The Game Awards 2019is just a day away from its Thursday, December 12 air date and this year’s show looks as big as ever. Always interested in expandingThe Game Awardsin new and exciting ways, Geoff Keighley has plans to make this year’s show unique in a very interesting way. Keighley has now announced what he’s calling The Game Festival, a 48-hour “digital consumer event” that will begin the day of The Game Awards 2019.
The Game Festival is a way to bring actual games into the celebration that is The Game Awards 2019. Keighley and The Game Awards crew isn’t going to settle for just havingteasers, trailers, and announcementsat the show, but wants to escalate it to include offering actual game demos for viewers at home to play. As such, The Game Awards has partnered with Steam and over a dozen developers to create The Game Festival. The Game Festival is a limited-time event during which fans can play demos of over a dozen games.
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For The Game Festival’s first outing, it’s collected over a dozen demos for a ton of highly anticipated indie games, likeSystem ShockandEastward. Perhaps the cutoff was too soon for bigger games, but perhaps if this year’s The Game Festival does well more titles will join for 2020. It’s also important to note that the current list might be expanded on. These are the games that are confirmed, but perhaps more will be able to prep a demo before Thursday night, too.
CARRION (Phobia/Devolver)
SkateBIRD (Glass Bottom Games)
Starting on Thursday, December 12, at 10:00 am PT and lasting for 48 hours, demos for all of the announced games will be available to play. The demos might be 5 minutes or 50 minutes; there are no established guidelines or requirements. After the 48 hours are over, all of the demos will be removed fromSteam. The announcement implies that the demos will all become unplayable, as well, though it’s unclear how this would be achieved if the demos have already been downloaded.
Geoff Keighleyis firmly behind the expansion of The Game Awards into a bigger idea, with The Game Festival being the fruit of that goal. “Now feels like the right time to take the next step,” says Keighley, adding, “The Game Festival is designed from the ground up as an event without barriers, extending the benefits of a physical event to the global gaming community.” The Game Festival 2019 is this idea’s “pilot program” so to speak, but it’s already clear big things are in store for The Game Festival going forward.
The Game Awards 2019airs Thursday, December 12, at 6:30 pm PT.
