XP26 programming
2026 sessions
| Time | Red Stage (Regency A) | Green Stage (Regency B) | Blue Stage (Regency C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:30 am | Indie Pitch Competition presented by Ubisoft
Jason Della Rocca
Co-Founder, Execution Labs
Stefan Jewinski
Game Director, Ubisoft Toronto
Chloé Giusti
ID@Xbox Regional Lead - Americas/ANZ, Microsoft - Xbox
Allan Adham
Content & Acquisition Lead, Team17
Zhenghua (Z) Yang
Founder & CEO, Serenity Forge
| ||
| 11:00 am | Always Playable: The Production Mindset That Survives Reality
Matt Lee
Executive Producer, Gameloft Montréal
| Building the Creator Pipeline: How Smart Partnerships Are Scaling Influencer Marketing
Scott Christian
Studio Director, Hilltop Studios
John Nguyen
Regional Vice President - Canada, Xsolla
Brayden MacKinnon
Senior Brand Manager, Fixated
| |
| 12:00 pm | Art Direction Is Marketing (You’re Just Calling It the Wrong Thing)
Dalisay MT
Founder, DMTC
| The Innovation Paradox
Chris Bateman
Founder and Chief Consultant, International Hobo Ltd
| Closing Deals in 2026
Pontus Mahler
Co-Founder, Agora Gaming Partners
|
| 1:00 pm | Building a Community for Lifetime Game Projects
Alexandra Orlando
Community Director, Kitfox Games
| How We Rebuilt Our Studio Around AI (And Why You Should Too)
Shawn Fischtein
CEO, Gaggle
| |
| 1:30 pm | From West to East: How to Make F2P Games Thrive in New Markets
Angel Fraser
Lead Product Manager, Scopely Inc
| The Great Games Reset: From “Bigger Is Better” to Lean Teams, Smarter Tools, and Real Fun
Darryl Long
Managing Director, Ubisoft Toronto
| |
| 2:00 pm | The New Timeline for Indie Success
Jason Della Rocca
Co-Founder, Execution Labs
| The Business of UX
Ruwan Fernando
Founder, Go Boldly Design
| |
| 3:00 pm | Start Up 101 – 20 Years Later
Wolfgang Hamann
Pres./CEO/Founder/Owner, Koolhaus Games Inc.
| Best Practices for Multi-Platform Development
Andrew Carvalho
Co-Founder and Technical Director, Laundry Bear Games
| Inside the Booth: Bringing Professional Performances to Your Next Project
Scott Christian
Studio Director, Hilltop Studios
Myles Dobson
Actor, ACTRA
|
| 4:00 pm | Where Traditional Animation Meets Gaming
Agustin Valcarenghi
Executive Director, 2veinte
Pablo Gostanian
Creative Director, 2veinte
| Two Truths & A Lie: Ontario Video Games Edition
Agusia Krzywinska
Technical Director & Co-Founder, Adjective Noun Studios
Ryan Miller
Managing Director, Ontario Game Testers
| |
| Time | Red Stage (Regency A) | Green Stage (Regency B) | Blue Stage (Regency C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:15 am | Designing Backwards: Creating Cauldrons for ‘Horizon Forbidden West’
Dennis Micka
Principle Game Designer, Guerrilla Games
| ||
| 10:30 am | Capacity Planning That Works Across Studios and Titles
Matt Lee
Executive Producer, Gameloft Montréal
Emil Vanjaka
Senior Operations Manager, 2K
Rafael Mayor-Mora
Director of Operations (Shared Development Studios), 2K Games
Gordana Vrbanc Duquet
Production & Planning Director, Ubisoft Toronto
| Worldbuilding a Generated City
Tanya Short
Captain, Kitfox Games
| |
| 11:30 am | Renaissance of Business in Health Care and the Video Game Sector
Eda Shere
VP, Business Development and Partnerships, Surrey Place
Ivona Novak
Development Director, Electronic Arts
Christina Hoy
Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer, Lumenus Community Services
Anthea Foyer
Sector Development Officer, IDM Office, City of Toronto
| The State of Game Funding: Trends, Tactics, and Opportunities
Luiz Vianna
Strategic Advisor | Games, Partnerships, & Investments
Shum Singh
Managing Director, Agnitio Capital
Pontus Mahler
Co-Founder, Agora Gaming Partners
Joe Yuan
Managing Director / Venture Partner, Double Black Capital / 1AM Gaming
| Designing Effective Communication During Game Development
Rebecca Brooker
Lead Game Designer, Behaviour Interactive
|
| 1:00 pm | The Retention Layer: The Hard Truth About Community and Social
Mike Gallagher
Founder, Untitled Advertising
| When Your Voice Shakes: Building Safety in the Studio Trenches”
Emily Vulama
Director of Operations, Nightmarket Games
| D2C in 2026: How New Platform Policies Unlock Even Greater Opportunity for Web Stores
Chip Thurston
Head of Gaming, FastSpring
|
| 1:30 pm | How To Achieve High Quality, Performant Lighting in URP and Unity 6
Ryan Warner
Sr. Software Development Consultant II, Unity Technologies
| Responding to Unprecedented Climate
Trang Nguyen
Head of Operations, Soft Rains
Kaitlin Tremblay
Narrative Director, Soft Rains
| What Does Indie Success on Steam Look Like? A Data-Driven Review
Kristian Roberts
CEO, Nordicity
|
2026 round tables
XP Curated Expert Roundtables are available to Conference and VIP pass holders. Limited capacity ensures focused discussion.
