Report: Summer Game Fest Trailer Spots Cost Up to $550,000

With Summer Game Fest right around the corner, the dialogue surrounding showrunner Geoff Keighley and his increasingly commercial practices has flared up again. According to a story published this morning, several marketing professionals have revealed that Summer Game Fest trailer spots cost a whopping $250,000 for a single minute of footage.

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This news comes from an article published this morning by Adam Morgan at Esquire. The piece dives into much of the conversation surrounding Summer Game fest and its headman, Geoff Keighley, including topics like his bizarre silence on the state of the video game industry. The most interesting part of the article, however, is about how expensive it is to get your trailer into the Summer Game Fest presentation lineup.

According to “multiple marketing professionals,” in order to get into SGF’s main showcase, it costs $250,000 for a single minute slot, $350,000 for one and a half minutes, $450,000 for two minutes, and a heaping $550,000 for two and a half minutes. Doing some quick math on last year’s Summer Game Fest showcase, that means that with these prices, all of last year’s trailers amounted to a staggering $9.65 million budget.

Now, compared to ad costs for other premium events like the Super Bowl, which very quickly reach the millions, these prices might not seem that high. But for an indie developer, the barrier to entry for a show that could put tens of thousands of eyes on your product is obscenely high. This holds especially true when considering that it costs nothing to put a trailer up on YouTube or another social media site (though, admittedly, without the guaranteed audience numbers).

Several industry professionals also weighed in on Geoff’s choices for the show in the same article. One PR professional who chose to remain anonymous stated the following:

“The current pricing tiers make Summer Game Fest an unattainable goal for most indie developers and publishers. As far as general brand awareness, the impact is pretty huge. The caveat here is that it depends on the placement and trailer length. Longer slots perform better and seem to drive more coverage, whereas short trailers don’t capture quite the same attention.”

Greg Miller, CEO and founder of Kinda Funny and long-time video game journalist, also weighed in on Geoff’s typical program lineup. He stated that, while Geoff does a good job shining a light on indies, he could be doing more. He did concede that at a certain point, criticizing Geoff’s vision for the show might become an imposition of his own vision instead of genuine critique.

Admittedly, it’s hard to know where to come down on this one. On one hand, indies have been the lifeblood of the gaming industry in the last few months, let alone the last few years. Recent incredible releases like Another Crab’s Treasure, Hades 2, Balatro, and Animal Well have proven that there’s still plenty of magic to be found in original, off-the-beaten-path ideas.

On the other hand, however, gamers are hungry, and, oftentimes, ruthless. All it takes is sixty seconds reading the chat of any of Keighley’s live events to see that their standards can be unbelievably high. If Geoff’s not showing off the next Grand Theft Auto, an extremely vocal subset of viewers won’t hesitate to call his shows “overhyped,” “disappointing,” or “lame” (all real comments we found in the live chat recap during a trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth from last year’s showcase). While it’s important to champion indie developers and titles, the audience can be rabid for the biggest, most expensive titles, and settle for absolutely nothing less.

At the end of the day, we hope that Keighley’s been listening to feedback and is prepared to make a great show this year. Summer Game Fest kicks off tomorrow, June 7, at 2pm PDT/5pm EDT/5am HKT.

[Source: Esquire]

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