GDC: Festival of Gaming 2026 attendance dropped by 30% this year when compared to last year, to 20,000 visitors, a low not seen since 2011. This fall in attendance directly follows a two-year record of 30,000 visitors. The fall in attendance is attributed to attendance costs and concerns about safety during the US immigration crackdown. 1
During the event from other attendees, I get the general feeling that most people don't find the convention very attractive. Not only is a ticket to the convention prohibitively expensive, it's not uncommon to hear someone say that the afterparties and other social events that spring up while GDC is in town -- almost all of which are unaffiliated and hence don't require a GDC pass -- are more worth seeing than the convention itself. For this reason, many haven't bothered buying a pass this year and those who did said they won't next year.
Many people I've talked to feel that GDC is rife with clout-chasing, full of attention-seeking, and lacking of actual substance. You can see this in the description of my favorite event, Slugworld, which states: 2
The old indie scene is dead. Our mission is to create a place outside GDC without the desperation and clout chasing, where women and minorities can feel comfortable, and people from all layers of the industry can hang out and make friends.
Which is a sentiment I largely agree with now that I've attended GDC for the first time. The talks aren't as informative or useful as I wanted them to be. Besides, my primary goal is to make more friends in the industry, and GDC did not really provide anything to help me with this. They did have some obscure social networking features, like one for scheduling meetings with people. But, scheduling a formal meeting with a stranger is not how it works, I think.
I also heard, as a lesser point, that there has been a general decline in GDC's attractiveness as a convention. Not only had console manufacturers and major game engine companies pulled out of the convention, but less companies were on the expo floor this year. In fact, many companies apparently didn't even bother sending their employees this year. Walking around the expo floor, I got the impression that there was a lot of AI-related companies and products at the convention. I was informed by a friend that in the last few years, it used to be blockchain companies. Although I would guess that GDC is happy to provide tables to anyone who is willing to pay, it certainly gives me a poorer image of GDC overall, contributing to its desperate and clout-chasing feeling.