Organisers behind this year's Game Developers Conference Europe have announced it's set to make its annual return to Cologne in Germany on 13-15 August.

Held in conjunction with Europe's largest game trade event GamesCom, GDC Europe is a games industry exclusive event for developers to network, attend workshops, and hear talks and keynotes from to-be-announced members of the industry.

Summit to do

Just as in 2011, Cologne will also play host to the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit – a one day event designed to bring developers together to share ideas and discuss the future of the market.

The Smartphone & Tablets Games Summit will be backed by an advisory board of industry experts, including Secret Exit's Ansu Lonnberg, Fishlabs's Michael Schade, and ZeptoLab's Semyon Voinov.

Other summits confirmed for the shebang include the Independent Games Summit and the Social & Online Games Summit.

Sound advice

GDC Europe's advisory board as a whole will boast ngmoco's Ben Cousins and Daniel Kaplan from Mojang, among others.

Both GDC Europe and the associated summits are bound for the Congress-Centrum Ost Koelnmesse in Cologne.

More information on this year's event, including details on the summits, can be found on the GCD Europe 2012 website.