- Held from August 14 to 16 at BEXCO Exhibition Center 1 (Hall 2)… Exhibiting 332 indie games from 42 countries
- Hosting exhibitions of 332 indie games from 42 countries, business matching, conferences, the BIC Awards, and more.
Busan City (Mayor Jeon Jae-soo), together with the Busan Information Industry Promotion Agency and the Busan Indie Connect Festival Organizing Committee (hereinafter the BIC Organizing Committee), will host the “Busan Indie Connect Festival 2026 (BIC Festival 2026)” at BEXCO for three days from tomorrow (the 14th) to August 16.
The Busan Indie Connect Festival, held annually in Busan since 2015, is Asia’s largest indie game event where you can find domestic and international indie games* all in one place.
The slogan for this year’s (2026) event is ‘BUFF YOUR INDIE SPIRIT,’ which signifies the process of attendees and developers communicating and becoming stronger through the discovery, connection, and growth of the indie spirit.
For the Busan Indie Connect Festival (BIC) 2026, 856 indie games from 57 countries were submitted, an increase of 44 percent compared to the previous year. After judging by category, 332 works from 42 countries were finally selected and will be exhibited on-site.
For the competitive General and Rookie categories, 22 judges evaluated the entries for three months to select the exhibits, while for the non-competitive Connect Pick category, entries were selected through voting by Big Connectors, who have an understanding of indie games, reflecting the perspectives of gamers and visitors in the exhibition composition.
The offline exhibition and experience events will be held from the 14th to August 16th, and will be operated by dividing the days into ‘Business Day’ and ‘Festival Day’ to secure both industry expertise and public experience elements.
On the opening day, the 14th, ‘business (biz) matching’ focused on exchange among industry stakeholders and the ‘Busan Indie Wave Conference’ to share and communicate trends in the game industry will be held.
During the ‘Festival Day’ held over the two weekend days from the 15th to the 16th, indie game exhibitions and experience programs for visitors will be operated.
The official awards program, the ‘BIC Awards,’ will announce the nominees (finalists) for major categories on the first day, the 14th, at 5 p.m., coinciding with the conclusion of the ‘Busan Indie Wave Conference.’ Subsequently, on the final day, the 16th, awards will be presented to the works finally selected based on on-site voting results and other factors, concluding the schedule with a closing ceremony.
Even after the offline event, online exhibitions and experience events are scheduled to continue on the official website (bicfest.org) until August 28. Detailed information regarding the event can also be found on the official website (bicfest.org).
In particular, this year (2026), the Busan Indie Connect Festival (BIC) is embarking on the expansion of the indie ecosystem’s territory by launching an indie game IP expansion project based on ‘YouTubePlayables’ through a strategic collaboration with YouTube.
‘YouTube Playables’ is a service that allows users to play games immediately with a single click without installing or downloading a separate app. The BIC organizing committee has onboarded seven excellent indie games from five companies that it has verified, significantly improving accessibility for global users.
Meanwhile, the official YouTube channel of the Busan Indie Connect Festival (BIC) has proven its strong public influence by recently surpassing 100,000 subscribers and earning a ‘Silver Button,’ and plans to further accelerate the promotion of indie games and the expansion of its global reach through this collaboration.
Mayor Jeon Jae-soo stated, “The Busan Indie Connect Festival, marking its 12th anniversary this year, is a key foundation for Busan to leap forward as a mecca for global indie games,” adding, “We will continue to expand city-level support to revitalize the creative ecosystem of indie games, which are a core growth engine of the future content industry, and to facilitate their entry into the global market.”
