There is no denying that the games industry is in a bit of flux, but even with all the bad news, the first iteration of the North American Game Industry Summit (NAGIS) was a promising start to what will hopefully become a yearly event. Bringing together some of gaming’s best and brightest, NAGIS 2026 showcased an atmosphere of excitement and innovation and was a great companion event to Game Con Canada, which brought thousands of people together to celebrate gaming, tabletop, and nerdy hobbies in an inclusive and exciting environment.
Arriving in Edmonton, Alberta, a day before NAGIS 2026 was supposed to start, I did not know what to expect. CGMagazine has been to Game Con Canada for the past three years now, and I have been impressed by how the people behind the event manage to build something bigger every year, all without losing the core of what made it so interesting. But NAGIS felt different. It was a business-to-business event focused on developers, investors, journalists, and creators, and as this was the first year, it was carrying a lot on its shoulders. But I was hopeful, since the team behind Game Con Canada has shown the ability not only to put on a good event but also to bring different communities together, and for an event like NAGIS, that is exactly what it needed.
Setting the stage, NAGIS, much like Game Con Canada, used the Edmonton Expo Centre, a massive convention centre in the city’s core. The Expo Centre offers a total of 410,000 square feet of exhibition space, including seven exhibition halls, a ballroom and a 4,600-seat arena. NAGIS 2026 took up a small portion of that space, but the organizers arranged for it to share some of the area with Game Con Canada, including the 55 turnkey indie developer booths and the mega stage for keynote speakers and other major talks. It is a fantastic combo, and it gives the indie developers on-site a chance to meet many people in the industry, as well as be seen by the public once the event shifts from a business-to-business conference to one more geared toward the general public.
For the first year of NAGIS, the organizers managed to bring some pretty major talent to Edmonton, including Nolan Bushnell, recording artist and entertainment entrepreneur Barsun Unique Jones (YDB), industry consultant and former BioWare developer Mark Darrah, Two Bit Circus CEO and co-founder Brent Bushnell, Xsolla Canada regional vice-president John Nguyen, Geogrify CEO and founder Kate Edwards, Arcanaut Studios game director and CEO Casey Hudson, Beamdog CEO Trent Oster, and Blind Enthusiasm Group director Gregory Zeschuk, among many others. It is a solid lineup, one that showcases a drive for the industry’s future while leaving enough time to look back on how gaming has reached this point.
The talks covered a range of topics, all interesting and focused on advancing gaming. With talks about the intersection of gaming and film, launching a game and working with PR and community managers, the importance of narrative, maintaining your community, working with small teams and even entering different markets, NAGIS came out of the gate looking to make the event not only look good on paper but also be genuinely useful to the various people in attendance.
NAGIS 2026 even brought together some of the key figures who helped make BioWare one of the preeminent RPG studios in North America, talking about the studio’s early days, how it evolved, and what changed as it became a force to be reckoned with. With Mark Meer, the voice of Commander Shepard, moderating the panel, and featuring insights from founders and key leaders Trent Oster, Casey Hudson, Gregory Zeschuk and Mark Darrah, it was a rare opportunity to see these people all together again, and you could tell by the audience that this was a hotly anticipated event, and one that worked well to cap off the first day of the show.
NAGIS has a lot of potential, and if it can keep pushing the concept forward and expand next year into something bigger, it has a real shot at becoming a destination for developers, similar to MIGS or GDC. With its vibrant community in Western Canada, it has the potential to do things other events focused on the business of gaming do not. The team behind the event is already discussing how it can expand the event going into 2027, with talks of expanding the gaming showcase to 250 indie developers from around the world, compared with 55 this year, launching a Technology, Hardware and Software Showcase Zone, and expanding its meeting-room footprint, among other ideas.
The indie games were such a strong concept this year, and with them on either side of the Mega Stage, it made it possible for these smaller studios to get seen. With more than four times the number of studios next year, NAGIS and Game Con Canada could become a destination for everything gaming, giving more teams from around the world more chances to get seen, get funding or even find a publisher. It is an opportunity that is often hard to get. The other concepts are also good, and if the organizers can pull it all off, it could be very exciting. There is a lot of potential with what they managed to bring together, and if it keeps evolving, it could become something very major.
Marc Belisle, the Vice-president at Meibel Consulting, the team that organizes Game Con Canada and NAGIS, explained, “This year, we had so many compliments about the event. Everyone officially loved the new turnkey booth designs, and we will be using that layout moving forward…I was told this from multiple sources: attendees, exhibitors and sponsors are so impressed with the growth of GCC over the last few years, but most of all, the vibe and the community are what make this event special.”
Similar sentiments came from CEO of Meibel Consulting, Chris Meilleur, really solidifying the future of Game Con Canada alongside NAGIS in the future: “We were honestly blown away by the response this year. The feedback from attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors has been overwhelmingly positive, and it reinforces that Game Con Canada is not just growing, it’s becoming a must-attend moment on the North American calendar.”
I love seeing Canada as a destination for game development, and while GDC, Gamescom Dev and MIGS have the legacy that helped them become events known worldwide, NAGIS has the potential to bring a different energy to the landscape, one of excitement, innovation and a drive to bring new people into the fold. With plans to expand going forward, and the fact that it bridges the business-to-business and consumer worlds in a meaningful way, I have high hopes for NAGIS going forward. It has plenty of room to grow, but it has made the right steps, and I cannot wait to see where it goes next.
