SLICE 2026 Recap: 900+ Attendees, Powerful Big Ideas, and 10 Years of Seattle Indies
What an incredible day! SLICE 2026 has officially wrapped, and we are still buzzing from the energy, passion, and creativity brought by the Pacific Northwest game development community.
This year’s conference was extra special as we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Seattle Indies as a non-profit organization. Organized entirely by a dedicated team of volunteers, SLICE 2026 proved once again what makes our regional community so vibrant, resilient, and uniquely supportive. Keep an eye on the website and our YouTube channel for when we post all of the talks that were recorded at SLICE!
Here is a look back at the moments, numbers, and milestones that made SLICE 2026 unforgettable.
📊 SLICE 2026 By The Numbers
- 900+ Attendees: Developers, studio heads, students, investors, and platform representatives filled every hall.
- 46 Sessions & Roundtables: Full-room discussions covering everything from Dwarf Fortress codebases to studio legal triage and career resilience.
- 20+ Games Featured: The Playtest Club area was packed all day with attendees playtesting and giving feedback on upcoming local titles.
- 100% Full Speed Networking: Fast-paced connection sessions brought creators, publishers, and service providers together for maximum collision rate.
- The Big Indie Pitch: PocketGamer Connects brought rapid-fire pitches to a panel of expert judges, giving indie devs direct feedback and editorial visibility.
🏛️ Opening Remarks That Made Headlines: “Games as Soft Power”
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs kicked off the conference with a rousing opening address that caught national attention, leading to a featured piece in Game Developer.
Secretary Hobbs framed video games not merely as entertainment, but as a critical form of cultural diplomacy and “soft power” that projects creativity, technological leadership, and shared human stories on a global stage. His remarks set an inspiring, high-level tone for a conference dedicated to elevating local creators.
🙏 Endless Gratitude to Our Sponsors
An event of this scale, run by 100% volunteer staff, is only possible through the generosity of sponsors who believe in our community.
A huge thank you to:
- Coffee Sponsor: Phantom Friends
- Women in Games Breakfast Sponsors: K&L Gates & Ladybug Ventures
- Major Event Sponsors: Xsolla, Unity, Epic Games, WA State Dept of Commerce, AIE, Nameless Deep Motion Capture, 11 Bit Studios, Premack Rogers Downs P.C., Mirasens, Discord, DigiPen Institute of Technology, EPAM, QAG, Forge, IndieBI and Seattle Composers Alliance.
- Diversity & Matching Fund Partners: Dames4Games, LatinX in Gaming, IGDA.
- Media Partners: PocketGamer, Gamesbeat and Times of Games.
- Photography: T.O.N.E. Global
- Videography: Fix It In Prod
📣 Help Us Build SLICE 2027!
We are already thinking about how to make SLICE 2027 even better, more accessible, and more useful for every developer in our region. To do that, we need your honest feedback!
Whether you attended sessions, ran a roundtable, playtested a game, or networked over coffee, please take 5 minutes to fill out our post-event survey.
Thank you for 10 incredible years of Seattle Indies, we’ll see you at SLICE 2027!
