Geoff Keighley Summer Game Fest
Image: Push Square

Geoff Keighley is perhaps best known as the face of The Game Awards, but he's been hosting the Summer Game Fest showcase for the past few years (in addition to becoming the subject of some of our most transcendent art work).

With this year's show only a few days away, taking place on 8th June, Keighley has commented on the death of E3 and the persistent, pernicious perception that he himself pulled the trigger (repeatedly).

In an interview with VGC, Keighley minced no words, addressing the situation head-on: "I think E3 sort of killed itself in a way. I understand why people say [Summer Game Fest killed E3], but I think if anything, we created Summer Game Fest, and I built Summer Game Fest because I saw the wheels falling off the wagon of E3."

Keighley's history is inexorably linked to E3's own, making the slow-motion murder feel almost poetic in a Shakespearean sense.

Elaborating, Keighley explained that there could have been a reality in which both could have existed, stating: "Everyone we’ve been working with, we’ve been working with for months around Summer Game Fest. So there was a world where Summer Game Fest and E3 would have co-existed, and we had talked a lot to ReedPop [E3 event organiser] about that possibility because they were focused much more on a big trade event and consumer event, and that’s not what we were doing with Summer Game Fest."

On the matter of whether E3 could have ended up competing with Summer Game Fest for game announcements, Keighley says (in part): "I didn’t really see it as competitive – I questioned the viability of what their plan was, but if the industry wanted that and wanted to support that, I think people could have done both. There were some companies toying with the idea of announcing their game with us and then having it consumer-playable at E3."

What do you think of Keighley's role in all of this? Right place, at the right time, or Machiavellian mastermind? Commit the perfect crime in the comments section below.

[source videogameschronicle.com]