Niko Partners President, Lisa Hanson, and Senior Analyst, Alex Champlin, were again in attendance at the Game Developers Conference this year. While the mood seemed slightly brighter compared to last year, the scale of the event and topics in conversation and at panels signaled some changing realities in the games industry.
GDC 2026 felt decidedly different from past years, as many attendees have said in their own posts summarizing the event. There were far fewer people (down 30%, officially, although last year already felt smaller than 2024). The hotel lobbies were less crowded. Moscone Center itself was less occupied, leaving most of the talks in the West Hall, rather than the other halls. Meanwhile, the expo floor combined large-scale company booths with the international games and student games sections, historically spread across three areas, into one single floor. Industrial consolidation is translating into a consolidation of the conference as well.
While many observers have noted the GDC discussions around upcoming games, technologies, hardware, and staffing, we observed through a lens of international markets and global growth. To that end, there were at five key themes of GDC that resonated most with us at Niko Partners:
Localization is critical. As international markets become key targets for the industry, it is more important than ever to know your audience and figure out how to write & talk in their language, how to sell in their payment methods, and how to market on their holidays.
Lisa was a panelist alongside Shane Happich, CEO of Coda, talking about localization of payments and storefronts, moderated by Liz Adam, also of Coda.
Asia is a hot growth market, from Japan and Korea to China, to Southeast Asia and over to India. This is true for companies based in those countries as well as those selling to those countries.
In the past we may have said Niko Partners’ expertise in these areas made us biased to these trends, but this year the shift was undeniable. Competition here is stiffer and success is more important than ever. Many people wanted our opinions on this.
Tread lightly with MENA due to the current geopolitical situation and pray (or call) for peace, and then hope that we see the return of hot growth shown in MENA before this conflict began.
Lisa moderated a recorded podcast conversation about the Middle East, between Berkley Egenes, CMO of Xsolla, and Gokce Kozandagi, VP of Business Development in MENA, also of Xsolla.
China is rising, both with domestic demand and with regard to Chinese exports and international publishing.
One could not walk far without hearing “China” in discussion. Meanwhile, Chinese companies like Tencent and NetEase had some of the strongest presences of any game developers at the show.
AI is here to stay. We hope for no more layoffs, but worry is obvious, and there is great unknown ahead.
Everyone talked about this. But while last year AI was framed as an uncertain quantity, this year the use cases seemed more fleshed out and charted clearer pathways for the combination of human creativity and technical efficiency.
A final bonus theme was investment, or the lack thereof. This pertains to public markets as well as private funding. In the US there will be only 1 pure play games company publicly traded (Take-Two), once EA is fully acquired by the PIF-led group.
We heard fewer discussions about investment and funding than in past years. And saw at least one talk that indicated a shift happening among games industry investors who are turning their hopes to streaming platforms like Netflix, Apple, etc. as new frontiers for publicly traded play.
We had more meetings than ever at a GDC this year, despite the lower attendance. Participants are interested in those themes listed above, and Niko knows a lot about them.
This is a global industry joyously allowing humans from everywhere to play the same games, if they want to, and in that regard it felt that the biggest shadows over GDC were geopolitical concerns, and the views of foreign visitors on the United States. As Lisa’s personal motto is Peace Through Intercultural Understanding, we at Niko Partners sincerely hope that these dark times get bright again and, in the meantime, we will continue to do our part to inform our clients about the hot markets in Asia and MENA, so that the games industry can continue to grow.
Contact us: lisa@nikopartners.com, alexander@nikopartners.com
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