The inaugural North American Games Industry Summit (NAGIS) at the Edmonton Expo Centre was a success and will return bigger and better next year, according to the organizer. NAGIS was an event aimed at connecting video game developers, studios, publishers and other industry professionals. It was held two days before the start of Game Con Canada in June and included gaming-related programming, panels and networking opportunities like a developer-publisher speed pitch event. “We ended up selling our tickets out for the Year One event. We had publishers attend from all over the world,” said Chris Meilleur, the CEO of Meibel Consulting, which organizes NAGIS and Game Con Canada. Some of the publishers in attendance were Midwest Games, Snail Games, Devolver Digital and Kingsoft. “We were hoping if we could accomplish one publishing deal, then that would breed the success of this event moving forward, attached to Game Con Canada,” Meilleur said. Instead of one publishing deal happening, Meilleur says there were seven Canadian developers who got deals. He was unable to say which games received deals, as they are all currently under embargo, but said he was “really excited” by the success the event saw in its first year. Leveling up NAGIS and Game Con Game Con featured dozens of booths showcasing the works of independent (indie) game developers. Next year, the event wants to quintuple the amount of booths from 55 to 250. “There’s going to be an entire hall now dedicated to those turnkey booths, and we’ve got delegations coming from all over the world,” Meilleur said “We’re going to be heavy on the Canada side, and obviously heavy on the Alberta side, but because of that expansion, we are already talking to delegations from China, from Europe, South America.” With more developers attending Game Con, that also means more people at NAGIS. Meilleur anticipated next year to have around 2,000 attendees, compared to just under 400 this year. There will also be a third day for NAGIS, overlapping with the first day of Game Con on Friday. Planning even further ahead, in 2028, the event will have a full takeover of the Edmonton Expo Centre. That extra space might be necessary as even more fan attendees are expected in the coming years. While indie games will remain a focus of the event, bigger companies that “might not have paid attention to Canada” in the past are showing interest now, Meilleur adds. “When you get the big AAA studios that are coming (to an event) right before their game launches, that is an anchor to draw consumers in,” he said. “We have three AAA titles that are including us in their in-person activations, which includes Gamescomm Germany, PAX East, PAX West, and now Canada is not being left out, and they’re going to be at Game Con Canada next year.” The plan is still to keep the event 50 per cent gaming and tech and 50 per cent tabletop, just “much larger.” Game Con may never leave Edmonton Game Con Canada was originally only supposed to stay in Edmonton from 2024-26. Earlier this year, it was announced the convention signed a contract with the city to stay through 2031. “Game Con has been an amazing success story for Edmonton,” said Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack. If the growth and success the event has seen in Edmonton keeps up, Meilleur says there’s a “pretty good chance” Game Con will stick around even longer. “The local stakeholders are really supporting us. The city itself is supporting us heavily … after 2031, I couldn’t see us moving.” At the 2026 event, there were around 34,000 unique attendees at Game Con, compared to around 15,000 in 2024, and that number is expected to keep growing. Knack expects that the con will soon be the largest game conference in North America. “There’s a European one that happens in Germany every year. That’s probably still going to be a little bit larger, although with the growth, we could potentially rival that,” Knack added. Gamescom 2025 saw 357,000 visitors descend on Cologne, Germany. There were also 1,568 exhibitors from 72 countries and the exhibition space took up around 233,000 square metres. Gamescomm 2026 runs from Aug. 26-30. The bigger the event gets, the bigger the economic benefit for Edmonton too. “Especially with NAGIS, next year, if we’re seeing between 1,500-2,000 (guests), 90 per cent of them are coming from outside of Alberta,” Meilleur said. “We’re talking about 1,500 to 2,000 people staying for seven or eight days in Edmonton, lots of heads in beds with the hotels, people eating and that kind of fun stuff.” Knack also described the increasing interest in Game Con Canada as a “huge economic driver” for the city. In 2025, visitor spending in Alberta reached a record