Summer Game Fest was full of exciting world premieres, but its most important reveal was teasing the future of video games.
When Geoff Keighley takes the stage at an event like The Game Awards, he doesn’t tend to talk about current events. That’s been a point of frustration for some people over the years who have voiced criticism over how the gaming figurehead uses (or misuses) his platform. As Keighley walked on the stage at this year’s Summer Game Fest, expectations that he’d acknowledge the current layoff crisis in the video game industry were low. Then Keighley delivered the show’s biggest surprise in its first minute.
“This has been a tumultuous and difficult year with company layoffs and studio closures which have disappointed all of us. But there’s also something else happening,” Keighley said to open the show before flipping to a slide showing the top 10 bestselling new games on Steam so far in 2024. The list wasn’t filled with blockbusters; it was topped by surprise success stories like Palworld, Balatro, and Manor Lords.
“Our industry is evolving and changing. And thanks to digital distribution, smaller teams and new creators are finding incredible success … Two of them are considered big company games, but the other eight come from indie, midsized teams, or indie developers. I look at this list and I get inspired that new ideas, new teams, and smaller creators can and will break through. It’s a reminder to big companies that they have to treat their developers right, because today there are many paths to sustainability and success. And that’s what makes this industry so, so great.”
It was a big moment for Keighley, which saw him directly addressing his critics and accepting the responsibilities that come with a high-visibility platform like his. But that moment wasn’t just about Keighley; it set an important narrative about where the video game industry is headed that was threaded throughout the showcase. By the end of the event, the message was clear: Indies are the next frontier for big publishers hunting for a more sustainable future.Going independent
It’s no secret that the video game industry has been in a freefall. We’ve seen over 10,000 workers laid off already in 2024 across publishers big and small. Xbox has laid off thousands on its own, even shuttering beloved studios like Tango Gameworks entirely. Polygon reports that 2024 has already seen more layoffs across gaming than all of 2023 combined — and its only June. It’s a dire situation, and one that underlines a need for change. Ballooning budgets, eight-year development cycles, and enormous “megagames” are no longer sustainable strategies.
