GDC is Also Evolving in Its Name to Become the GDC Festival of Gaming

When Mark DeLoura was appointed Executive Director of Innovation & Growth in the GDC team, Informa Festival Director Nina Brown spoke of her vision for the GDC to become an inclusive festival of gaming. This also applies to the branding, as can now be seen on the Game Developers Conference website.

When you visit the Game Developers Conference (GDC) website, you are greeted by an unusual clip. In it, a UFO sucks away a GDC advertising sign. Underneath, the organizers tease a rebranding of the world's most important conference for game developers under the headline “A New Era is Loading...”. According to the clip, the GDC will be held under the brand name GDC Festival of Gaming starting in 2026.

According to the organizers at Informa Festival, the aim is to unite the entire games B2B ecosystem under the brand. On a partner page, Informa Festivals also reveals that it plans to offer evening events, offsite meeting suites, curated meetings and matchmaking, as well as networking lunches and dinners. However, many details have not yet been published.

Although the rebranding of the long-established conference comes as a surprise, it does not come entirely unprepared. At the end of July, Nina Brown, Vice President of Gaming at Informa Festivals, introduced long-time consultant Mark DeLoura as Executive Director of Innovation & Growth. She said: "Mark has been a longtime member of the GDC family. We could not have a better leader joining to help change the game as GDC becomes an inclusive Festival of Gaming to better serve the industry we all love."

It is not known whether there were already plans at that time to rename the event accordingly. However, the rebranding is one of a number of changes in both the event and games media markets. For example, Informa merged the digital business of its Tech Division with TechTarger at the end of 2024. Although GDC remained with Informa, its closely related brands GameDeveloper and Omdia were transferred to the new company. This also changed the responsibility for GDC within Informa.

Other changes in the events sector include gamescom asia, which is moving from Singapore to Bangkok, and the devcom developer conference, which will also be renamed gamescom dev from 2026. In the games B2B media sector, there have been personnel changes at GamesIndustry.biz following the acquisition of Gamer Network by IGN and a management buyout at GamesBeat in recent months. Last but not least, we at GamesMarkt have also taken the plunge into independence.

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