DiGRA Australia – Digital Games Research Association of Australia

DiGRAA 2025 Conference Programme

Posted on January 16, 2025 Posted in DiGRAA2025 .

DiGRAA 2025 will take place in the Bradley Forum Theatre at University of South Australia, City West Campus, in Adelaide, South Australia

The Bradley Forum is located on Level 5 of the Hawke Building on the City West campus, 50-55 North Terrace, Adelaide.

Zoom Details TBA

The programme schedule uses Australian Central Daylight Time (ACDT/ UTC+10:30).

Please register here to attend the conference online or in-person.

Day 1: Wednesday 5th February

9:00am	Registration Level 5, Hawke Building
9:30am	Introduction Bradley Forum
10:10am	Morning Tea ☕ (Provided) Level 5, Hawke Building
10:30am	Session 1 – Education & Gaming Bradley Forum	Chair: Susie Emery
	Navigating Narratives and Night in the Woods: Teaching Videogames in the English Curriculum	Premeet Sidhu, Jen Scott Curwood & Marcus Carter
	Making Videogames Available in Higher Education	Cassandra Barkman
	Extra Lives: Game Jam as Extra-curricular learning for University students	Cameron Edmond
	Q&A
11:30am	Session 2 – Tabletop & Boardgames Bradley Forum	Chair: Lauren Woolbright
	Exploring the Use of Tabletop Gaming for Wellness	Alyssia Merrick, Dan J Miller & Amanda Krause
	Commensality as a conceptual framework for TTRPG research	Ruby Edwards, Martin Gibbs, Lucy Sparrow & Tamara Kohn
	Playing with Players: On the Criticality of Critical Play	Melissa J Rogerson & Sasha Soraine
	Q&A
12:30pm	Lunch 🍱 (Not Provided)
1:30pm	Session 3 – Philosophical & Psychological Questions Bradley Forum	Chair: Lauren Woolbright
	Beyond the Ruins: A Heideggerian Analysis of Videogames, Technology and the End of the World	Andrea Andiloro
	The Existential Significance of Goals in Campbell’s Hero’s Journey	Jacqueline Moran
	Industry Perspective on Systems-Driven Moral Game Design	Vedant Sansare
	Q&A
2:30pm	Session 4 – Philosophical & Psychological Questions Bradley Forum	Chair: Larry May
	Integrity and the Gamer’s Dilemma: Self-Directed Moral Emotions in Gameplay	Tom Coghlan
	The subject of videogame addiction	Benjamin Nicoll
	“Even Recovering your Corpse was Lethal”: Exploring Retrospective Lived Experiences of the Corrupted Blood Virtual Pandemic	Anjum Naweed, Lorelle Bowdith, Tania Signal & Janine Chapman
	Q&A
3:30pm	Afternoon Tea ☕ (Provided) Level 5, Hawke Building
3:50pm	Session 5 – Love, Romance & Desire Bradley Forum	Chair: Sarven McLinton
	Love and Other Terrors: Intimacy and Vulnerability in English-Language Dating Simulators and Romance Games	Heather Blakey & Sian Tomkinson
	Ludic Lovers: Locating the Ideology of Romance in Otome Games	Kelly Li
	Fantasy and Finitude in Shadow of the Erdtree (2024)	Max Coombes
	Q&A

