GDC Europe 2013 adds Sony Online community, Ages of Empire Online F2P talks

GDC Europe 2013 organizers announce new talks for the event, including an overview of Sony Online Entertainment's approach to communicating with players about MMOs, the fall and rise of Microsoft's free-to-play model for MMO Ages of Empire Online, and Applifier's survey on what drives virality for top mobile games. These talks are part of the business, marketing & management track in GDC Europe 2013, which will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany - just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event. In 'F2P the Wrong Way: Age of Empires Online,' Microsoft executive producer Kevin Perry will explain why the MMORTS' free-to-play business model suffered from a disastrous launch. Perry will also detail "how his team changed the model and the product into a successful game as a service, while the game was still live." Sony Online Entertainment global community relations director Linda Carlson will offer a broad look at the company's approach to player communication with MMO games such as PlanetSide 2 and the EverQuest franchise in 'A Perfect Storm - Managing Community Through Sea Change.' She will examine over 15 years of player history events and SOE's management of the player base, which resulted in "good or spectacularly bad effects." Lastly, founder and CEO of Everyplay developer Applifier Jussi Laakkonen will speak about what drives word of mouth in top mobile games in 'Authentic Virality: You Share if You Care.' Laakkonen believes the best way to discover a mobile game is when a friend shows or talks about one. In this lecture, he will share data points on game videos that drive discoverability, how to drive viral growth for a game, and the results of an 1800-player survey on how they find mobile games. More talks will be revealed throughout the months leading up to GDC Europe in August. The schedule builder is live with a partial list of talks already available. Early bird registration for GDC Europe 2013 is also live, with discounts up to 20% off admission. Group admission discounts are also available. For all the latest news on GDC Europe, subscribe for updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.