Our annual stroll around the show floor at GDC tells us that once again Epic and Unity have not really backed the show in any notable way once again – though both are holding some behind-closed-doors stuff nearby.
GDC certainly looks different this year – it’s now calling itself a Festival of Gaming, and is holding more satellite events at the nearby Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as well as setting up food stalls and other entertainment in the Yerba Buena Gardens, already a popular meeting spot for attendees.
Despite some concerns over international attendance, numbers didn’t feel drastically down on last year during Monday and Tuesday, but the opening of what is now known as the Festival Hall on Wednesday did confirm that the show floor itself is far smaller this year, as expected.
Where it used to stretch right across into the North Hall and fill that, too, GDC 2026’s show floor, as of Wednesday morning, is a little less crowded with people and booths and only takes up the South Hall.
And as ever, a pretty large chunk of people we spoke to didn’t have a ticket at all, and were content doing meetings in nearby hotels and cafes.
What was once the prime spot, the booth at the front as you come down the South Hall escalator, is taken up by servers.com, while Xsolla claim the spot in front which is practically the first thing you see. Xsolla has also, like last year, completely taken over the nearby Howard hotel. To the right, there’s a new hangout ‘Commons’ space.
Behind servers.com you’ve got Tencent with what looks like the largest booth, though Meta has a big presence and is pushing Meta Quest, despite some big layoffs in that division lately.
Nvidia’s modest booth certainly does not reflect that company’s current share price at all, while Roblox and Ark maker Snail – which also hosted a lavish party on Monday – are also nearby with what we’ll call mid-range spots.
Xbox sponsors a central cafe area and had Rog Ally demo devices and Gears of War Reloaded on show, a compliment to the space it has upstairs to the side of the entrance of the South Hall.
Last year, it had this same spot and had branded it with its ‘This is an Xbox’ tagline; this year the mantra is ‘Build for what’s next’.
Back on the show floor, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Pakistan’s respective trade bodies had the most notable spots, while Germany and Wales seemed to be randomly scattered in amongst the more central prime spots, alongside companies like Google, Virtuos, Optitrack and Metatailor.
Nexus Cross, the only(?) blockchain gaming firm present, also had a pretty flashy booth in that that central area.
Outside of the the company booths there seemed to be many more developer stations showing off games, including the perennially entertaining IGF area.
The largest and most striking spot here was Golden Gloves, a VR boxing game played in an actual boxing ring.
There was also a game controlled by a big inflatable ball and some sort of surgery game called Patchwork.
The only visible Sony presence was a small PlayStation Indies section, and we were told by one attendee that while AWS doesn’t have a booth on the show floor, it has got the space upstairs at the nearby Metreon, the same space where Netflix held a media showcase and meeting last year.