Day 2: Thursday 6th February

9:10am	Lightning Talks – Experimental Track Bradley Forum (Experimental works and practitioners are listed below the programme)	Chair: Sophia Booij
10:10am	Morning Tea ☕ (Provided) Level 5, Hawke Building
10:30am	Session 6 – Business & Games Bradley Forum	Chair: Rory Thoman + Doug Kelly
	Exploring Effective Marketing Training for Video Game Developers	Jacqueline Burgess & Anthony Grace
	Dungeons & Dragons for Employment and Work Outcomes	Jesse E Olsen
	Understanding Chinese Players’ Perceptions of Gaming Monetisation and Regulation	Tianyi ZhangShao, Ben Egliston & Marcus Carter
	Q&A
11:30am	Session 7 – Business, Toxic AI & Games Bradley Forum	Chair: Ellie Parker
	“I see what looks cool”: Children and Parents’ Perceptions of Value and In-Game Purchases	Taylor Hardwick, Marcus Carter & Stephanie Harkin
	Co-Designing AI Tools for Inclusive Online Environments	Ren Galwey, Dahlia Jovic, Mahli-Ann Butt, Yige Song, Sable Wang-Willis, Lucy Sparrow & Eduardo Araujo Oliveira
	Explaining Toxicity in Multiplayer Games	Timothy Holland, Lucy Sparrow & Wally Smith
	Q&A
12:30pm	Lunch 🥙 (Not Provided)
1:30pm	Session 8 – Gender, Sexuality, & Games Bradley Forum	Chair: Rory Thoman + Doug Kelly
	Unlocking Gender Inclusivity: Exploring Developer Perspectives on Avatar Customization	Yisong Han
	From Ghost of Sparta to Viking Dad: How the God of War Series Offers Players a Pathway Towards Healthier Masculinity	Evan Woolbright
	“…to log on and always have queer Indigenous interaction…”: problems of representation for queer Aboriginald and/or Torres Strait Islander gamers	Leandro Wallace
	Q&A
2:30pm	Session 9 – Gender, Sexuality, & Games Bradley Forum	Chair: Lauren Woolbright
	Banh Chung AR: Triangulating Technofemininity, Gender Roles, and Vietnamese Cultural Heritage	Quynh Nhu Bui
	VR’s feminist embodiment	Kate Euphemia Clark
	‘I Want Bigger Games with Better Graphics’: Mapping the Response to Tears of the Kingdom’s Graphics in Technomasculine Perspectives	David Harold ten Cate
	Q&A
3:30pm	Afternoon Tea 🫖 (Provided) Level 5, Hawke Building
3:50pm	Session 10 – Heritage Games Bradley Forum	Chair: Erik Champion
	From Fear to Parody: Reinterpreting Tradition Chinese “Weddings and Funerals” Customs in Game Design through a Folkloresque Perspective	Yue Cao
	Exploring Chinese Game production through Black Myth: Wukong	Hugh Davies
	Code, Culture, and Counternarrative: A Diaspora- Driven Virtual Heritage Deconstruction of Orientalist Portrayals of the Kowloon Walled City	Poki Chan
	Q&A
4:50pm	Session 11 – Culture & Preservation Issues Bradley Forum	Chair: Erik Champion
	Feeling out feelings: The rogue archives of WildStar	James Manning & Lawrence May
	Queer Video Game Preservation Through Synthesis & Rewriting the Past	Vincent Haley Moore
	Tino Rangatiratanga in Games: Three Tales of Māori Game Development	Anika Clancy
	Q&A