of $15.2 billion, according to Explore Edmonton. Of that total, $2.6 billion was spent in the Edmonton region, with the visitor economy supporting more than 125,000 local jobs. Of course, Game Con Canada wasn’t always held in Edmonton. In the past it made its home in Calgary. Part of the problem with holding a summer event there is competing with the Calgary Stampede, and Meilleur says they weren’t getting much support from the City at the time either. When they decided to look for another city to move to, Vancouver displayed interest in having the convention. “Population-wise it might have made more sense, and the offer was very very enticing to go to Vancouver,” he said. “We’re an Alberta-based company, so it’s easier for us to do it from Alberta. A lot of our contacts are here, but it was really the price point. “Getting the big companies, Intel, Asmodee and Games Workshop, to invest the way they have in us, it’s about keeping those costs low because, at first, they didn’t think that with Canada the juice was worth the squeeze.” Working with groups like Edmonton Screen and Explore Edmonton helped entice those big companies to come to the table and eventually grow the con into what it is now. “We’re only (going into) year four, and we’re already getting close to some of those bigger (attendance) numbers that you see in the United States,” Meilleur said. “We’re thinking by 2030 we should be north of 80,000 people.” Knack also touts Edmonton’s strong gaming industry as a draw for the city, in part due to BioWare being founded here. “You would have folks, at times, break off and do their own thing,” Knack said. “As the industry has evolved, it has been hard for certain companies, the large-scale companies are closing. “But that’s why we see a lot of the independent studios.” The con also learned from those first years in Edmonton about competing with events here like the Oilers Stanley Cup Final run, and has moved the event back so there won’t be any potential overlap in the future. Crafting a different fan experience Edmonton is no stranger to celebrity guests at events or in the wild, like when the four hobbits had a reunion at last year’s comic expo, or when Nathan Fillion visited the Whyte Avenue parklet named after him. This year, John Cena will even make his first western Canada fan convention appearance at the Edmonton Expo. “When you go to those conventions, you’re actually going because you know you want to get in line, you want to get an autograph,” Meilleur said. “What we’re trying to do and trying to create is something that is a little bit different, get (celebrities and guests) playing games so people can see that … it’s about the fan experience.” The past few years the con has held the Celebrity Cup with Mario Kart, where attendees would be able to see special guests compete against each other and even some lucky fans. “Even if you don’t get pulled on stage, you watch that go down, you’re not going to forget,” Meilleur said. That isn’t to say fans of guests like Deborah Ann Woll, Mark Meer and Young Dirty Bastard couldn’t get autographs if they wanted, those were available, but there was more. Picture a Jedi or Sith lord for a moment and the intricate, deadly dance of a lightsaber battle and the hours it would take to learn those movements in real life. That was something fans could actually do at the 2026 convention during lightsaber workshops held by world champion baton-twirler-turned-professional-stunt-performer Michelle C. Smith. Now, picture wandering through a magical forest or a haunted crypt, your friends and party members at your side as you’re led through a guided one-shot tabletop role-playing adventure. That was also something fans had the ability to do under the guidance of Ginny Di, a YouTuber, game writer, singer, and cosplayer, or Kelly Mclaughlin, one of the hosts of the Dungeon Dudes YouTube series. Meilleur said there will be “some pretty big talent” coming to the event next year, but expects there will be returning guests as well. Speaking of the future, Edmonton’s mayor seemed a bit forlorn that he’ll have to work on Nov. 19, the launch date for the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6. “(I’m) very much looking forward to GTA 6, and I don’t think I can book the day off work anymore like I used to back in the day,” he joked. For Meilleur’s part, he’s looking forward to Chaos Agents, which is currently in the Alpha playtest stage of development and was showcased at Game Con Canada. The upcoming autobattler-royale game is designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. Game Con Canada 2027 will be returning to Edmonton June 25-27 at the Edmonton Expo Centre with NAGIS happening June 23-25.
