GameDev Fest 2026

On 17 July 2026 Astana Hub hosted GameDev Fest 2026, Kazakhstan's games industry festival, under the motto “Systemic development of GameDev in Kazakhstan”. It was organised by Astana Hub and the Creative Industries Alliance of Kazakhstan (CIAQ), with GameDev Center on the organising team. Major studios, indie developers, startups, investors, educators and artists came together in one space.

All day long visitors could explore a game zone with indie projects, the Authors' Alley with comics, posters, illustration and digital art, a VR zone and the Demo Alley, where leading Kazakhstan studios and independent teams showed their games. The indie zone featured GameDev Center residents, the NU and KBTU labs, Visual Floss and Akira studios, Aipreneurs startups and creators from across the country, including teams that came from Almaty.

The VR zone showed two games by Kazakhstan teams, a VR shooter and a VR platformer. The platformer became a contest: 10 winners were chosen by their runs and received prizes from the organisers and partners.

The centrepiece of the business programme was the panel “Systemic development of GameDev in Kazakhstan and Central Asia”, moderated by Malika Igibayeva, with David Tuganov (CIAQ), Hisham Nouhou (ex-Tencent Games, Nintendo), Anton Andreychenko (GrandGames), Nyurguyaana Kolodeznikova (Mytona) and Lev Tarasov (Omnium). They discussed uniting the region's studios, a local publisher, investment and growing talent. The panel agreed that at an early stage investors look first at a team with a proven track record and a working prototype, and that the state's role is to support the industry and remove systemic barriers.

The day also included a strategy session on venture investment, a local publisher, international promotion of studios and a GameDev and esports coalition within Creative Eurasia; David Tuganov's talk “Systemic development of GameDev in Kazakhstan”, which also covered Astana Hub's programmes for game teams — the expansion of GameDev Center and the Astana Hub GamePreneurs accelerator; talks on visual novels, AI in development and gamification; the story of DarkSwitch from Olzhas Akparov (Cyber Temple); and a screening of Kazakh animation.