🍪 GDC Got Smaller… And Now Everyone’s Asking Why

Hello there, dealmakers, builders, and industry watchers trying to make sense of this year’s GDC.

The GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 felt different right away. There was more space in the halls, conversations didn’t feel rushed, and moving between meetings was noticeably easier.

It mostly comes down to one thing: fewer people showed up. Once that clicks, a lot of what happened during the week starts to make more sense.

A “Festival” Built in a Tough Moment

GDC didn’t land this rebrand in a vacuum.

The event expanded on paper, with hundreds of sessions, over a thousand speakers, and a new Festival Pass priced around $1,199, lower than the previous full-access tier but still far from cheap.

All of that happened while the industry itself was going through layoffs, tighter budgets, and a more cautious approach to travel. On top of that, concerns around entering the U.S. added another layer of friction for international teams.

Attendance landed somewhere around 20,000, which is a noticeable drop from previous years and the lowest level in over a decade.

It’s hard to ignore what that combination of factors is doing to the event.

A Better Experience… For Those Who Were There

Talk to people who attended, and a pattern starts to emerge.

Meetings felt easier to manage. Conversations had more room to breathe. The usual chaos around crowded spaces wasn’t as intense.

Community spaces like the Community Clubhouse were full, and the “hallway track” felt more active in a way that people actually enjoyed.

For smaller teams and some indie developers, this created unexpected advantages. With fewer people competing for attention, it became easier to connect with the right people and have more meaningful conversations.

There’s a version of GDC here that works really well.

But That Version Comes With a Tradeoff

The improved experience didn’t come from a redesign. It came from reduced attendance.

And that shifts the conversation.

Ben Kvalo summarized it in a way that showed up across multiple discussions:

📢 “Smaller. More focused. Busier… but unaffordable for 99% of devs… and less global.”

That tension sits at the center of this year’s sentiment.

The event works better for:

• publishers

• business development

• service providers(?)

But for a large portion of developers, especially those outside the U.S., the barrier to entry keeps getting harder to justify.

Cost is part of it. Travel is part of it. The overall return on making the trip is being questioned more openly than before.

Cost, Safety, and a Changing Audience

A lot of the criticism this year clustered around a few recurring points.

Cost is still a major factor. Even with the adjusted pricing, attending GDC requires a significant investment once travel and accommodation are included. The removal of cheaper entry points compared to older expo passes hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Travel concerns also came up frequently. Some international developers described hesitation around U.S. entry, from visa uncertainty to device checks at the border. For certain teams, that uncertainty alone was enough to reconsider attending.

Then there’s San Francisco itself. The city continues to be part of the discussion, whether because of cost, safety perceptions, or the general experience around the Moscone area.

Put together, these aren’t minor complaints. They shape who can realistically show up.

The Festival Identity Still Feels Unsettled

The shift toward a “festival” format brought some positive changes. More community-oriented spaces, a broader range of topics, and an attempt to make the event feel more open.

At the same time, there’s a sense that the event is still figuring out what it wants to be.

Some attendees see it leaning more toward business and partnerships rather than a developer-first environment. That doesn’t necessarily make it worse, but it does change expectations.

Trying to serve everyone at once makes the positioning harder to read.

AI Was Everywhere, But Still Undefined

AI was present in almost every conversation, but not in a way that felt settled.

Developers talked about using it, experimenting with it, hiring for it. The direction is there, but the execution is still uneven.

📢 “We need to be doing something with AI.”

📢 “We’re not fully using it yet.”

That kind of language came up repeatedly.

There’s momentum, but also uncertainty around what actually works in a production environment and what translates into successful games.

It feels like a phase where everyone is exploring at the same time, without a clear shared playbook yet.

We Want Your Take

We’re collecting real industry feedback on GDC 2026 to understand what actually happened beyond individual posts and hot takes.

👉 Takes 30 seconds: https://forms.gle/evHHDwQTSuB32E5J6

We’ll break down the results by role, attendance, and sentiment in a follow-up article.

🦊 Kiki

I’m gonna be honest… this whole “GDC felt better this year” thing sounds good until you actually think about why it felt better.

Yeah, no crowds. Yeah, easier meetings. Yeah, you’re not getting body checked by backpacks every five minutes. Cool.

But like… that chaos? That was GDC.

That was the whole thing.

I remember years where you couldn’t move, where you’d randomly bump into someone, end up in a conversation you didn’t plan, and suddenly you’re talking about a project, a job, a deal. Half the value of the event came from stuff that wasn’t scheduled.

This year feels like all of that got… cleaned out.

And people are calling it an improvement because it’s more comfortable? I don’t know, man. That just sounds like we optimized the event for the people who were already doing fine.

If you can afford to be there, if you already have meetings lined up, if your whole week is pre booked, yeah, of course it works for you.

But if you’re trying to break in, trying to get noticed, trying to just exist in that space… it feels like there’s less oxygen.

And the AI stuff? Same vibe. Everybody’s talking like they’re supposed to have an answer. Nobody actually does. It’s just this constant “we should be doing something with AI” loop with no real proof behind it yet.

I’ve seen this pattern before. Industry gets tight, events get smaller, rooms get more controlled… and people start telling themselves it’s better because it’s easier to manage.

At some point, people stop buying that.

They just stop showing up.

And when that happens, the event doesn’t die overnight… it just slowly becomes something else.

🍪 Chip sits on the floor, tapping a badge scanner that no longer lights up, then looks around at the empty space.

Where This Leaves GDC

The Festival of Gaming didn’t collapse or miss entirely. It delivered a version of GDC that worked well for some of the people who attended.

At the same time, it raised more visible questions about accessibility, audience, and long-term direction.

Right now, GDC feels like it’s in the middle of a transition.

And depending on who you ask, that transition is either making the event sharper… or narrowing who it’s really for.

• ⚙️ Stay observant — like the developers questioning the system

• ⚙️ Keep building — even when the direction isn’t fully clear

• ⚙️ And remember — who’s in the room shapes the story being told

🦊 Kiki · 🍪 Chip · ⭐ Byte · 🦁 Leo

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