XP26 programming
2026 sessions
8:30 am
9:15 am
9:30 am
11:00 am
12:00 pm
1:00 pm
1:30 pm
2:00 pm
3:00 pm
4:00 pm
Registration (All Day)
Indie Pitch Competition presented by Ubisoft
Building an OP Cashflow Strategy for your Studio to Thrive
Building the Creator Pipeline: How Smart Partnerships Are Scaling Influencer Marketing
Always Playable: The Production Mindset That Survives Reality
Art Direction Is Marketing (You’re Just Calling It the Wrong Thing)
The Innovation Paradox
Closing Deals in 2026
Building a Community for Lifetime Game Projects
How We Rebuilt Our Studio Around AI (And Why You Should Too)
From West to East: How to Make F2P Games Thrive in New Markets
The New Timeline for Indie Success
Game Audio: The Future of Game Audio & Music
What Does Indie Success on Steam Look Like? A Data-Driven Review
Best Practices for Multi-Platform Development
Where Traditional Animation Meets Gaming
What We Got Wrong (And Right) About Game Marketing
Legal Hacks for the Non-Lawyer: Lessons from the Game Lawyer Trenches
8:30 am
9:15 am
10:30 am
11:30 am
12:30 pm
1:00 pm
1:30 pm
2:30 pm
Registration (All Day)
Designing Backwards: Creating Cauldrons for ‘Horizon Forbidden West’
IP Teardown: Under the Hood of the Game Worlds We Love
Capacity Planning That Works Across Studios and Titles
Worldbuilding a Generated City
Designing Effective Communication During Game Development
Renaissance of Business in Health Care and the Video Game Sector
Start Up 101 – 20 Years Later
Great Game, Wrong Foundation: A Studio Audit for Indie Founders
When Your Voice Shakes: Building Safety in the Studio Trenches
D2C in 2026: How New Platform Policies Unlock Even Greater Opportunity for Web Stores
How To Achieve High Quality, Performant Lighting in URP and Unity 6
The State of Game Funding: Trends, Tactics, and Opportunities
Responding to Unprecedented Climate
Funding the Future of Canadian Game Development
Advancing AI Game Development with AMD Schola and GPUOpen
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.
8:30 am
9:15 am
9:30 am
11:00 am
1:30 pm
Registration (All Day)
Indie Pitch Competition presented by Ubisoft
Ask Games Lawyers Anything: This Normally Costs Money
Unpacking the OP Financial Strategy: Deep Dive & Open Q&A
8:30 am
9:15 am
11:00 am
1:30 pm
Registration (All Day)
Designing Backwards: Creating Cauldrons for ‘Horizon Forbidden West’
Game Audio Round Table
The AI Adoption Gap: Bridging Strategy and Reality in Games Leadership
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 & Title
Kick off XP26 with Producer Jason Lepine and the premiere of the new opening title sequence created in collaboration with Soft Rains.
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 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
Unpacking the OP Financial Strategy: Deep Dive & Open Q&A
Following our morning session on Building an OP Cashflow Strategy, this roundtable offers a dedicated forum to break down the complexities of Canadian tax, SR&ED,
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