GDC Europe 2014 adds major talks from Amazon and Epic Games

In the wake of last week's announcement that industry veterans Teut Weidemann and Don Daglow would be joining the roster of GDC Europe 2014 speakers, we're pleased to debut two more notable sessions for the major European game conference, which is being held in Germany this August. The event will include topics spanning AAA through mobile gaming and indie, both technical and business-focused. The pair of talks we're announcing today cover both the design and the business of games, and they should include learnings for the entire community. Organized by UBM Tech Game Network, GDC Europe, now in its sixth year in Germany, will run Monday through Wednesday, August 11-13 at the Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany, co-located with Europe's biggest video game trade and public show gamescom. On the design front, Epic Games senior designer Jim Brown is coming to GDC Europe 2014 to give a frank talk about his personal successes and failures that should help designers of all skill levels use analytics tools more effectively. During his session, titled "The Importance of Everything: A Crash Course in Design-Related Analytics," Brown plans to guide attendees through the best way to interpret analytical data culled from tools and playtests to make the best game possible, using examples pulled from his experience working on games like Gears of War: Judgement. Business-minded developers will appreciate the "How the Top 50 Succeed with IAP" talk from Amazon developer evangelist Mike Hines. Hines claims that the top 50 most profitable apps in Amazon's app store are using in-app purchasing systems in ways that many developers don't consider, and he's planning to showcase a bunch of data gathered by Amazon's analytics tools to show developers how a player's purchasing behavior varies based on what kind of game you make and how much you charge for it. Hines is also hoping to offer some tips on ethically designing games that can be profitable via IAP and provide advice to developers looking to learn from the success of the top developers in Amazon's marketplace. Of course, these are just some of the many exciting sessions that will be announced for GDC Europe 2014 in the coming weeks, and early birds can register for GDC Europe 2014 by July 16 to save 200 euros on an All Access Pass. In addition, this year marks the GDC Europe debut of the Student Pass, a more affordable alternative to the All Access Pass created specifically for qualified students interested in learning and networking at GDC Europe 2014 - as well as the return of the Indie Games Summit pass. All GDC Europe passes also allow visitors to attend Gamescom from Wednesday to Friday. For more information, please visit the GDC Europe website. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech