Busan is good

Indie Games from Around the World Come to Busan... Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 Opens!

내용

Busan Metropolitan City, led by Mayor Chun Jae-soo, will host the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 (BIC Festival 2026) at BEXCO for three days from tomorrow, August 14, through August 16, together with the Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency and the Busan Indie Connect Festival Organizing Committee.

Held annually in Busan since 2015, the Busan Indie Connect Festival is Asia’s largest indie game event, bringing together indie games from Korea and around the world in one place.

An indie game is an experimental game of various genres and formats developed independently of mainstream commercial capital, often with a limited budget.

The slogan for this year’s event, “BUFF YOUR INDIE SPIRIT,” represents the process through which visitors and developers communicate, discover and connect with the indie spirit, foster its growth, and ultimately strengthen, or “buff,” it.

Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 received 856 indie game submissions from 57 countries, a 44% increase from the previous year. Following category-specific evaluations, 332 titles from 42 countries were ultimately selected for exhibition at the venue.

For the competitive General and Rookie divisions, 22 judges conducted evaluations over a three-month period to select the titles to be exhibited. For Connect Pick, a non-competitive category, selections were made through voting by Big Connectors with an understanding of indie games, incorporating the perspectives of gamers and visitors into the exhibition lineup.

The offline exhibition and hands-on programs will run from tomorrow, August 14, through August 16. Each day will be designated either a “Business Day” or a “Festival Day,” combining opportunities for industry professionals with engaging experiences for the general public.

On the opening day, August 14, the program will feature business matching focused on networking among industry professionals, as well as the Busan Indie Wave Conference, where participants can share and discuss trends in the game industry.

On August 15 and 16, the weekend “Festival Days” will feature indie game exhibitions and hands-on programs for visitors.

The exhibition venue will also offer a variety of auxiliary programs and spaces, including stage events, an event zone, a merchandise zone, and live streaming. Rest areas for developers and visitors, as well as a pop-up area featuring local Busan food, will also be available.

The BIC Awards, the festival’s official awards program, will announce finalists in major categories at 5:00 p.m. on August 14, immediately following the Busan Indie Wave Conference. On the final day, August 16, the winners will be selected based in part on on-site voting results, followed by an awards ceremony and the festival’s closing ceremony.

Even after the offline event concludes, the online exhibition and hands-on programs will continue through August 28 on the official website, bicfest.org. Further information about the event is also available at bicfest.org.

In particular, Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 will pursue an initiative to expand indie game intellectual property through YouTube Playables as part of a strategic collaboration with YouTube, broadening the reach of the indie game ecosystem.

YouTube Playables is a service that allows users to instantly play games with a single click without installing or downloading a separate app. The BIC Organizing Committee will pilot seven outstanding indie game titles from five companies that it has independently reviewed, significantly improving accessibility for users worldwide.

Meanwhile, the official Busan Indie Connect Festival YouTube channel recently surpassed 100,000 subscribers and received a Silver Creator Award, demonstrating its strong public reach. Through this collaboration, the festival plans to further accelerate the promotion of indie games and expand their connections with global audiences.

Mayor Chun Jae-soo said, “Now in its 12th year, the Busan Indie Connect Festival is a key foundation for Busan’s rise as a global hub for indie games. Busan Metropolitan City will continue to expand its support for revitalizing the creative ecosystem for indie games, a key growth driver of the future content industry, and for helping them advance into global markets.”