• Gaming Backend Platforms: Exploring how robust backend solutions enable the seamless development and delivery of new live service games.
• Architecting for Scale: Designing scalable systems to ensure stability and performance from initial launch to long-term success.
• Maintaining Stability During Player Surges: Best practices for managing unpredictable spikes in player activity while maintaining seamless gameplay.
• Cloud and Server Architecture: Leveraging cloud and server technologies to support competitive and large-scale gaming experiences.

• Architecting for Scale - From Launch to Long-Term Success / Maintaining Stability During Player Surges and Beyond

• Strengthening Operational Resilience and Observability: Integrating SRE practices, end-to-end observability, and robust incident response processes to enhance system reliability, automate recovery, and safeguard the player experience.
• Aligning Infrastructure and Availability Goals: Evaluating cloud, on-premises, and hybrid solutions while defining shared availability KPIs across product and central tech teams to enable data-driven decisions and cohesive live operations.
• Fostering a LiveOps Culture: Embedding resilience as a core principle, shifting organizational mindsets, and empowering cross-functional teams to prioritize reliability and operational excellence in game development and deployment.

Sigtryggur Sigurdsson

Head of Resilience
Scopely

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Max Stewart

Director, Software Engineering - Live and Game Operations
Riot Games

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• Who are the customers, and what do they think is fun?
• Battle Pass, love it, leave it, or evolve it?
• How do we keep an engaging narrative across a long Live Service plan?

Donovan Kennedy

Design Director
Jackalyptic Games

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Keywords Studios' end-to-end Player Engagement solutions combine cutting-edge AI technology with human expertise to deliver exceptional player support, trust and safety, VIP growth, and community management. Our global team of gaming specialists collaborates seamlessly with yours, leveraging our proprietary digital support platform, Helpshift, to enhance player satisfaction. Our world-class teams are dedicated to keeping your players safe, supported, and happy, ensuring thriving gaming communities and driving VIP growth. We offer a personalized, data-driven approach that fosters player loyalty and delivers measurable results.

• Identify emerging trends, gaps in player experiences, and untapped niches to design live games that resonate deeply with evolving player expectations.
• Production Direction: Develop comprehensive, long-term game plans that include robust content pipelines tailored for live service games, ensuring sustainability and adaptability over time.
• Meeting Player Expectations: Align game products with evolving player desires, emphasizing continuous updates, innovation, and delivering experiences that resonate.
• Designing for Longevity: Create replayable mechanics, evolving progression systems, and monetization models that enhance, rather than disrupt, gameplay.
• Strategic Decision-Making: Utilize data-driven insights to synchronize development resources and live game management effectively, determining the best courses of action to maintain player satisfaction and game longevity.

Stephen Jarrett

Senior Director of Product and Strategy
Second Dinner

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Paw Larsen

Vice President of Product Management
Blizzard Entertainment

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Rikki-Lynn Vitello

External Development Director
Full Circle Studio

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• Continuous Update Deployment: Discuss best practices for seamless, ongoing updates that keep the game fresh without disrupting player experiences.
• Multiplayer Infrastructure: Examine how to build a robust multiplayer infrastructure that supports large-scale, real-time interactions while maintaining stability and performance.
• Tailoring Infrastructure to Genre Needs: Understand how to customize backend architecture to support different gameplay mechanics, player interactions, and content delivery requirements across diverse game genres.
• Ensuring Scalability and Flexibility: Learn how to design systems that are scalable and can adapt to the evolving needs of live games, from handling sudden player surges to supporting long-term, sustainable game growth.
• Considerations for designing and maintaining effective pipelines and tools that support the fast-paced demands of live service environments.

• Building and Maintaining Live Service Pipelines: Key considerations for designing and maintaining content pipelines and tools that support live service environments.
• Tooling and Asset Management: Strategies for managing assets and developing tools with a live service mindset to ensure efficient workflows.
• Stakeholder Collaboration and Impact: Understanding the roles of stakeholders in content development pipelines and their influence on the final product.
• Adapting to Remote Work Challenges: Insights and strategies for supporting effective remote work in the context of live service product development.

Adam Hafez

Project Technical Director - Tools & Pipelines
ZeniMax Online Studios

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• Combining deployment strategies to ensure scalability and game reliability.
• Integrating CI/CD pipelines with game-specific testing and validation.
• Leveraging player analytics for data-driven feature rollouts and optimization.
• Balancing rapid updates with long-term stability and player experience.
• The role of automation in live service deployment workflows.

