Summer Game Fest

Posting this in the general chat instead of pinned thread. Anyone excited for Summer Game Fest and more specifically the return of GB@Nite? I did not know this was coming back until I listened to the latest Bombcast. Hopefully I heard that right, if so should be a fun time?

As has been the case for the last couple of years, my personal excitement for E3 shows is pretty much exclusively in the Wholesome show. But even if I don't have much interest in any of the other shows, watching along with people is always a fun time.

i think i heard that MinnMax is going to show up in some capacity on the GB couch, so that's exciting. Leo Vader and Sarah Podz have pretty good chaos energy, so it could be fun to see them with this group of hooligans.

I'm on the east coast and I remembered catching the streams and staying up until 3 AM night after night to watch and laugh

I know I should temper my excitement for SGF since it’s just a bunch of commercials, but it should produce at least a few things to get really excited about. I’m a lot more excited about the return of The Couch and the prospect of seeing some silly-ass in-person events.

As far as guest speculation goes, do we think Phil Spencer would stoop so low as to interview with #1 Jim Ryan fan Jeff Grubb?

I can't fathom a GB Night show without Jeff Gerstmann pulling the strings and asking the right questions. At best, Dan will say something dumb to someone that sparks chaos.

didn't know they were doing the 'e3' couch since i'm about 3 months behind on stuff around here , but listening to some waypoint/remap stuff i heard patrick was gonna be on the couch the last night of it so i guess its time i coaught up n tuned in , but yeah its weird to think of the night show without jeff G , still i'm sure it'll be good in a different way

@shindig: It is an interesting state of affairs now that Jeff G got ousted. I think most would agree he was the “front man” of GB, given he was EIC and generally hosted E3 Night shows and panels after Ryan passed away.

Curious if one person will host/lead all the interviews or if they’ll trade off. Have they said? I assume Jan is doing video production, so between the remaining options:

-Bakalar has been around the block, and is some kind of GB general manager (is GB the kind of website that even has an EIC anymore?), so I think he could speak for the site on a wide range of people and topics

-Grubb similarly has a wide array of knowledge and experience covering game news for years, though I don’t know enough about his history to know how much he has led live interviews in this style

-Dan is an in-play racquetball, but sure, he can interview people I guess

-Tam and Lucy are “technically sorta” GB staff but I assume they will not appear more than once due to involvement in Gamespot coverage

I am pretty excited for this to return. Sure, obviously it won't be the same with Gerstmann, but I think he could be there "in spirit" since so many people clearly inspired by him work for this company still (Tam, Grubb, Dan). I hope Tam is given some time to interview people on the couch, especially. I think he's really come into his own since being given a larger role at GameSpot.

I also hope we see some people from Kinda Funny (Andy, Mike, Janet, Blessing), some Fanbyte Alums (Imran, Niki) and some other Remap folks besides Patrick. Obviously any ex-GB employees would be great as well.

All in all, it seems like they've got quite a bit of people strolling through so it should be a good time no matter what.

@shindig said:

Jeff was always good at balancing the madness of the GB crew with asking actually good and pressing questions, which I will definitely miss.. but I also love to see the effects of Dan unleashed.

Also, Summer Game Fest still sounds like a placeholder name.

@shindig: I agree that Summer Game Fest is a really bad name.

Not just boring and generic, like “The Game Awards.” I mean it’s like actively bad, like a name for a fake video game convention on Law & Order.

Could be wrong but I got the idea Grubb will be doing the "couch hosting".

I could not be more excited for the return of @Nite. No it’s not Jeff Ge the master MC but we can already get our fair share of the man.

Absolutely incredible day 1 last night. Each couch was excellent and felt like they had a great rapport. Good balance of fun and good questions. Curious to see who comes on tonight, since I got my wish of Janet, Blessing, Andy & Mike. Mike was especially a standout on the final couch and I really hope to see more KF/GB crossovers.

The first night of the GB E3@nite thingy was really good! I'm looking forward to more.

The SGF presentation itself was pretty bad though. I think Alex Navarro's description that it had the same energy as a timeshare presentation is pretty accurate. It didn't help that they followed it up with the Double Fine indie presentation which not only had much more interesting games but also was way better to watch.

Keighley's on-stage interviews were just awkward to watch this time around. They seem both too structured but not rehearsed at all so there's weird pauses and visible discomfort from those being interviewed at times.

@ben_h: yeah, the format of SGF is weird because so much of it feels like fake enthusiasm sold to the highest bidder. I don't doubt that Geoff Keighley does really get excited about Video Games, but he seemed more excited that these games were on his show as opposed to Day of the Devs that seemed genuine in their happiness to be able to provide a platform to the upcoming games they showed.