Advance registration through MeetToMatch is required and seats will fill quickly.
| Time | Studio B |
|---|---|
| 11:00 am | Legal Hacks for the Non-Lawyer: Lessons from the Game Lawyer Trenches
Sangeetha Punniyamoorthy
Partner; Co-Chair of Canadian Intellectual Property & Technology, DLA Piper Canada LLP
Ryan Black
Partner; Global Lead, Video Games, DLA Piper (Canada) LLP
David Lafontaine
Associate - Intellectual Property and Technology, DLA Piper (Canada) LLP
|
| Time | Studio B |
|---|---|
| 1:30 pm | The AI Adoption Gap: Bridging Strategy and Reality in Games Leadership
Russell Sng
Strategic Growth & Developer Relations, Artificial Agency
|
Always Playable: The Production Mindset That Survives Reality
Most game projects fail quietly while “on track.” This talk reframes production around a single, unforgiving truth: a playable build tells you more than any
Art Direction Is Marketing (You’re Just Calling It the Wrong Thing)
Art direction is not visual polish—it’s conversion designCosmetics = identity = monetization = retentionDiversity isn’t moral fluff—it’s market expansion + player attachment Cosmetics work from
Best Practices for Multi-Platform Development
Applying just a few best practices for code and design to a game during development, regardless of project budget, can make a huge difference in
Building a Community for Lifetime Game Projects
How do you build and maintain a community for games in indefinite development? Alexandra Orlando of Kitfox Games will give a peek behind the curtain
Building the Creator Pipeline: How Smart Partnerships Are Scaling Influencer Marketing
The creator economy is evolving fast — and the studios and publishers winning at influencer marketing aren’t doing it alone. This panel brings together industry
Capacity Planning That Works Across Studios and Titles
Capacity forecasting across multiple studios and titles is one of the hardest operational problems in modern game development, and one of the least consistently solved.
Closing Deals in 2026
Learn how to pitch at the right stage, what deal terms to expect in 2026, and how to target the right partners. This session unpacks
D2C in 2026: How New Platform Policies Unlock Even Greater Opportunity for Web Stores
2025 was a year of unprecedented growth for D2C, with rulings like Epic v. Apple and Epic v. Google unlocking new growth vectors for web
Designing Backwards: Creating Cauldrons for ‘Horizon Forbidden West’
When getting stuck on designing Cauldrons (Horizon’s dungeons) on ‘Horizon Forbidden West’, Dennis Micka’s entire approach to level design changed when he started designing the
Designing Effective Communication During Game Development
Whether it is two people or fifty, knowing how to communicate clearly, resolve conflicts, and align goals can make or break a game’s development. Come
From West to East: How to Make F2P Games Thrive in New Markets
I’ve worked across North America, Europe, and Asia on live-service games like Monopoly GO! and Apex Legends Mobile. From that experience, I’ve learned that successful
How To Achieve High Quality, Performant Lighting in URP and Unity 6
I take users through the process of lighting a complex scene in Unity URP and the performance ramifications of the choices available to them. Breaking
How We Rebuilt Our Studio Around AI (And Why You Should Too)
The traditional studio model of long planning cycles, rigid pipelines, and budgets demanding mass-market hits is no longer viable. AI has collapsed the cost of
Indie Pitch Competition presented by Ubisoft
Got a game with strong commercial potential? Pitch it live on stage in Toronto at XP Game Summit 2026. SUBMIT YOUR GAME NOW Five indie
Inside the Booth: Bringing Professional Performances to Your Next Project
Voice Acting in video games is more than performance, it’s a production process that hinges on direction, context, and iteration. In this live interactive session,
Legal Hacks for the Non-Lawyer: Lessons from the Game Lawyer Trenches
Getting legal advice can be daunting but is critically important. This talk gives indie and emerging studios a practical legal playbook built from real-world mistakes
Renaissance of Business in Health Care and the Video Game Sector
Technology and video games have long been a space for innovation in health care and continue to be an area of impactful growth in Toronto
Responding to Unprecedented Climate
How Soft Rains leans on our breadth of skills and interests to weather changes. Kaitlin Tremblay and Trang Nguyen of Soft Rains will discuss ways
Start Up 101 – 20 Years Later
In October of 2025 Koolhaus celebrated its 20th year anniversary. With over 95% of new companies closing within 2 years of their start, keeping any
The AI Adoption Gap: Bridging Strategy and Reality in Games Leadership
The game industry is now past the “wow” factor of generative AI; we’ve all seen the demos. Now comes the hard part, integration at scale.
The Business of UX
Connecting player-centric thinking and profitability. Beginning with the simple philosophy that “UX is the relationship between creator vision and player expectation”, Ruwan shares his hard-earned
The Great Games Reset: From “Bigger Is Better” to Lean Teams, Smarter Tools, and Real Fun
The video game industry is going through a long‑overdue reset. After years of ballooning budgets, risk‑averse design, and ever‑bigger teams, AAA development has become slower,
The Innovation Paradox
Everyone wants to make games that are easy to learn, yet also inventive and original. These goals are inevitably in tension: the more you innovate,
The New Timeline for Indie Success
What is the most obvious and direct path to success for game developers today? There is always too much work to do, too many demands
The Retention Layer: The Hard Truth About Community and Social
This talk is a candid look at where game growth actually comes from today. The talk challenges the idea that success is driven by bigger
featured sessions
- Building a Community for Lifetime Game Projects
- The Retention Layer: The Hard Truth About Community and Social
- From West to East: How to Make F2P Games Thrive in New Markets
- The Innovation Paradox
- Best Practices for Multi-Platform Development
- Always Playable: The Production Mindset That Survives Reality
- Worldbuilding and Procedural Generation
- Responding to Unprecedented Climate