Three new GDC Europe talks show a social focus

The latest additions to the GDC Europe line-up show an emphasis on exploring the social and free-to-play spheres.

The first of the three newly announced sessions comes courtesy of former BioWare Social staffer Ethan Levy. "Game Design is Business Design" will use examples from BioWare's own social games - like Dragon Age: Legends - to show how free-to-play has changed the role of game designers.

Kabam president Andrew Sheppard will give a presentation called "Freedom to Play - Unlocking Unprecedented Creativity in F2P Games", which will apparently demonstrate how companies can abalance the necessary business focus of free-to-play models with creative needs.

The third new talk is "How Draw Something absorbed 50 Million New Users, in 50 Days, with Zero Downtime", from Couchbase co-founder James Phillips.

GDC Europe runs August 13-15 in Cologne, alongside gamescom.