Japanese social gaming giant GREE has confirmed it's bound for this year's F2P Summit, with European business development and developer relations lead Kyoko Matsushita to host a session at the London-based event.

Matsushita's talk will focus on why developers behind mobile social releases need to tie their titles to a platform – a logical stance, given GREE's own social portal already boasts more than 190 million players and 7,500 games.

Socially speaking

"GREE is relatively new to the UK so we’re thrilled to be participating at the F2P Summit," offered Matsushita.

"I'm especially looking forward to speaking with and meeting developers who are interested in the free-to-play space. Many mobile social games are freemium but lack strong social effects.

"Only with the help of social platforms do mobile social games truly become social and achieve cost-effective acquisition, retention, and monetisation rates."

Taking place on 28 March at Rich Mix in London, other speakers already confirmed for the F2P Summit include Tapjoy VP Paul Bowen, ngmoco GM Ben Cousins, PapayaMobile's Oscar Clarke and NaturalMotion's product director Struan Robertson, amongst others.

Platform play

As for Matsushita's talk, the aim will be to spell out the importance of social platforms for studios, with a view to how they operate differently in different territories.

"During my session, developers will learn about the current state of the platform market, including how platforms interact with social games, why social games greatly benefit from platforms and how game developers can leverage platforms today," concluded Matsushita.

The full line up of confirmed speakers can be found on the F2P Summit website, with early bird passes set to made available for £100 from 14 March.