Day 1 - Tuesday 28th April, 2026

Launching a successful live service game requires monitoring the right metrics at the right time, yet many studios struggle with fragmented data and delayed insights during critical launch windows. This session introduces a comprehensive framework built on four critical pillars, and by integrating these data streams into a unified pipeline, studios can identify issues early, make data-driven decisions quickly, and transition from launch firefighting to sustainable operations by:

• Assessing their 4 S's framework – Sales, Sentiment, Stability, and Stickiness – that provides a complete health check that identify leading and lagging indicators to give studios early warning signals before small issues become critical failures.
• Unifying data pipelines to eliminate team silos by enabling all stakeholders to view the same real-time metrics, decision-making accelerates from days to hours and enabling rapid response during critical launch windows.
• Implementing pre-launch preparation, which is non-negotiable and should establish baseline thresholds, automated alerts, and clear escalation paths before go-live to transform reactive firefighting into proactive optimization.

Hao Liang

Director of Platform Engineering
Tencent Games Global

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Great games aren’t built on instinct alone — they’re built on understanding. During this session targeted towards analysts, producers, designers, marketers, and anyone interested in making data a practical, creative tool for better games and smarter decisions, attendees explore how to turn raw data into meaningful insights that guide smarter game design, marketing, and live-ops decisions. From setting up the right data structure to identifying the metrics that truly matter, delegates will learn how to move beyond dashboards and use analytics to shape player experiences and business outcomes. Emma will cover:

• Assessing how to structure and organize your game data for clarity and scalability.
• Applying practical methods to analyze data effectively (without getting lost in the noise).
• Turning insights into real product and marketing actions that drive engagement and growth.
• Reviewing examples of how studios use data to refine gameplay loops, improve retention, and optimize campaigns.

Emma Alvarez

Studio Director of Data Analytics
Big Huge Games

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Session to be Announced

Matt Sharpe

Creative Director of Advertising
Zynga

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Rich Vogel, a Strategic Advisor, will outline why so many recent GAAS titles fail to survive beyond their first year. Using real-world examples, this thought-provoking session will highlight how to avoid common pitfalls and create live service experiences that resonate with players long-term by:

• Involving the community early to build experiences that resonate and sustain engagement.
• Creating agile content pipelines that deliver consistent, high-quality updates beyond launch.
• Prioritizing core gameplay during pre-production to ensure a strong and unique foundation.

Rich Vogel

Founder & Studio Head
T-Minus Zero Entertainment

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Session to be Announced

Session to be Announced

Novy Dhillon, Technical Director at Fortis Games, will explore how studios can have confidence in that they’ve made the right architectural and infrastructure decisions as they move from early prototyping to full production and the launch of a live service title. He will break down how different game types, scaling needs, and backend components influence architectural choices, and how teams can design systems that scale horizontally without inflating their infrastructure footprint. Using real examples, Novy will illustrate how thoughtful planning and adaptive engineering lead to smoother launches, lower costs, and better long term player experiences. Learn more about:

• Designing architecture that evolves naturally from prototype to production while supporting long term scalability.
• Balancing performance, cost, and flexibility by choosing the right scaling strategies for each backend component.
• Reducing infrastructure overhead through smarter system design and efficient horizontal scaling practices.

Novy Dhillon

Technical Director
Fortis Games

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Maxfield Stewart, Director of Software Engineering for Live and Game Operations at Riot Games, will share how the studio confronted skyrocketing telemetry costs while ingesting over a petabyte of data each month. This session dives into the cultural and technical shifts that turned cost management into a shared responsibility, from process tweaks to accountability frameworks. Attendees will walk away with practical insights into:

• Changing vendors, adjusting technical capabilities, and instituting business review processes to make costs accountable.
• Producing and breaking down data to provide insight into metrics collected at scale, including raw logs and cardinality costs.
• Achieving dramatic cost reductions while addressing cultural challenges and maintaining engineering freedom.

Maxfield Stewart

Director, Software Engineering - Live and Game Operations
Riot Games

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Andrew Gambel, Director of Product – Live Services at Sony Interactive Entertainment, shares how his team builds organizational bridges between product, data, user research, and development without compromising the unique strengths of each discipline. This session explores:

• Creating alignment across disciplines while preserving team autonomy and expertise.
• Implementing hypothesis-driven development to guide experimentation and validate player impact.
• Building communication frameworks that support collaboration and reduce friction across functions.

Andrew Gambel

Director of Product - Live Services
Sony Interactive Entertainment

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Decline is part of the product lifecycle…or is it? Running multiple live service games on a single platform can unlock major efficiencies, but it’s not without its trade-offs. In this session led by Pawan Gaargi, Chief Product Officer at Monumental, he will share examples from their playbook outlining why their studio has chosen this approach, what they’re evolving, and how they balance strategic goals with backend complexity by:

• Tackling ‘Foundational Hygiene,’ ‘Opportunity Identification,’ and ‘Roadmap Execution.’
• Navigating technical challenges like scalability, data separation, and update management.
• Evolving platform strategy to support growth, flexibility, and long-term sustainability.

Pawan Gaargi

Chief Product Officer
Monumental

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Jonathan Lander

Former Senior Vice President, Global Product and Publishing Operations
Bethesda Softworks

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