Inside the Festival of Gaming 2026

It’s official! AI is no longer just a buzz word in game development. It’s being actively embedded into quality assurance, bug detection and gameplay systems. That’s just one of the key findings from Mindera’s visit to the GDC Festival of Gaming 2026.

Bringing the entire business-to-business game-making ecosystem together to learn, connect and celebrate, the event is a five-day extravaganza held at the Moscone Centre, San Francisco’s largest exhibition venue. Every discipline, every role and every stage of the game-making lifecycle is covered, from design and code to publishing, marketing and investment. This year marked the 40th edition of an event that’s continued to grow, representing the ideas, innovation and imagination of the continually evolving gaming industry.

The festival provided the perfect destination for Mindera to check out the latest insights and developments in the B2B gaming space, featuring over 1,000 experts delivering more than 700 education sessions. With around 30,000 attendees, the event also delivered a fantastic opportunity to make invaluable face-to-face connections. All of which helps fuel our ongoing mission to deliver outstanding, innovative gaming experiences.

Although based in the Moscone Centre, the Festival of Gaming is in fact a city-wide celebration spreading far beyond the confines of the venue. One of the many satellite gatherings included Mindera’s own exclusive networking dinner, bringing together professionals in the gaming, tech and sports worlds to connect, share ideas and come away with new contacts and solutions. We were proud to host guests from Angel City Football Club, Green Man Gaming and Chronicle Studios.

Along with the AI integration trend, another key takeaway from the show focused on infrastructure rebuilds, with major players heavily reinvesting in backend developer tooling and distribution platforms. Meanwhile, studios remain reliant on external partners, with some external contractors even citing that over 50% of their engineering work is handled by a 3rd party. Interestingly, it was also apparent that there is a huge need for engineering partners that can execute technical ‘heavy lifting’ with respect to backend pipelines and analytics for LiveOps design.

However these and other key trends develop, one thing’s certain. Game development continues to evolve rapidly and Mindera will continue to innovate at the forefront of this highly exciting sector.

Get in touch to discuss your gaming challenges…