase a lot of games in less than two hours. At least Geoff Keighley opened with a brief mention of layoffs and studio closures.
Unlike The Game Awards 2023 and Summer Game Fest 2023, Geoff Keighley also briefly addressed the wave of layoffs and studio closures in the industry at the beginning of the show. He said it had "disappointed us all". He went on to say that the industry is going through a period of change and that smaller teams and indie developers are shaking up the market, thanks to digital distribution. Furthermore, he pointed to data from GameDiscover showing that eight of the ten most successful games of the year came from small or indie teams - and only two from established publishers such as Capcom (Dragon's Dogma 2) and Sony Interactive Entertainment (Helldivers 2). These successful games included Enshrouded by Keen Games from Frankfurt, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, Hades 2, Manor Lords, Balastro, Super Market Simulator, Buckshot Roulette and, of course, Palworld. At least he mentioned the situation right at the beginning of the show, before the avalanche of trailers and announcements began. On YouTube, the show was viewed over three million times in just under ten hours. Immediately following the opening show, Day of the Devs and Devolver Direct continued.