The Steam Games Festival returns tomorrow with demos for over 40 games!

One of the more important annual events for our industry that has been cancelled due to the coronavirus was undoubtedly the Game Developer’s Conference, a place where big and small developers alike could gather and discuss their video games, market themselves and maybe learn a thing or two from industry veterans. It’s a huge event for anyone interesting in designing and building video games and the fact that it was postponed indefinitely was surely a hit for all of the attendees, many of whom were likely small indie devs looking to pitch their games to publishers. The marketing potential one can receive from just attending GDC is tremendous, so in lieu of actually showing their games off, developers will have to settle for the return of the Steam Games Festival which might actually be better for them in the long run…

First hosted in December of 2019, the Steam Games Festival is designed to highlight and show off games that will be releasing in the near future by making demos available for everyone to try. While last year’s festival, which coincided with Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards, was limited to a handful of games, tomorrow’s event will be much larger. The Spring Edition will be offering “attendees” demos for over 40 different games which is some wonderful advertising for anyone with a game worth displaying. In the long run it might actually be more beneficial to developers than GDC. Sure, there still won’t be any opportunities to mingle and make contacts but studios will be able to get their games into the hands of players around the world rather than just confined to a single convention centre.

The Spring Steam Festival will also continue longer than the previous event, kicking off on March 18 (later today) and ending on March 23. In comparison to the first Steam Festival’s measly 48 hours, that’s a lot of extra time to play some demos. Good thing too, for who among us is able to play 40 games in just two days. Certainly not I, Sir. Certainly not I.

Last Updated: March 18, 2020