If you want to understand where the games industry is heading in any given year, skip the keynotes and watch who is shaking hands in the hallways. That is the entire premise behind MeetToMatch, and the 2026 Las Vegas Edition landing at the Aria Resort & Casino from February 10 to 12 arrives at a moment when those hallway conversations matter more than usual.
Why MeetToMatch Still Commands Attention in 2026
For those unfamiliar, MeetToMatch is not a traditional gaming expo. There are no booth demos, no hands-on previews, no stage presentations with awkward audience applause. It is a pure B2B networking platform designed to connect publishers, investors, and developers through structured meetings and matchmaking sessions. Think of it as speed dating for deal-making, except the stakes involve funding rounds, publishing agreements, and the futures of studios that may or may not survive the next 18 months.
That last point is not dramatic flair. The games industry in early 2026 is still processing the aftershocks of the layoff waves that defined 2024 and 2025. Studios that survived are leaner and hungrier. Independent developers who lost corporate backing are actively shopping for new publishing partners or investment lifelines. And publishers, increasingly cautious about greenlighting projects in a post-boom market, are looking for lower-risk bets with proven teams. MeetToMatch exists precisely for these collisions. The Las Vegas Edition, positioned alongside the broader DICE and industry calendar in the same city during the same window, gives it a gravitational pull that smaller standalone events struggle to match.
What the Las Vegas Edition Offers
The event runs three days at the Aria Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Registration tiers range from roughly $210 to $585 (listed in euros at €202.54 to €561.19), depending on access level. It is strictly onsite and strictly business-to-business. No consumer-facing programming, no influencer showcases, no press conferences. Just meetings.
What makes the format effective is the matchmaking algorithm that pairs attendees based on what they are looking for and what they bring to the table. A mid-sized studio seeking a publishing deal for a co-op survival game can be matched with publishers actively scouting that genre. An investor interested in mobile-first studios in emerging markets can filter accordingly. The system eliminates a significant amount of the randomness that plagues traditional conference networking, where you might spend three days collecting business cards from people who were never going to return your email.
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Dates | February 10 to 12, 2026 |
| Location | Aria Resort & Casino, Las Vegas |
| Format | Onsite, B2B only |
| Cost | €202.54 to €561.19 (approx. $210 to $585) |
| Registration | meettomatch.com/lasvegas |
The Timing Tells a Story
February in Las Vegas has become an unofficial gathering point for games industry leadership. The annual DICE Summit typically draws executives and creative directors to the same stretch of the Strip during this window, and MeetToMatch’s decision to anchor here is not accidental. It creates a density of decision-makers in one city during one week that few other events outside of GDC or Gamescom can replicate.
For smaller studios especially, that density is the value proposition. Flying to Las Vegas for a single three-day event might be a tough sell for a bootstrapped team. Flying to Las Vegas for a week where you can attend DICE sessions, take MeetToMatch meetings, and grab dinner with a potential investor who happens to be in town anyway is a fundamentally different calculus. The event does not exist in isolation, and it is smart enough not to pretend otherwise.
Who Should Actually Go
If you are a developer with a playable build or a polished pitch deck and you need publishing, funding, or distribution partnerships, this is one of the more efficient uses of your travel budget in early 2026. If you are on the publishing or investment side, the matchmaking system means your schedule fills with relevant meetings instead of cold intros. The ROI math is straightforward in a way that larger, noisier events cannot always guarantee.
That said, MeetToMatch is not for everyone. If you are early in development with no concrete materials to show, the structured meeting format may work against you. The people across the table expect substance. Showing up with a concept doc and enthusiasm is not the same as showing up with a vertical slice and a revenue projection.
The games industry has spent two years tightening its belt. Events like MeetToMatch exist because the deals still need to happen, even when the mood is cautious. The question worth asking heading into this Las Vegas Edition is whether the conversations at the Aria this February will reflect an industry ready to invest again, or one still figuring out what comes next?
