Summer Game Fest hampers E3 return, Ubisoft, Devolver and more to join SGF

While Ubisoft had planned to be part of E3 2023, the publisher announced this week that it will no longer be attending the event or hosting a presentation at E3. Instead, the company will host its own Ubisoft Forward event, in partnership with Geoff Keighley's newly-formed E3 rival, Summer Game Fest. 

Summer Game Fest began a couple of years ago as a digital-only event to replace E3, which had been cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. In 2022, Summer Game Fest transformed into a series of physical and digital events, with publishers that would typically attend E3 now participating in Keighley's alternative.

With Ubisoft now confirming plans to announce new games this summer as part of Summer Game Fest, it seems likely that other publishers will do the same. In this scenario, rather than shelling out for booth space and other expenses related to E3, publishers can host their own digital events ‘partnered' with Summer Game Fest, and smaller developers or publishers can submit new trailers to be announced at a Keighley-hosted stream instead.

There are reports that publishers like SEGA are also pulling out of E3 this year, making it likely that the event gets cancelled again for the fourth year in a row. If that happens, we're unlikely to see E3 ever return.

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KitGuru Says: At the rate things are going, E3 is never going to get the comeback we've been hoping for and it would seem that Keighley is working to ensure his new event, Summer Games Fest, ends up being the de-facto replacement for E3. 

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