The Games for Change Festival is going on the road in 2027.
During her closing remarks on day two of Games for Change’s annual conference yesterday, July 22, Games for Change president Susanna Pollack announced that her nonprofit would be hosting its next annual festival in Arizona between October 11-13, 2027, in partnership with Arizona State University. Moving forward, Games for Change plans to host its festival in a new city during every odd-numbered year, with the event returning to its original home in New York City during even-numbered years.
Games for Change Festival’s updated plans for next year include a return to a three-day schedule after reducing the event’s agenda to two days between 2024 and 2026. This expansion reflects growth in the festival’s in-person attendance, which increased from roughly 800 in-person attendees last year to about 1,000 in 2026, according to numbers shared by a Games for Change representative.
“Bringing the Festival to Arizona State University is about widening the room, so more of the creators, developers, educators, and researchers doing this work can be part of it,” Pollack said in an emailed statement.
The 2026 edition of the Games for Change Festival also featured an expanded roster of speakers — including yours truly, who moderated a day one session about building emotionally resonant games — with 90 sessions and a total of 185 speakers, an increase from last year’s 78 sessions and 165 speakers. Speakers at the festival included dozens of developers, educators, researchers, and executives working across the gaming and media space. It was the first Games for Change Festival to take place in New York City’s Glasshouse venue, after four years of the nonprofit hosting its annual conference at New York’s Parsons School of Design.
“We came into this week asking what it means to reimagine play, and the answer kept coming back to community,” Pollack said. “The strongest work here came from people who found each other across organizations and countries and decided to build something together, and that’s the thread we’re pulling into 2027.”
Games for Change’s collaboration with Arizona State University to host the Games for Change Festival is part of a broader partnership between the two organizations. Moving forward, ASU’s Endless Games and Learning Lab will provide Games for Change program participants with learning tools, and Games for Change will have access to ASU’s curriculum of game design courses designed for inclusivity by both students and educators. Games for Change and ASU will also collaborate on joint research projects across topics like the role of AI in learning, the design of healthy gaming ecosystems, and the role of games and play in professional training.
“This partnership recognizes the power of microcredentials in building competency-based learning paths that are flexible, meaningful and future-facing,” said ASU Endless Games and Learning Lab founding director Mark Ollila in a press release. “Our lab focuses on ‘make to learn, play to learn and learn to earn’ — using games not just as content, but as a mechanism for skills development, exploration and economic opportunity.”