The Game Developers Conference will make a big change to its 2026 event, positioning it as a low-cost GDC Festival of Games instead of its usual event.
In 2025, Informa said the conference drew close to 30,000 people. But many were skeptical of that number and believed the conference and its expo were pretty sparsely attended, with many people dropping out of the five-day event by Friday.
That was perhaps a consequence of three years of layoffs in the game industry, but also because GDC had too many problems stacked. It takes place in San Francisco, which has taken criticism for being a ghost town since the pandemic, with a high number of homeless people in the event area. It has also become more difficult for overseas attendees to come to GDC due to perceptions of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration and anti-foreigner policies. GDC teased the change in a tweet.
Add to that the historically high cost of GDC and staying in San Francisco area hotels, which raise rates during that week. The deck, of course, doesn’t mention any of these blunt (and perhaps unfair) criticisms that have been leveled at GDC and the city. But it does offer changes.
But GDC has circulated a new deck with a new name, GDC: Festival of Gaming. The deck describes “A New Era. From conference to industry game changer.”
We asked Informa for comment but it looks like official isn’t coming for some weeks yet.
Meanwhile, the deck asks, “Why now? The industry is changing and so are we. The landscape has transformed. Budgets are tighter. Attention is fractured. Discover is harder than ever. New tech and tools have redefined who can create. Our community needs more connection, visibility and support. The Festival of Gaming exists to meet your needs — bringing the entire industry together at a moment that matters.”
The deck goes on how it’s time for action, real feedback, real needs, deeper connection, not just content, networking and dealmaking being critical, and a space where the full B2B games ecosystem connections with more opportunity and relevance.
The Festival of Gaming will be a games industry hub that extends outside the walls of the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.
The deck noted that every shipped game is a miracle.
“At GDC, we believe in miracles. The GDC Festival of Gaming is where the entire games industry comes together to learn, connect, collaborate and celebrate. If you make games happen, welcome home,” the deck said. The event will be backed by research, shaped by feedback and informed by real challenges across every discipline. It will be designed to reflect how games are really made today.
The idea is to have the full game-making journey in one place, from ideation and ptototyping all the way to game launch, monetization and player engagement. It will focus on “every contributor who makes it happen, including developers, publishers, platforms, investors, toolmakers, marketers, educators, content creators, and more.”
The event will have visionary keynotes from executives, founders and decision makers. It will have tactical workshops for teams and hands-on practitioners, forums and roundtables for peer-to-peer insight and debate, show floor demos and microtalks for tool vendors, startups and tech leaders. And it will have summits for community leaders, educators and emerging voices.
Leading all of this will be a Festival Pass, which replaces GDC’s All Access past at a “dramatically lower price.” Startup and academic discounts will provide equitable access to the full experience, with no more conference vs. expo or summits vs. core separations.
The event will play out across five days with community and cohort programming at the start; executive summit, cross-disciplinary content, business meetings and festival hall in mid-week; and academic and career development. The Festival Hall “neighborhoods” include future tech, game development, indie and education, international, and monetization and player engagement.
It could feature things like a Monday night opening party, going beyond the Moscone walls. It could have a Tuesday night developer’s concert; Wednesday and Thursday night awards; offsite meeting suites; curated meetings and matchmaking; and networking lunches and dinners.
It calls on others to lead the change together, and a call for partnerships.
“The Games World Is Changing. It’s Disrupted. And we’re listening to our customers,” the deck said. “Informa, the largest global event producer in the world, has made this decision to invest in you because you come first, and you belong at GDC.”