XP26 programming
2026 sessions
| Time | Red Stage (Regency A) | Green Stage (Regency B) | Blue Stage (Regency C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:15 am | Opening Remarks
Jason Lepine
Founder & CEO, XP Gaming Inc.
| ||
| 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 | Building an OP Cashflow Strategy for your Studio to Thrive
Matthew Walach
Co-founder, Insert Coin
Muddassir Mahmood
Co-founder, Insert Coin
| 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
Corina Diaz
Marketing Director / Influencer Manager, Mighty Yell / Skystone Games
| Always Playable: The Production Mindset That Survives Reality
Matt Lee
Executive Producer, Gameloft Montréal
|
| 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
| Advancing AI Game Development with AMD Schola and GPUOpen
Alexander Cann
Staff Software Engineer, AMD
Alex Blake-Davies
Sr. Developer Product Marketing Specialist, AMD
|
| 1:30 pm | From West to East: How to Make F2P Games Thrive in New Markets
Angel Fraser
Lead Product Manager, Scopely Inc
| Building Our UA System From Media Buying to Scalable Growth Engine
Jordan Dinning
VP, Marketing, HyperHippo
| |
| 2:00 pm | The New Timeline for Indie Success
Jason Della Rocca
Co-Founder, Execution Labs
| Game Audio: The Future of Game Audio & Music
Christian Hurst
Co-Founder, Managing Director, Interleave
| The Business of UX
Ruwan Fernando
Founder, Go Boldly Design
|
| 3:00 pm | What Does Indie Success on Steam Look Like? A Data-Driven Review
Kristian Roberts
CEO, Nordicity
| Inside the Booth: Bringing Professional Performances to Your Next Project
Scott Christian
Studio Director, Hilltop Studios
Myles Dobson
Actor, ACTRA
| Best Practices for Multi-Platform Development
Andrew Carvalho
Co-Founder and Technical Director, Laundry Bear Games
|
| 4:00 pm | Where Traditional Animation Meets Gaming
Agustin Valcarenghi
Executive Director, 2veinte
Pablo Gostanian
Creative Director, 2veinte
| What We Got Wrong (And Right) About Game Marketing
Kit Ellis
Co-founder, Never A Minute Marketing
Jenny Windom
Partner, Wholesome Games
Christopher Chancey
General Manager, Indie Asylum / Gambit Digital
Agusia Krzywinska
Technical Director & Co-Founder, Adjective Noun Studios
| 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 | 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 | IP TEARDOWN: UNDER THE HOOD OF THE GAME WORLDS WE LOVE
Christian Fonnesbech
Founder and Head of IP, Leverage
| 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 | Designing Effective Communication During Game Development
Rebecca Brooker
Lead Game Designer, Behaviour Interactive
| 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
| Start Up 101 – 20 Years Later
Wolfgang Hamann
Pres./CEO/Founder/Owner, Koolhaus Games Inc.
|
| 12:30 pm | Great Game, Wrong Foundation: A Studio Audit for Indie Founders
Lucien Parsons
Fractional COO, OpsCat
| Canada’s Video Game Industry – From Strength to Staying Power
Paul Fogolin
President & CEO, ESAC
Kristian Roberts
CEO, Nordicity
| |
| 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
| 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
| Responding to Unprecedented Climate
Trang Nguyen
Head of Operations, Soft Rains
Kaitlin Tremblay
Narrative Director, Soft Rains
|
| 2:30 pm | Funding the Future of Canadian Game Development
Corey Caplan
Director of Business Development and Partner Licensing, tinyBuild Games
Ryan Sno-Wood
Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, XP Gaming Inc.
eileen mary holowka
Co-Executive Director, Baby Ghosts Studio Development Fund
| ||
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 | Ask Games Lawyers Anything: This Normally Costs Money
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 |
|---|---|
| 10:30 am | Game Audio Round Table
Christian Hurst
Co-Founder, Managing Director, Interleave
|
| 1:30 pm | The AI Adoption Gap: Bridging Strategy and Reality in Games Leadership
Russell Sng
Strategic Growth & Developer Relations, Artificial Agency
|
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
Opening Remarks
Kick off this year’s XP Game Summit with an inspiring welcome from the organizer as we set the tone for two days of world-class learning,
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 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
The State of Game Funding: Trends, Tactics, and Opportunities
As we cross the mid-point of 2026, the capital landscape for gaming has reached a critical inflection point. While massive consolidations dominate the headlines, a
What Does Indie Success on Steam Look Like? A Data-Driven Review
In 2025, headlines consistently touted the success of indie games sold on Steam – titles like PEAK, Hollow Knight: Silksong, R.E.P.O and Clair Obscur: Expedition
What We Got Wrong (And Right) About Game Marketing
Three marketing veterans get candid about the strategies that worked, the blind spots that didn’t, and the lessons they had to learn the hard way.
When Your Voice Shakes: Building Safety in the Studio Trenches”
In an industry defined by rapid iteration and high-stakes launches, a blame culture can be as destructive as a game-breaking bug. This session explores why
Where Traditional Animation Meets Gaming
Frame by frame hand-drawn animation is as strong as ever, and today it’s having a major impact across the video game industry. From gameplay to
Worldbuilding a Generated City
Our Constantinople-inspired city in Streets of Fortuna is populated by literally thousands of fully simulated citizens, generated on the fly and then living their lives,
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