Game Developers Conference: This time, it’s for Gamers. It appears this year, after nearly a half-decade of industry layoffs, studio closures, and increased travel risk for foreigners, gdc’s primary sponsor for 2026, Informa, is pushing to open the event up to a more general audience of gamers.
the writing was definitely on the wall for a while that this event was just not going to fill seats any more. gdc has usually been able to get away with the exorbitant pricing because they were selling passes largely to folks from studios who could afford to send out their teams and write it off as a business expense. with those guests backing out it seems that the event will have to expand towards a consumer audience as well. my only read so far is that they are expanding for events outside of the main expo hall, and introducing some single-pass situation. there will probably still be paid elements on top of that as ‘addons’ or something, if you want to get access to the talks or other summits going on
for indies its always kind of been a semi-inaccessible event, there is usually <1 actual expo ticket per indie dev actually in attendance - a large majority just hang out around the Yerba Buena park outside and go to afterparties that dont require badges. there are a couple of actual expo elements that are noteworthy, mainly the IGF awards, the recently-rebooted experimental games workshop talk, and certain showfloor areas like the ctrl-alt-gdc section.
it’s hosted in SF every year, because that’s where it’s investors are, and there’s probably no changing that. indies always campaign to move it elsewhere, if not for the travel situation in the states, then for the cost of travel and lodge for the area. nobody really has the resources to arrange for an alternative, or have gotten enough cultural influence gathered together to decide to co-opt some other event in the states as the indie gathering point, so Yerba Buena remains
thats what i make of gdc! itll be an interesting one this year. still kind of wondering if its worth it because:
a- never have actually been, and if i figure out domestic flight i could probably go
b- seems like a glorious trainwreck moment for the event
c- what if this is the last one
i have so little to show these days but maybe it would be nice to walk around handing out cards that say ‘forums are the only good type of website’
anyways, lets watch the news as it rolls in i guess!