The Game Developers Conference (GDC) Festival of Gaming has revealed a suite of modifications for its 2027 edition, highlighted by the introduction of a brand‑new Business Hall situated within Moscone West. Mark DeLoura, GDC’s vice‑president of content strategy, explained to GamesIndustry.biz that the Business Hall is "purpose‑built for meetings and relationship‑building" and serves as a complementary space to the Festival Hall, where attendees can explore tools, test demos, watch showcases, and mingle with the broader GDC community.
According to DeLoura, the Business Hall will take over the area that previously housed Speed Networking in 2026, which is now being relocated to the Festival Hall. "That gave us the opportunity to rethink the larger space in Moscone West and build something much more substantial around one of the biggest behaviors we see at GDC: people coming together to meet and do business," he said.
Every year, thousands of professionals descend on San Francisco for GDC week, filling their calendars with meetings. Historically, many of those conversations have unfolded in hotel lobbies, coffee shops, private suites, and other off‑site venues. The new Business Hall creates a dedicated home for these interactions right inside the convention center, whether an indie studio is meeting a publisher, a startup is pitching investors, or an executive is negotiating with partners.
The Business Hall Only pass is priced at $99, a figure DeLoura describes as "intentionally accessible and aimed at a broad part of the industry." He noted that GDC has long heard from participants whose primary goal is networking and who felt existing ticket tiers did not reflect their needs. "The Business Hall Only Pass gives people whose participation is centred primarily around those meetings an accessible way into the official GDC campus," he added. Alongside the Business Hall Only pass, GDC is launching two additional single‑focus tickets: Festival Hall Only at $149 and a 1‑Day Career pass for $99.
Attendees can mix and match these passes to craft a schedule that aligns with their objectives. A notable change for 2027 is the separation of indie and startup tickets.
Previously, both groups shared an Early Stage Indie & Start‑Up pass, but the conference will now offer two distinct passes, each priced at $299 and featuring separate eligibility criteria. This adjustment ensures that established independent studios are not excluded simply because they have been operating for more than five years.
The flagship $499 Festival Pass continues to promise the "complete core GDC experience," granting full entry to program sessions, the Festival Hall, the Business Hall, and GDC Nights. Higher‑tier options remain available, including the Game Changer pass at $1,149, the GDC Vault subscription at $649, and an Academic pass for $299.
DeLoura clarified that the Game Changer pass will retain its status as the premium offering, complete with exclusive benefits such as access to the Game Changer Lounge and other elevated experiences. However, some perks that were once exclusive to Game Changers are being opened up to all attendees.
For example, the Luminaries Speaker Series, formerly a Game Changer perk, has been transformed into a conference track accessible to every registered participant. "We felt some of those conversations were simply too valuable and relevant to the broader industry to restrict them to one pass type," DeLoura explained.
"Broadly, we don't want great sessions behind a premium tier; we want to offer Game Changers an enhanced way to experience and navigate GDC." The GDC Summit Program will also be refined to give the community a louder voice in shaping the talk lineup, with a new organizational principle of "one discipline, one room" to streamline content delivery. The Digital Pass, which previously bundled access to the GDC Vault, is being discontinued as a standalone product for 2027. DeLoura said the primary draw of the Digital Pass was the on‑demand Vault library, so the conference is now offering Vault as a separate subscription or add‑on. "If what you want is access to GDC sessions on demand, you can simply buy Vault.
It's part of the broader effort to make our products clearer and give people more choice around how they engage with GDC," he noted. Overall, the 2027 GDC Festival of Gaming aims to provide greater flexibility—a direction directly informed by industry feedback. In 2026, GDC simplified its pass structure, but subsequent conversations revealed a demand for more targeted, affordable options tailored to specific attendee motivations. "Someone coming primarily for meetings can choose Business Hall Only; someone who wants to discover tools, play demos, and watch showcases can choose Festival Hall Only; and someone focused on career programming can attend Friday sessions with the 1‑Day Career pass," DeLoura said.
"We've also separated Indie and Start‑Up into distinct passes so that established independent studios aren't excluded because they've existed for more than five years. The goal is to give more people a way to be part of GDC, letting them choose the depth of experience that makes sense for them." DeLoura emphasized that while the full GDC experience remains valuable, the new options recognize that attendees arrive for varied reasons, have different budgets, and seek different types of engagement.
The event schedule itself has been tweaked. Festival Hall will now operate from Tuesday through Thursday, rather than the previous Wednesday‑to‑Friday window, and GDC Nights will run Monday to Wednesday.
Signature events include the Developer’s Concert on Monday, the GDC Awards on Tuesday, and the Independent Games Festival Awards on Wednesday. DeLoura clarified that the shift from a Monday‑to‑Thursday to a Monday‑to‑Wednesday community‑event block was driven by the rhythm of the week, not attendance numbers. "There are hundreds of community events, studio gatherings, dinners, meetups and parties happening throughout San Francisco all week," he said. "Moving the IGF Awards and GDC Awards to their own evenings was extremely well received, because each had room to become a bigger moment for its respective community.
Giving the Developer’s Concert its own evening was another natural step, highlighting the great love our community has for the concert. With those evening events in place, we felt there was value in deliberately leaving one evening open, for community and partner events to thrive." GDC underwent a rebranding effort last September, and DeLoura provided additional details about the new pricing structure for sessions and the expo floor—now called the Festival Hall—as well as a premium pass aimed at executives and studio leadership. "We're always looking at how GDC can better serve the game industry, and listening to our community is a crucial part of that," DeLoura affirmed. "After introducing the Festival of Gaming and making significant changes to the GDC experience in 2026, it was especially important that we listen closely to what worked, what could work better, and how people want to participate in GDC going forward.
The industry continues to change, and the reasons people come to GDC are many and varied: learning, finding funding, doing deals, hiring, looking for work, meeting partners, seeing new technology, reconnecting with peers, or some combination of those." In summary, GDC 2027 is about expanding choice, improving accessibility, and making the week more adaptable to the ways the industry currently uses the conference. The changes are designed to help attendees forge meaningful connections and accomplish their specific goals, whether that means striking a publishing deal, scouting talent, or simply enjoying the community events that make GDC a unique gathering.
The GDC Festival of Gaming 2027 is scheduled for March 1‑5 and will be hosted at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.