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European develop events ramp up with speakers

GDC Europe and Develop in Brighton finalise speaker lists in time for summer

Organisers of the GDC Europe and Develop in Brighton events have announced a new wave of speakers, as the two conferences prepare for their summer conferences.

Develop in Brighton is due to run July 20 to 21, with its most recently confirmed speaker being film artist and conceptual designer Iain McCaig, who worked on the Star Wars prequels and a number of James Bond titles for Electronic Arts. McCaig's Showtime! presentation will discuss visual storytelling and how to create iconic designs.

Other speakers include EA Sports senior vice president of worldwide development Andrew Wilson, who will present the opening Evolve keynote, entitled 'Moving the Goalposts – Bringing Social Experiences to all Game Platforms'.

Moshi Monsters creator Michael Acton Smith will present the closing Evolve keynote, with a presentation called 'Lessons Learned Building Moshi Monsters to 50m Users'.

Laura Fryer, vice president and general manager for WB Games Seattle will present the business track keynote with her presentation 'Managing the Mystery' - where she will discuss how to support and lead the creative process within the constraints of business.

A full list of speakers, also including Relentless Software co-founder Andrew Eades, Black Rock Studio director Nick Baynes and Unity Technologies lead graphics programmer Aras Pranckevicius, can be found at the official website,

The latest speakers announced for GDC Europe include Playdom vice president of global distribution Paul LaFontaine, who will take part in the new Social Games Summit event with a presentation entitled 'Social Gaming is no Long Just Facebook' - which will focus on non-English networks such as Odnaklassniki.ru and QQ.com.

GC Europe is due to run from August 15 to 17, alongside the annual gamescom trade and public event in Cologne, Germany.

Other Summit speakers include Playfish UK general manager John Earner, who will discuss rising production values on Facebook and other social platforms in a talk, entitled 'Evolution of the Development Process in Social Gaming'.

In the Visual Arts track Dominic Cianciolo, cinematic director at Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm Studios, will give a presentation named 'The Cinematics of Mortal Kombat: Re-Booting a Legend'.

Further information can be found at the official website, with additional speaker announcements expected in the coming weeks.