As live service games scale, studios must decide which tools to develop in-house and which to source from third parties. Striking the right balance can impact everything from agility to long-term costs, but making the wrong choice can drain resources or limit flexibility. This panel will dive into how these decisions affect budgets, impact development efficiency, and a studio’s ability to keep up with evolving player needs:

• Evaluating the cost-benefit trade-offs of building proprietary tools versus licensing third-party solutions.
• Aligning technology choices with long-term studio goals to maintain efficiency and adaptability.
• Managing budgets effectively by understanding the hidden costs of in-house development and external dependencies.

Kazimierz Łuska

VP Client Engineering
Tripledot Studios

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Lily Zhu

Senior Technology Product Manager
Tencent

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Sergei Solokhin

Principal Animation Engineer
Build A Rocket Boy

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Dive into the complex cloud infrastructure that powers Sea of Thieves, a AAA live service game with over 40 million players served by a web of microservices dealing with hundreds of billions of requests per month. This session will explore the architecture of a large-scale live service stack, focusing on resilient systems design and challenges Rare Ltd have faced along their journey such as:

• Handling large releases and mitigating incidents.
• Identifying the best data management techniques for their studio, including aging out data to cheaper storage while maintaining player progress.
• Migrating large amounts of data in an environment that is almost-always online.

Matt Cavanagh

Lead of Live Services
Rare Ltd

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As younger audiences shift towards platforms like Roblox and FIFA, studios must rethink how they define and deliver live service experiences. This session explores the urgency of capturing player value within seconds, the cultural shift in monetisation expectations, and how to empower monetisation teams without stigma. Learn why players—not studios—now decide what live service means, and how that impacts content, cadence, and revenue strategy.

• Grabbing player attention and value within the first 10 seconds to maximise monetisation potential.
• Adapting monetisation strategies to reflect generational shifts and platform preferences.
• Empowering teams to build monetisation organically and authentically within live service ecosystems.

Louise Roberts

Monetisation Lead
Rare Ltd

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Patrick Moran

Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder
Look North World

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As more studios explore Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) models, the benefits of deeper player engagement, revenue control, and brand ownership are clear – but so are the challenges. This panel, moderated by the Founder and Director of Tebex, Lee McNeil, will examine the biggest hurdles of launching high-converting D2C platforms, as well as:

• Assessing the key benefits of offering a D2C channel to players.
• Outlining common challenges studios face when building their own infrastructure.
• Future-proofing solutions amid evolving player behaviours, platform shifts, and global regulations.

Lee McNeil

Founder and Director
Tebex

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This talk explores the implementation of lean GaaS methodologies in a single-player AA title, using EVERSPACE 2 as a case study. It covers a clever mix of free and paid DLC to boost long-term engagement, strategic use of Early Access, platform relations, and community building through Twitch and YouTube. Key insights include pricing strategy, wishlist conversion, performance marketing, and revenue breakdowns backed by real KPIs and sales data. Join for a detailed postmortem for studios balancing depth, trust, and visibility without a dedicated live ops team. Learn more about:

• Applying a lean GaaS model to single-player games without requiring a live-ops team.
• Combining free and paid content to gain attention, drive retention, and maximize revenue.
• Optimising pricing strategy and adapt to community feedback.

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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The role of UX design in live service games has evolved dramatically over the past 5-7 years, shifting from vague and undefined to a critical component of player retention and monetisation. This session discusses how studios may begin the task of quantifiably measuring the success of UX design through key metrics, the tools needed for accurate tracking, and why investing in UX is essential for long-term growth by:

• Understanding how the UX designer role has adapted to the demands of live service gaming, which in turn enables studios to leverage new opportunities.
• Identifying the right metrics and tools necessary to quantify UX success and improve player retention.
• Leveraging UX insights to inform design decisions and create a more personalised player experience.

Roman Bachilo

Founder & CEO
Potaco Games

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In this session, Muhsin Yaramis, will reveal how deploying an efficient operational framework not only boosts cross-functional team collaboration and elevates player experiences, but also ensures launch and operational readiness from pre- and post-launch operations to sunset. We'll dive into strategies for streamlining live operations, advocating for player-centricity, and risk management practices. Attendees will hear about applicable and proven best practices such as:

• LiveOps Excellence: Learn how to deploy efficient frameworks that enhance cross-functional collaboration and ensure seamless launch and operational readiness from pre-launch to sunset.
• Player-Centric Strategies: Discover actionable strategies to elevate player experiences through a dedicated, player-centric approach integrated into live operations.
• Framework for Anticipating and Mitigating Risks to safeguard player experiences, employees, and brand integrity.

Muhsin Yaramis

Director Customer Experience - Global Publishing
Ubisoft

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This presentation will explore not only how a segmented 'pod' team model helps 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.