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For the first time, the Ukrainian Games Festival was held offline in San Francisco, USA, on March 10 and 11. It was organized by the Palaye Publishing Agency, the Leleka Foundation, and the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco.
Over the course of two days, more than 800 visitors had the opportunity to play ten games from Ukrainian independent studios, take part in a discussion panel with representatives of GSC Game World, Burny Games, and ID@Xbox, and taste traditional Ukrainian borsch. The charity auction and other activities during the festival raised over $9600 for Leleka Foundation. The funds raised will be used to purchase ten medical backpacks for Ukrainian medics at the front line.
The Ukrainian Games Festival in San Francisco was the first event held directly during the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the world’s largest video game industry conference, which annually brings together about 30,000 professionals from around the world.
Opening the festival, Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco Dmytro Kushneruk said: “GDC is one of the key tech events in San Francisco. Ukraine has long been known for its talented developers, but this year we managed to present the Ukrainian gaming industry as a separate sector of the creative economy for the first time. This is another step in promoting Ukraine as a modern technological power.”
Event organizer Igor Pospischny (CEO, Palaye) commented: “For the first time, we didn’t just showcase games, but created a new cultural experience for visitors. Their enthusiasm for the variety of games was combined with the support of our developers. We plan to continue representing the Ukrainian gaming industry to the global community.”
Leleka Foundation co-founder and organizer Svitlana Kostylova emphasized: “The need for medical supplies at the front is extremely acute. This event showed how the government, private companies and NGOs can work together to save lives.”
Palaye has been holding the Ukrainian Games Festival since 2022 as part of the Ukrainian Games initiative to support Ukrainian developers. For several years, the online version of the festival on Steam has been the largest event for Ukrainian studios with millions of views. Since 2025, offline spaces of Ukrainian Games Festival have been organized at exhibitions in the United States and Lithuania.
Among the games presented: Tukoni: Forest Keepers (Dream Operator), STONKS-9800 (Ternox Games), Hollow Home (Twigames), Back to Hearth (Podoba Interactive), Becastled (Mana Potion Games), DDoD (The Future Entertainment Company), Floralis (SolidCore Games), Warfactory (Terykon Games), Jitter (Berko Games), and Titan Chaser (Stas Shostak).
The discussion panel was titled “Navigating Games Distribution Through Uncertain Times” and featured: Maria Grigorovich (Executive Producer & Head of Creative, GSC Game World), Elena Lobova (Head of Strategic Partnerships, Burny Games), Chloe Giusti (Regional Lead Americas/ANZ, ID@Xbox) and moderator Irena Pereira (CEO & Creative Director, Unleashed Games).
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