How (and when) do you like your gaming news delivered?

Summer Game Fest 2022 kicked off last week, and while still there’s more to come, the major shows have already aired and given us many games to add to our wishlist. Devolver Digital blessed us with their annual NSFW insanity, and perhaps in anticipation of next year’s proposed purchase of Activision Blizzard we received Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 news at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase.

While I am always a big fan of major gaming announcements, I have to admit that it’s starting to be a little too much in too short a time — I’ve been so busy watching the presentations this weekend that I haven’t had time to play some demos like I wanted to. Somewhere around the start of hour 2 of the PC Gaming Show I checked out mentally, and I still haven’t caught up on the ones I missed while traveling last week. Seriously, there’s a game out there somewhere called Lumbearjack and I haven’t even had a chance to watch the trailer for it.

Which makes me wonder: Is there a better way to do this? Both SGF and E3 (which didn’t even try to stage a show this year) will be hosting live events next year meaning we shouldn’t expect this annual June deluge of gaming news to go away any time soon. At the same time, I feel like something has to give here — either for those putting on these conventions or those watching. There’s a point where companies will find there’s too much noise to get their games proper coverage, and they’ll either stop showing up at these events or be content to schedule their major reveals for another time.

If I had a nickel for every bear-starring game I’m getting this summer I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

Of course, the intelligent thing for the industry to do would be to stagger these announcements. Nintendo already does this with their Directs that focus on one different topics (such as the Mario franchise or on indie games), and while Sony’s “State of Play” aren’t as frequent, they at least get their own window of exposure. No one wants gaming events to go away entirely, but the industry can do better than to show everything off in the middle of June each year.

Here’s what I would do: Keep SGF as the major news expo in June, then have two other shows in the early fall and late winter. A September show can highlight all the games coming out in time for the holidays — and only those games — while the late-winter show would be about what’s planned for that year and only that year. It feels like it’d be more manageable that way, and gaming companies would be happier too.

What do you think? Are you happy with being drowned by news and games once a year, or would you prefer a little bit more spacing? Or would you like the industry to adopt a model closer to Nintendo Direct with more frequent and smaller shows? And have you started counting down to gamescom 2022 now that SGF only has a couple more shows scheduled?