Seth Murphy

Engineering Manager - Features and Server
Zynga Inc.

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Julie Banta

Senior Manager, Build and Release
Respawn Entertainment

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John Watson

Founder, CTO
Stoic

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• Design for sustained motivation – Leverage progression, rewards, and narrative to keep players invested.
• Evolve post-launch – Use LiveOps updates and player data to keep content fresh and relevant.
• Strengthen social dynamics – Foster community through clans, co-op, and competitive play.

Discover how live-service games can achieve scalable growth and long-term player retention by leveraging organic creator ecosystems. Gain actionable insights for live-ops and community teams to work collaboratively, maximizing the impact of in-game events and content updates.

Key Takeaways:

• Creator Codes as a Game-Changer: Unlock a powerful channel for tracking ROI, boosting player engagement, and gathering actionable data.
• Retain and Scale Your Player Base: Engage creators across all tiers to reduce player churn and foster loyalty between content drops.
• Community Attribution: Replace guesswork with precise metrics to measure how creators drive player activity and long-term engagement

Robin Åström

Founder & CEO
Wehype

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Product management is a delicate balance of intuition and analysis, strategy and adaptation. In this talk, we’ll explore ways of thinking that can put product success at risk — how data can mislead, why solution-first thinking often creates confusion and why a good idea isn't always enough. With lessons drawn from real-world experience, we’ll uncover the pitfalls that derail even the best intentions.

Max Sloan

Associate Director of Product
Treyarch (Activision Blizzard)

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• Advancing the craft of community building. Considerations on how game products are competing for player ‘time’ in an entertainment ecosystem.
• Balancing community feedback with development vision and game product direction. 
• Leveraging community engagement to drive game growth and retention.

Chris Mancil

Sr. Director of Community
Scopely

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Kraig Kujawa

Head of Product and Production
Iron Galaxy Studios

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• How robust data infrastructure enables the collection and analysis of player behavior in real-time, empowering teams to tailor experiences and enhance community engagement.
• Integrating player insights into development workflows to allow for the continuous refinement of content, game mechanics, and features to align with evolving player needs and expectations.

• What robust game data infrastructure supports real-time analytics, enabling teams to respond swiftly to player behavior and optimize in-game experiences.
• The integration of player data to drive game evolution, shape content, and refine features, ensuring alignment with player needs and improving overall engagement.

Alexander Ryabov

Head of Data Services, Business Intelligence
Wargaming.net

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• Gathering player data to give teams direction in shaping game content and features that align with player behavior and expectations.
• Use feedback loops to inform updates, refine mechanics, and align game evolution with player needs.
• Develop systems capable of handling player data and generate insightful analytics.
• Address infrastructure hurdles and human resource challenges to efficiently collect, process, and deliver actions on player data in fast-paced live game environments.

Venkatesh (Venki) Shivanna

Senior Technical Director
Electronic Arts (EA)

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• Leveraging Player Feedback: Collecting player feedback through quantitative and qualitative research, analyzing player preferences and needs to make informed decisions on delivering tailored gameplay, features, and events that resonate with different groups of players.
• Adaptive Engagement Strategies: Crafting experiences that evolve with player progression, preferences, and feedback to sustain long-term interest and satisfaction.
• Identifying Content Opportunities: Spotting in-game moments and player-driven narratives to create unique, engaging content and media opportunities that enhance immersion and drive growth.
• Community-Driven Personalization: Integrating feedback loops and user-generated content to create experiences that align with community desires and foster loyalty.

Mat Harris

Vice President of Product Management
Activision Blizzard

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Irina Malova

Director of Player insights
Wargaming

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Jacob Hoffman

Director of Product
2K

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John Smith

Head of Product
Amazon Games

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• Next Year is Now: Ensuring your games economy is supportive of your plans for years to come
• The Payers' Advantage: How to make spending feel great, while maintaining a healthy balance with non-spenders
• Finger on the Pulse: Adaptability is key, and knowing what players want when they will want it is essential to succeed

Nick Chapelas

Live Operations Director
Kabam

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• How to determine whether the game can get to growth
• Identifying and tackling debt - tech debt, product debt, design debt and operational debt
• Take a hypothesis driven approach to the roadmap while maintaining an enjoyable experience for existing players

Pawan Gaargi

Chief Product Officer
Monumental

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