GDC Festival of Gaming announces changes to 2027 event, including new Business

What the report says

GDC Festival of Gaming has announced changes to its 2027 event, including a new Business Hall at Moscone West.GDC VP of content strategy Mark DeLoura tells GamesIndustry.biz that the Business Hall is "purpose-built for meetings and relationship-building" and "complements the Festival Hall where attendees can discover tools and technology, play demos, watch showcases and connect across the wider GDC community."DeLoura notes that the Business Hall will occupy the space previously used for Speed Networking in 2026, which will now move to the Festival Hall. "That gave us the opportunity to rethink the larger space in Moscone West and build something much more substantial around one of the biggest behaviors we see at GDC: people coming together to meet and do business.""Thousands of people come to San Francisco during GDC week with calendars full of meetings, but historically many of those conversations have happened in hotel lobbies, coffee shops, suites and other spaces around the city.

The Business Hall gives that part of GDC week a dedicated home at Moscone, whether you're an indie meeting with a publisher, a start-up talking to investors, or an executive meeting with partners."The Business Hall Only pass costs $99, which DeLoura describes as "intentionally accessible and aimed at a broad part of the industry.""We know there are people who come to GDC primarily for meetings and haven't felt that the GDC passes available made sense for them. The Business Hall Only Pass gives people whose participation is centred primarily around those meetings an accessible way into the official GDC campus."New passesThe Business Hall Only pass is one of three new options, along with Festival Hall Only ($149) and 1-Day Career ($99).

Attendees can combine these passes to create a schedule that fits their goals.In 2027, two dedicated passes for Indie and Start-Up participants will be introduced, each costing $299 and featuring separate entry requirements. Previously, indie developers and start-ups shared a single Early Stage Indie & Start-Up pass.GDC intends for the $499 Festival Pass to offer the "complete core GDC experience," providing full access to program sessions, Festival Hall, Business Hall, and GDC Nights. Additional passes include Game Changer ($1,149), GDC Vault Subscription ($649), and Academic ($299).DeLoura says the Game Changer pass will "continue to be [the] premium GDC experience, including dedicated benefits such as the Game Changer Lounge and other elevated access and experiences."The Luminaries Speaker Series used to be a Game Changer perk, but has now "evolved into a conference track available to all conference attendees.""We felt some of those conversations were simply too valuable and relevant to the broader industry to restrict them to one pass type""We felt some of those conversations were simply too valuable and relevant to the broader industry to restrict them to one pass type.

Key details

Broadly, we don't want great sessions behind a premium tier; we want to offer Game Changers an enhanced way to experience and navigate GDC."The GDC Summit Program will also be improved "to give the community a greater voice in shaping the talks that make the program" and will be organized around the principle of "one discipline, one room."As for the Digital Pass, it's been withdrawn "as a bundled product for 2027," DeLoura confirms."When we looked at how people were using it, the primary value people were looking for was access to GDC Vault.

For 2027, we've therefore made Vault available directly as its own subscription/add-on, giving people a simpler way to access GDC sessions on demand throughout the year. That gives people a much clearer offering: if what you want is access to GDC sessions on demand, you can simply buy Vault. It's part of the broader effort to make our products clearer and give people more choice around how they engage with GDC."DeLoura states that the goal for GDC Festival of Gaming 2027 is increased flexibility, which "came directly from industry feedback.""In 2026, we deliberately simplified the pass structure, but what we heard afterward was that some people wanted more focused and affordable ways to participate depending on why they were coming.

So for 2027, we've kept the broader Festival and Game Changer experiences, while adding more targeted options.""Someone coming primarily for meetings can choose Business Hall Only; someone who wants to discover tools, play demos, and watch showcases can choose Festival Hall Only; and someone focused on career programming can attend Friday sessions with the 1-Day Career pass. We've also separated Indie and Start-Up into distinct passes so that established independent studios aren't excluded because they've existed for more than five years.