Emerging Summits
New Perspectives. Emerging Conversations.
Introducing Emerging Summits, a new generation of GDC Summits. Focused, community-informed programming that evolves alongside the industry. These sessions spotlight developing areas of the games industry with topics that can evolve year after year based on what is being created, challenges being faced, and conversations that are ongoing.
Each Emerging Summit brings together the innovators and specialists actively shaping these spaces to share practical insights, exchange perspectives, and connect with one another.
Four Summits. Four Conversations Shaping the Games Industry.
Co-Dev Summit
Build Together. Ship Smarter.
Discover what makes co-development partnerships work. From deal structure to shared pipelines, this Summit gets into what it takes to make multi-studio collaboration click.
Expect conversations focused on partner selection, cross-team creative alignment, ownership in shared projects, and the tools and workflows that keep distributed teams moving in sync, no matter the time zone.
Who Should Attend:
Producers Leadership Co-dev Partnerships
Mobile Summit
Small Screen. Big Stakes.
Connect with developers and publishers who are actively shipping, scaling, and adapting to the latest in mobile games.
In this full-day Summit, expect to dig into free-to-play design, monetization, live-ops cadence, user acquisition, and the platform shifts reshaping mobile now, including hybrid-casual and cross-platform trends.
Who Should Attend:
Mobile Designers and Producers UA and Monetization Specialists Live-ops Leads Publishers Scaling Mobile Portfolios
IP & Licensing Summit
Protect, Extend, Grow.
A great game is just the beginning! Explore the strategies behind building lasting franchises, navigating licensing agreements, forging brand partnerships, and expanding game worlds into new markets and platforms.
Who Should Attend:
Business Development Legal and Contracts Teams Franchise and Brand Managers Any Developer (indie or AAA)
UGC Summit
Made By Players, For Players.
Players aren’t just experiencing games. They’re helping to create them.
Explore creation tools and modding support, moderation and safety at scale, creator monetization, and the platform and engine work powering thriving UGC ecosystems.
Who Should Attend:
UGC Platform Designers Tools and Engine Engineers Community and Moderation Leads Creator-economy Specialists
Be Part of the Conversations Moving Games Forward
New ideas, new perspectives, new opportunities to learn from the people shaping the industry.
Discover the Emerging Summits at GDC 2027 and find the topics that matter to you.