User:Masem/drafts/Summer Game Fest

Summer Game Fest is a months-long event running from May to August 2020 in the video game industry arranged by Geoff Keighley to serve as a replacement to the cancellation and disruption of normal game events and trade shows as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event consisted of various online presentations to announce new games from developers, publishers, and hardware vendors, digital storefront sales and game demo offerings, and other similar events.

Background
Normally, the video game industry has a number of annual events that are used by developers and publishers to announce new games and other products expected to launch soon as part of the typical business cycle. Such shows include the trade shows E3 and Gamescom. Around March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the globe and cause most countries to issue stay-at-home orders for non-essential workers, many of these events in the video game industry were also cancelled.

Geoff Keighley, a video game journalist, had previously run an event called "E3 Coliseum" at the past E3 events, where he would interview game developers on a live-stream alongside the main E3 event for viewers that could not attend. Keighley had already announced his intentions not to participate at the planned E3 2020 event in February 2020 due to the shifting nature of the event's format.