GDC Europe 2011 Reveals Keynote From Wooga Founder Begemann

Author: by Staff

GDC Europe organizers have announced that Wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann will give a keynote for the conference's Business & Marketing track, offering insight into his firm's major success in the Facebook game market. This keynote is the first to be announced for the 2011 Game Developers Conference Europe, which will take place August 15-17, and is located in Cologne, Germany alongside Gamescom, the leading European trade and consumer show. Begemann will examine the methods and design principles that go into the creation of the most popular free-to-play titles on social networks, such as Wooga's own Diamond Dash and Happy Hospital. The Berlin, German-headquartered firm, which just received $24 million in funding, currently holds the third largest number of active game users on Facebook worldwide, with almost 30 million monthly unique players. "Wooga’s success is a testament to Europe’s pervasive social and browser games economy, and Jens’ insight as a keynote presenter for the Business & Marketing track will prove to be incredibly valuable and timely," said Frank Sliwka, Vice President of European Business Development and Event Director of GDC Europe. Multiple major GDC Europe 2011 keynotes are due to be revealed over the next few weeks for the event, which is part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website. In addition to the Main Conference, which this keynote is a part of, GDC Europe has added notable Summits on social games, smartphone & tablet games, indie games and community management to the existing line-up this year. Other recent announcements for GDC Europe include talks from Vatra Games' Matthew Seymour and Brian Gomez on the future of Silent Hill, and Epic's Tanya Jessen on developing Bulletstorm for a global audience. GDC Europe organizers also unveiled a handful of talks within the show's Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, as well as a design-focused talk with Jason VandenBergh on how to maintain creativity when working with established IP. The conference, taking place Monday through Wednesday August 15-17, 2011 in Cologne, Germany, aims to present the leading game industry event for developers, consumers, publishers and trade professionals. For more information on GDC Europe as the event takes shape, please visit the official GDC Europe website, or subscribe to updates from the new GDC Europe-specific news page in RSS form, official Twitter page, or official Facebook page.