This presentation will detail how and why teams should craft immersive narratives that remain specific, clear, and ready to evolve. From the brainstorming process—stress-testing ideas on colleagues and refining concepts before pitching them—to embracing a hive-mindset that fosters creativity and cross-department collaboration, discover how to build a LiveOps narrative that keeps players invested by:

• Mastering the art of narrative clarity while maintaining the flexibility needed for LiveOps storytelling.
• Stress-testing story ideas through internal collaboration to refine concepts before executive pitches.
• Embracing constructive feedback and assessing what changes will have the greatest impact on the narrative development.

Chris Lovick

Story Director
Tactile Games

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Creating a distinct and consistent visual identity is essential for a successful LiveOps game. Panellists will outline their best practice and strategies for establishing a memorable visual art identity, maintaining aesthetic consistency, and achieving clarity that satisfies players by:

• Establishing a visual hierarchy to enhance the player experience and visual satisfaction.
• Utilising automated tools and AI to streamline content production, while making the most of your talented team and managing player feedback.
• Managing budgets effectively to deliver quality visuals without compromising on impact.

Rachele Doimo

Art Director
Square Enix

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Alex Perkins

Art and Technical Art Director
Avalanche Studios - Liverpool

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In the fast-paced world of LiveOps, localisation must keep up with constant content updates and evolving cultural trends. This session will explore a variety of ways studios can successfully integrated technological automation into their localisation workflow, simultaneously improving efficiency, maintaining quality, and engaging players while also navigating the legal risks of automation by:

• Implementing technology-driven localisation tools such, as machine translation and AI, to streamline content updates and reduce manual workload.
• Mitigating legal and technical risks associated with automated workflows.
• Balancing automation with quality control in LiveOps localisation.

Tamara Tirjak

Head of Localisation
Frontier Developments

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Ewa Dacko

Localization Team Lead
Ten Square Games

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In this session, we'll explore how a well-established studio with a globally recognised IP has evolved its live ops strategy over time, adjusted to a growing player base, and adapted to changing player expectations. Drawing from a use case of live ops evolution, we'll touch on:

• Outlining steps studios can take to successfully evolve live ops strategy.
• Expanding live ops games onto other platforms and adapting to cross-platform challenges.
• Catering to a variety of skill levels as the player base grows.

Matthieu Burleraux

Senior Director, Puzzle Games
Rovio Entertainment

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This session will delve into the critical differences between moving live ops games involving in-house IPs versus third-party IPs, into a self-sustaining model. We’ll examine the unique challenges, such as:

• Evaluating the distinct challenges and opportunities when handling in-house and third-party IPs.
• Implementing effective strategies to maintain quality and consistency across self-sustained games.
• Maintaining third-party stakeholder expectations during the shift.

Session to be announced

This talk by Michael Schade, Co-Founder & CEO of ROCKFISH Games, will provide an in-depth analysis of how free and paid content updates for EVERSPACE 2 have performed from a Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) perspective. He will explore the strategic approaches used to balance these updates and how they’ve impacted player engagement, monetization, and long-term retention. Attendees will learn to balance base game engagement via free updates and creating value through paid content by:

• Implementing effective strategies for balancing free and paid content in a GaaS model.
• Using metrics to track the performance of content updates and their impact on player retention.
• Outlining lessons learned from EVERSPACE 2’s journey that can be applied to other games within the GaaS space.

Michael Schade

CEO & Co-Founder
ROCKFISH Games

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This presentation will introduce a universal framework for designing a monthly Live Ops events calendar for mid-core games. Poiasnyk will refer to their own games as well as similar titles. He will try to create a step-by-step algorithm that synergises unique offers, in-game events, and promotional campaigns into a cohesive meta-layer. The goal is to provide actionable guidelines that boost in-game KPIs, while offering a scalable template that can be adapted across various projects. 

Chapters:

• Introduction & Objectives: Overview of the importance of a unified Live Ops strategy and the goals of the presentation.
• Live Ops Fundamentals & Meta-Loops: Explanation of key Live Ops elements and the concept of meta-loops in Live Ops.
• Example and Best Practices: What the games have in common in terms of patterns and successful tactics.
• Developing the Universal Events Calendar Algorithm: Step-by-step guide on constructing the framework and why it works.
• Conclusion & Key Recommendations: Summary and recommendations.

Poiasnyk Pavlo

Director of LiveOps Department
Plarium

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Creating a robust game system and economy is an essential part of operating live games. In this Talking Tom case study, Mykola Akulov, will not only dive into how to design a balanced resource flow and economy that enhances the player experience and maximises monetisation, but he will also outline actionable steps to take if your initial system design doesn’t deliver the desired results. Gain a deeper understanding of:

• Designing a seamless resource flow that supports both progression and monetisation.
• Balancing in-game currencies and rewards to maintain player satisfaction and retention.
• Adapting and refining your game’s economy if initial designs doesn’t to meet expectations.

Mykola Akulov

Principal Lead Monetization Designer
Outfit7

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Many studios need to make the most of their resources, sometimes while restructuring their teams, and continue to launch successful titles and features on budget. In this session Alexander Rehm, Director of Live Ops at People Can Fly Studios, will explore how their studio navigates resource allocation, makes the most of opportunity, and scales both their teams and games while meeting growing player demand by:

• Maximising limited resources to rebuild and drive development momentum.
• Prioritising what objectives matter most.
• Scaling teams and LiveOps strategically to sustain long-term growth and player engagement.

Alexander Rehm

Director of Live Operations
People can Fly

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Elisa Olmedo - Associate Production Director, led a strategic shift in ways of working within the Core Gameplay area of Farm Heroes Saga by re-organising the team into smaller, agile 'pods'. This presentation will explore not only how this model helps the team manage limited resources and increases visibility across all roles, but also how building a great team culture is an essential first step in an organisational change by:

• Enabling team members to gain a better understanding of cross-team strategies, goals, and approaches.
• Maximising efficiency and resource management through a structured, cohort-based approach.
• Drawing a connection between their shift to a pod-model and success of the team.

Elisa Olmedo

Associate Production Director
King

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