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Who Needs E3? IGN Live and Summer Game Fest Delivered the Goods

In this episode of the Pop-Off, we discuss 2024’s biggest gaming shows.

 & Jordan Minor Principal Writer, Software

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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E3 may be dead, but that doesn’t mean this summer didn’t have plenty of huge gaming news and reveals. We live in a new age where multiple annual shows now drop big announcements, collectively filling the E3-shaped hole in our hearts. With this episode of The Pop-Off, PCMag’s video game show, we discuss 2024's exciting summer gaming showcases.

Without a single event to revolve around, the showcases are spread across more days than E3. This year’s season started in May with the tepid PlayStation State of Play, and ended with the most recent Nintendo Direct (which occurred after we filmed this video).

Other showcases were tightly packed into the early June period that E3 used to call home. In this episode, our panel dissects IGN Live, Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest, Xbox’s showcase, Ubisoft’s presentation, and more. 

Does Horizon look better as Lego blocks? Will Doom: The Dark Ages be a 2025 bright spot? How cool is Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows? Should you check out IGN Live’s fan event? Is Civilization VII our next obsession? Listen to our takes on all these questions and more.

Nothing beats actually playing a video game, but the recent summer video game showcases gave us tantalizing glimpses into the future of our favorite hobby. The events also let us analyze fascinating trends, marvel at mind-blowing surprises, and watch awesome trailers. E3 may be dead, but its spirit lives on.


Disclosure: IGN is owned by PCMag's parent company Ziff Davis.

About Our Expert

Jordan Minor

Jordan Minor

Principal Writer, Software

My PCMag career began in 2013 as an intern. Now, I'm a senior writer, using the skills I acquired at Northwestern University to write about dating apps, meal kits, programming software, website builders, video streaming services, and video games. I was previously a senior editor at Geek.com and have written for The A.V. Club, Kotaku, and Paste Magazine. I'm the author of the gaming history book Video Game of the Year: A Year-by-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977, and the reason everything you know about Street Sharks is a lie.

The Technology I Use

I use the newest Android and iOS smartphones for testing, but I currently use an iPhone 14 as my personal phone. I just hate that we gave up headphone jacks.

I've always favored gaming laptops over desktops. On that note, I have a 16-inch HP Envy with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. No matter what machine I’m working on, an alarming amount of my personal and professional life revolves around cloud-synced Google Drive files.

For food subscriptions, my household sticks with CookUnity and HelloFresh for meals. Video streaming is a bit more complicated. While there are too many services to list, we're subscribed to most of the major ones. These days, I find myself drawn to HBO Max's movies and shows, as well as Peacock's reality trash.

I've been a lifelong Nintendo fan, and I sincerely believe the Nintendo Switch will go down as one of the best gaming consoles of all time. It has an unbelievable library of new and old games from Nintendo and third-party companies. The handheld/console hybrid approach makes playing games so much more flexible, a legacy that continues with the Nintendo Switch 2 and Valve’s Steam Deck.

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