My Summer Game Fest Experience
Me at Summer Game Fest Play Days in Los Angeles.
Summer Game Fest is known to many as the two-hour showcase hosted by Geoff Keighley at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles, which provides a glimpse at the biggest and best video games planned for launch in the coming years. But for me, it’s all about the Play Days. The Summer Game Fest showcase airs on Friday. Then on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, games media converges on downtown Los Angeles to get hands-on with many of the games revealed during the showcase.
I’ve been lucky enough to be invited back every summer since my first attendance in 2023. I love this weekend because not only is it an opportunity to sit with the people who make video games and play their unreleased titles, but I also get to hang out with other people who do the work that I do. Gamepressure, the site I write for, is based in Poland. I am the only one based in the US. For the last two years, someone from Poland has joined me at Summer Game Fest. But this year, I was on my own. It was great to see old friends, make new ones, and feel like I’m not so lonely in this industry.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you might also be aware of the tense situation in Los Angeles during the same weekend. From my perspective, had I not been paying attention to social media and the news, I could have missed it. Throughout the weekend, I often walked through downtown LA to get to the Play Days campus. I lived there for a year back in 2020, so I at least know my way around somewhat. However, I never saw anything that suggested the city was in disarray.
One day, at the event, smoke rose over the distant skyline. I learned later from social media that this must have been when the Waymos were burned. There was a palpable tension in the air throughout the weekend, but during my stay, Los Angeles seemed to be operating as usual.
However, it does evoke some unusual emotions. Why am I sitting here writing about video games when this is happening only a few miles away? This is the usual self-depracating line I feed myself about working in video games media. Do video games really matter? Is this just silly? Something for kids?
Then I sit down with Chandana Ekanayake, the Co-Founder and Creative Director at Outerloop Games, who is working on Dosa Divas, a game about fighting corporate power and reconnecting communities through a love of good food. I sit next to Johnny Galvatron, the Creative Director at Beethoven & Dinosaur, who is working on Mixtape, a road trip down memory lane that gives me a new appreciation for the kinds of stories video games can tell.
I look back at the other great games I’ve played so far just this year. To A T, a game about a kid with a disability learning to live a happy and fulfilled life. Spilled!, a game about cleaning up oil spills and returning the world’s waterways to a healthy state.
Video games are f***in' rad. They are an evolving medium that can tap into experiences no other format can replicate. I’m honored and privileged to be one of the people who can amplify these stories and voices.
I also want to shout out an incredible writer, Janet Garcia, who shared their perspective on attending Summer Game Fest through an article on their site, Pen to Pixels: The Inescapable Intersection of SGF and ICE Protests.
If you read anything else today, make it that.
Los Angeles is a beautiful city. Abolish ICE. Go to a protest near you.