This year's The Game Awards Festival is carrying on last year's trend of giving players around the world the opportunity to enjoy playable first-look demos. Show organizer and host Geoff Keighley worked with several developers and publishers last year to provide players with a total of 12 free demos, each of which was made available on PC via Steam for a window of 48 hours.
When Keighley debuted the Festival during 2019's festivities, he explained the idea grew out of an effort to mimic an experience similar to that of a trade show like E3. In a statement at the time, he noted The Game Festival was designed to extend "the benefits of a physical event to the global gaming community that watches The Game Awards." Ultimately, the Festival proved a success, with players around the globe getting to try out titles such as System Shock, Röki, Eastward, Skatebird, and Spiritfarer.
The Game Awards' December 10th air date is right around the corner, more news regarding these matters and others should surface in the coming days.
As Keighley's above announcement notes, The Game Festival debuted ahead of the global pandemic. Given this year's events, the offer of free demos during a celebration of games that can now only take place online is perfectly apropos. Hopefully, that means the playable demos won't be exclusive to Steam this time around, allowing other platforms to take an equal part in the forthcoming celebration.
Steam-exclusive demos or not, there are still plenty of ways for fans the world over to take part in The Game Awards 2020. First and foremost, fan voting is open across a wide variety of categories. Voting just opened for the Player's Voice category, as well. Player's Voice features a list of 30 games, out of which fans must pick their favorite 10. Come Friday, the list will be whittled down to 20, opening the door for players to take part in the second round of voting.
The Game Awards are scheduled to air next week on Thursday, December 10th at 7:00 pm EST.
Source: Geoff Keighley/Twitter
