Gamescom Dev’s first year under its new name is paying off in attendance numbers.
The annual game developer conference wrapped its 2026 edition with more than 6,200 registered participants, a 15% jump from last year, organizer Game Events GmbH announced in a press release today, Aug. 27.
Gamescom Dev, which ran Aug. 23-25 in Cologne as the official opening to Gamescom Business Week, drew industry professionals from 95 countries and more than 2,500 companies, alongside 57 partners and exhibitors across the conference and its indie expo. The event’s program featured 397 speakers across 238 sessions spread over 18 stages, covering development, production, design, technology, leadership, and business topics.
“This combination of strong content, critical discourse and business opportunities upstream of Gamescom is what defines Gamescom Dev as a conference,” said Frederik Hammes, managing director of Game Events GmbH, in the release, crediting the event’s tighter integration with Gamescom overall for the growth.
During Gamescom Dev, the event’s opening keynote speaker Amir Satvat addressed the state of the industry following several years of layoffs and restructuring, while Unknown Worlds creative director Anthony Gallegos walked through the development challenges behind Subnautica 2. The event’s best-attended regular session, according to its organizers, was a talk on generative AI’s use across the industry, presented by Amara Eden Doshi and Ena So, which the organizers described as offering a balanced look at both the new technology’s potential and its limits.
The AI session’s popularity tracked with the results of Gamescom Dev’s annual speaker survey, which polled 100 speakers ahead of the conference. Nearly half, 47%, named AI-assisted development as the industry shift likely to have the biggest impact over the next three years. Leadership also ranked highly as a concern, with 27% of speakers naming it the most sought-after skill in game development going forward, ahead of both technical programming and AI literacy.
Beyond the main stages of Gamescom Dev, the conference ran a leadership summit, a legal summit, and a “Community Clubhouse” track alongside networking mixers and dinners spanning its two main days. Six winners were named across Gamescom Dev’s indie development and Speakers’ Choice awards, including Blue Prince for Game Design Excellence and Satvat, who also received the event’s Ambassador Award. A scholarship program backed by 26 partners brought 120 participants to this year’s event.
Gamescom Dev is organized by Game Events GmbH, a subsidiary of the German Games Industry Association, and bills itself as Europe’s leading game developer event. Its next scheduled gathering is a leadership summit in Lisbon from March 23-25, 2027, ahead of Gamescom Dev’s return to Cologne on Aug. 23-24, 2027.
Gamescom itself continues through Aug. 30 in Cologne, with this year’s edition also including Gamescom Latam in São Paulo and Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show in Bangkok as part of the broader Gamescom brand’s international expansion.