At GDC 2026, Room 204, South Hall. Talk starts at 15:10.
2026 Indie Soapbox: Playing it Unsafe
Presented by Sarah Helen Slovak, Akash Thakkar, Hot Pink, Jona Bechtolt, Claire L. Evans, Jenny Jiao Hsia, Adanna Nedd, Cass Riordan

Indie Soapbox is the chance for indie devs from diverse backgrounds and projects to come together to share their thoughts, lessons and provocations about indie game dev in this long standing microtalk format. This session features a rich and varied set of themes and topics, all in a punchy format that is sure to provoke, inspire, and broaden your horizons. Our chosen theme this year is “ Playing It Unsafe ": diving into the role of indie games in driving innovation and boundary pushing, where devs are exploring themes, conventions, gameplay, representations, etc. that aren't happening elsewhere, and how that breathes vitality into the rest of the industry.

Notes:

• This event is a recurring tradition at GDC
• Indie devs are where the game industry innovates
• Aestheticisation of the middle east
  • Lunacy Studios, half-Egyptian
  • There is a conflict in Iran due to American Imperialism
  • The representation of the middle east has been disappointing
  • "did aliens build the pyramids?" undermines the intelligence of the people who live in the middle east
  • Orientalism is the exaggerated way that the west views a particular culture.
  • Strides are being made in middle east representation, the speaker actually gets work as an advisor on middle east culture in game projects
  • Get sensitivity readers, cultural consultants, or playtesters from the culture you are trying to represent.
• Intersection of old and new technology
  • Speakers made a project called Blippo+
  • They focus on ubiquitous technology that we no longer think about
  • Electronic Program Guide channels for TV
  • They are back again in streaming interfaces
  • Old technology sticks around and can keep evolving
  • old technology is cheap, familiar, and creative. (as opposed to pick two of good, fast, and cheap)
  • What if the next territory is not a new place, but a space we abandoned all too soon?
• Making stickers to market your indie game
  • Adanna N. Game Writer and sticker enthusiast
  • Stickers are inexpensive, easy to transport, and they are cute.
  • You can use these to market your game
  • instead of "how do i pitch this?" it's "can i show you something?"
  • Stickers force you to think abiut marketing. You have to pick a subject, you have to be able to talk about it, it builds your game's brand, and physical merch can travel much farther than you can. Someone else might see the sticker and discover your work that way.
  • Add logo or socials to sticker so people can find you.
  • Order stickers in advance, track inventory, check if events allow stickers.
  • Some printers have sticker sample packs so you can preview the appearance
• Make and love bad games
  • we can view games as products, entertainment, and as art. speaker proposes thinking about games as artifacts
  • Imagine a 9000 year axe, you would have a lot of questions about it aside from considering its objective wualities like if the blade is dull
  • pepsiman game is an artifact that tells you about the time it was made in
  • making games is fun (until it is not)
  • trying to monetize a game makes you feel like it needs to be good to be successful, and it can exert a lot of pressure on yourself.
  • Making a bad game can feel more freeing
  • you can abuse copyright in small games you make for you and your friends
  • We need to change the culture to stop polishing games and make worse games instead. The more polished the game is, the more polished everyone else's game needs to be. AAA is a psyop in this regard because they can throw money at polish while indies cannot
• What makes a video game character beautiful?
  • Ryan Ike
  • AAA beat you to it already.
  • You should make your next indue protagonist a weird little fart goblin
  • Indies have limitations which lead to innovation
  • It is too easy to pursue only beauty
  • Ugly art has the power to challenge us
  • Art reflects our values
  • if art depicts us as ugly, do our values change?
  • hot characters are easy
• Be human, make garbage
  • Akash Thakkar
  • We live in an era of incredible and unhelpful abundance
  • We have perfection exhaustion where we try to make the perfect thing over and over again.
  • Make trash just for yourself
  • In a world of abundance, do what is rare
  • Humanity is rare
  • This guy recorded himself shitting after having a stomach problem
  • making literal trash gets your humanity back and exits you from the cycle of perfection
• Subway takes
  • San Francisco sucks, the tech industry sucked the life out of the bay and it is too expensive.
  • We should be paid to be here. Expensive tickets arent worth anything, they should pay for diverse voices to be here.
  • Social media is a nightmare. Short form video sucks, everyone always asks what game the short is for no matter how much you try to show it
  • Not every game with good graphics is cozy. any game is cozy if you are sleepy enough. lets use more words to explain things
  • AI is for chumps.
  • We don't need to be able to pet every dog. Dogs get to decide who pets them and the addition of it to games just for instagram likes, which is objectification.
  • Videogames is not everything
• The fear and future of adult games
  • HotPink has a new philosophy
  • Hates the idea of not being able to make videogames
  • "I hate losing more than I love winning"
  • Censorship is a growing problem
  • Stigma is also a problem
  • Just because you work on lewd stuff doesnt mean you live all lewd stuff
  • Antagonists include political groups
    • "Won't somebody think of the children"
  • It is never black and white, there will always be people into weird content for both wrong and innocent reasons.
  • itch.io delisted all nsfw games due to payment processors doing the bidding of the political groups
  • example of an artist not being able to see their own art on X
  • Working as a nsfw artist is scary, because there is not a consistent safe zone
  • Allies: Chrus Plante, Ana Valens, and Jean Ketterling
  • Challenges us to build a community around what we like doing or what we dont like being unable to do.