Valve pushes back summer Steam Game Festival by one week

By Aaron Mamiit Published April 25, 2023

The Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition, which was originally set to run from June 9 to June 14, has been delayed by one week, with Valve reportedly not keeping in touch with publishers and developers regarding the date change.

Recommended Videos

The summer Steam Game Festival will feature titles that are expected to launch over the next year, with free, limited-time playable demos and interactions with their developers. The event is part of the Summer Game Fest, a four-month digital gaming festival that was organized by The Game Awards founder and showrunner Geoff Keighley.

Valve did not provide an explanation for the delay of the showcase, and Digital Trends has reached out to the company for clarification. However, it is widely believed that the postponement was due to the social unrest in the United States in the wake of the tragic death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.

The one-week delay of the summer Steam Game Festival follows similar moves from other companies in the video game industry, including Electronic Arts’ postponement of its EA Play Live, Blizzard’s shelving of its World of Warcraft: Shadowlands showcase, and Sony’s decision to push back a PlayStation 5 event, among others. However, unlike other video game companies, Valve has not yet made a statement on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Valve reportedly kept developers, publishers in the dark

Valve, however, led developers and publishers involved with Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition to believe that the event would happen on its original date, right up until the announcement of the postponement, GamesIndustry.biz reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Sources told GamesIndustry.biz that several publishers were planning to release demos at the PC Gaming Show and the Future Games Showcase, which were both delayed to June 13. This resulted in concerns over the choice to include a demo in the Steam Game Festival, or to reveal new games at one of the two showcases.

Former Contributor

Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…

Topics

Gaming

You can now buy a refurbished Steam Deck straight from Valve — if it’s in stock

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth running on the Steam Deck.

Have you wanted to buy a Steam Deck, but aren't sure about the price? The $399 LCD model is the least expensive, but it's worth a little extra for the Steam Deck OLED, which offers double or even quadruple the onboard memory. Good news: You can now buy a refurbished Steam Deck directly from Valve. Fair warning: These are selling like hotcakes on the coldest day of the year. At the time of writing, you could pick up a 512GB Steam Deck OLED for just $439, or a 1TB version for $519.

So what does refurbished mean, exactly? According to Steam, the units are put through all the same tests as brand-new retail units, and each Steam Deck receives a factory reset, software update, and thorough examination. All of the different systems are checked and tested, including the battery.

Gaming

Valve’s Fremont could be the successor to the Steam Machine

Valve Steam Machine Controller hands on in use

When the original Steam Machine was announced in 2015, it promised a massive change from traditional gaming experiences. The console-slash-PC gained a lot of attention, but a variety of factors stopped it from being a success. Poor performance sent many players back to standard PC gaming, while the high price meant Valve sold less than 500,000 units. Despite its failure, though, the Steam Machine had a lot of fans — many of whom have waited years for a follow-up. And now it might actually be on the way.

A Reddit user named u/coolbho3k spotted a reference to the Fremont project in the Steam Deck kernel. The code doesn't make it clear exactly what sort of device Fremont will be, but it references a platform called AMD Lilac. Users have also found references to the same platform on Geekbench, where it scores significantly higher than the Steam Deck. Were it another handheld, this platform would leave the Steam Deck in its wake — and that makes it all the more likely to be a TV box or set-top box of sorts, according to Tom's Hardware.

Gaming

The best fighting game on Switch gets a Cyber Week price cut

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate doesn't need an introduction for most gamers. The series began as a casual fighting party game with the first installment back in 1999 on the N64, but evolved into a full-fledged competitive fighter over the years with nearly 100 playable characters (including DLC content) and even more stages to battle it out with friends.

Whether you're looking to dive into the Smash Bros. world for the first time with the purchase of a new Nintendo Switch this holiday season or are just on the hunt for deals on the classics, the Cyber Week discount on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is definitely worth checking out. You can grab one of the best Switch games out there at Amazon right now for just $50 (a cool 16% discount off the normal price). Seasoned Switch owners will know that discounts on first-party Switch games are few and far between, so this is definitely a deal you'll want to take advantage of — chances are you won't see this game at a better price for quite a while.