Valve brings back Steam Game Festival in June to fill the E3 gap

Valve Software is once again planning to use its massive Steam platform to help developers and publishers show off their games. The company announced The Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition today. This event is returning June 9, which is the original start date for E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). But E3 organizers cancelled this year’s gathering in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic. But Valve is keeping its digital showcase for upcoming game releases.

The Steam Game Festival will run June 9 through June 14. The event will give players a chance to get a closer look at games coming up over the next year or so. Valve says that players can try out the games and then add them to their wishlist.

This should help gamers better understand what to get excited about, and it will give publishers an important opportunity to build buzz.

Like with the previous Steam Game Festival, Valve is partnering with The Game Awards producer Geoff Keighley. Valve and Keighley are inviting developers to register to participate through Steam right now. Just go to the Steam Game Festival’s marketing page.

Keighley is also teasing that he has more events planned for the summer E3 window.

“Much more news will be coming soon about my plans for the summer,” Keighley tweeted today. “[Which includes] an entirely new way for us all to gather and celebrate in these uncertain times.”

Keighley and Valve are only a small part of the plan to replace E3 with digital events. IGN announced its Summer of Gaming event on April 3. That will gather together 2K, Square Enix, Sega, and more for a series of digital reveal events.