GDC Festival of Gaming 2027

How it compares

GDC suits a studio that needs several kinds of contact at once: technical peers, platform companies, production suppliers, publishers and investors. Its advantage is the breadth of that professional mix, together with a conference that reaches across code, art, audio, design and studio management. Teams with a narrow procurement brief can focus on the relevant hall neighborhood; those weighing a production change can pair supplier conversations with practitioner sessions.

Develop:Brighton offers a more concentrated route into the UK game-making community. It attracted more than 5,800 attendees in 2026 and combines practical discipline tracks, an expo and an indie showcase. For a British studio strengthening local relationships or bringing colleagues together around craft, Brighton is a natural choice. GDC becomes more compelling when the trip also needs international platform and publishing conversations.

gamescom dev puts developer learning and B2B meetings into Cologne's gamescom week. Its business expo, indie exhibition and matchmaking serve a similar professional audience, with the wider gamescom gathering on the same fairgrounds. Choose Cologne when those European industry connections belong to the same trip; choose GDC when a dedicated San Francisco week of development, tools and business is the main objective.

GDC is the right trip for game teams that need technical learning, production partners and publishing conversations to happen in the same week.

Who exhibits

GDC's exhibitor mix spans the machinery of game production and the businesses that get games to players. Epic Games, Meta, Tencent Games and Xsolla appeared in the 2026 partner directory, illustrating the range from engines and platforms to publishing and commerce. Alongside those companies, GDC Play and the IGF Pavilion bring playable independent work onto the floor. alt.ctrl.GDC adds a particularly useful counterpoint for designers: games whose physical controllers change the interaction itself.

This year's list is on its way. A HallBrief brief ranks every exhibitor against your goals and finds who to meet at each. Get a brief

GDC Festival of Gaming 2027

GDC 2027 separates discovery from deal-making more clearly. Festival Hall at Moscone South organizes engines and production, future technology, independent games and education, international pavilions, and monetization into themed neighborhoods. The new Business Hall at Moscone West gives publishers, investors and studios a dedicated meeting base. Career Day adds recruiting, portfolio feedback and career sessions, while the evolved Summits cover disciplines from AI and programming to audio, visual arts and team leadership.

• For an indie design visit, spend time in the Indie & Education neighborhood: it brings GDC Play, the IGF Pavilion and alt.ctrl.GDC together.
• A tools comparison spans two neighborhoods: Game Development covers engines and production pipelines; Future Tech focuses on AI/ML, cloud and infrastructure.
• Keep publisher and investor conversations centered on the Business Hall at Moscone West; playable demos and the Festival Hall Theater are in Moscone South.
• For a funding conversation, watch GDC Pitch at the Festival Hall Theater to see how indie teams present their games to publishers and investors.

Exhibiting

The new Business Hall offers assigned meeting tables, enclosed meeting rooms, suites and sound-resistant boardrooms. A studio pitching publishers has a different use for that space from a tools supplier demonstrating a production workflow. Dedicated space provides a meeting base across the week; prices and availability are agreed with the partnership team. Festival Hall remains the setting for playable games and hands-on product discovery.