Day 3: Friday 7th February

9:10am	Session 12 – Esports Bradley Forum	Chair: Brandon Warren
	Play, watch, create: Unpacking community views on esports, game-related content creation, & gameplay careers	Louise H Trudgett-Klose, Sarven S McLinton, Susannah Emery, David H Gleaves, Damien Rompapas
	Tilt in Esports: Understanding the Phenomenon in New Digital Contexts	Sarven S McLinton & Stefan J Pascale
	Parents of Future Esports Professionals: An Exploration of Parental Attitudes	Kerry Todd, Sarven S McLinton & Louise H Trudgett-Klose
	Q&A
10:10am	Morning Tea ☕️ (Provided) Level 5, Hawke Building
10:30am	Session 13 – Game Design Bradley Forum	Chair: Stewart Von-Itzstein
	Designing for Time: Game Developer Insights on Temporality in Digital Play	Thomas Byers
	Can modding change game culture?: Reflections on the Femme Pyro mod	Max Frankel & Tauel Harper
	Mystics and Machines: Automation and Procedural Content Generation	Finn Dawson
	Q&A
11:30pm	Session 14 – Game Design Bradley Forum	Chair: Stewart Von-Itzstein
	Challenging our Ideologies of Play: How Performance in Games Can Help us Interrogate our Rituals of Play	Duncan Corrigan
	Making Sense of Scale in A Short Hike and Assassin’s Creed Mirage	Rory Manning Graham
	Exploring The Story: Using Video Game Spaces to Construct Non-Linear Narratives	Eamonn Harte
	Q&A
12:30pm	Lunch 🥪 (Not Provided)
1:30pm	Session 15 – Game Art & Aesthetics Bradley Forum	Chair: James Manning
	Making Games to Learn Music: An intersection of Twine, activity-centred learning and creative people.	Meghann O’Neill, Malcolm Ryan, Sarah Powell & Cameron Edmond
	Tomorrow’s Nostalgia Today: Splatoon 3’s Tentacular Metaxis	Nikolas Matovinovic
	Cursebending: a playful interaction of misbehaving objects	Lou Fourie
	Q&A
2:30pm	Session 16 – Game Art & Aesthetics Bradley Forum	Chair: James Manning
	SUPER SIANNE NGAI STYLE: Applying Ngai’s aesthetic categories to a study of Supergiant Games’ body of work between 2011-2021	Heather Blakey
	“Congradulations on Owing Me Money!”: Dispelling the Myth of the Magnanimous Flipper in Landlord’s Super	Amy Brierley-Beare
	Q&A
3:30pm	Afternoon Tea 🫖 (Provided) Level 5, Hawke Building
3:50pm	Session 17 – Media & Games Bradley Forum	Chair: Sarven McLinton
	Japanese Game Live Streamers: Practices and Languages	Mark Johnson & James Baguley
	Parasocial Players: Examining “Authenticity” In Gaming Podcast Audiences	Ryan Stanton
	The Indonesian mobile esports as a confluence of game studies and mobile media studies	Haryo Pambuko Jiwandono
	Q&A
4:50pm	Closing

Experimental Track
Hawk Building Level 6 (H6-03 & H6-09)

Courtroom Investigations: Engineering a playful ‘show and tell’ conversation	Antranig Sarian
Particulars: Navigating Morality and Power in a Fictional City	Neema Iyer
Wrapped in Plastic: An exploration of Input and Narrative working in Harmony	Murphy Doyle
Latent Cohort: Centring Imaginative Agency	Sidney Icarus
SITE UNSEEN prototype	Alexander Muscat
First Day: Playing the 1975 Parliamentary Crisis	Sophia Booij, Michele Fulham & Amy Morrison
A highly sensitive experience	Hin Long Yiu
The Convergence of Visual Styles in Games: The Impact of Technological Integration on Creative Decisions and Aesthetic Choices	Ziya Gao (Gloria)
Mini Melbourne	Hsiao Wei Chen
Playing in the Past and Future: A Divination Game	Hugh Davies
Wishmakers	Premeet Sidhu, Logan Timmins, Xavier Ho, Vic Rawlings & Lee Wallace
Re:Collect	Nellie Seale, Ethel Villafranca, Riya Baldawa, Emma Bampton, Bee Montager, Abi Nicholson & Tim Phan
This is Fine: a megagame about heat in western Sydney	Sophie Poisel, Nellie Seale, Tom Lang & Emily Gregg
The Debt	Christian Karakiklas
LateNightDelivery	Matthew Ganther

Call for papers: DiGRA Australia 2025 National Conference

Posted on September 3, 2024 Posted in DiGRAA2025 .

We invite you to contribute to a three-day Game Studies conference held on Wednesday 5th, Thursday the 6th, and Friday the 7th of February, 2025, at the University of South Australia, City West Campus, in Adelaide, South Australia. Registration is free.

Important dates

Friday 11 October 2024 – Submission deadline
Monday 4th November 2024 (approximately) – Notification of submission outcomes
Wednesday to Friday 5-7 February 2025 – Conference

Details

The DiGRA Australia 2025 National Conference is an opportunity for games researchers, critics, designers, developers and artists at any career stages to share their work. We aim to provide an inclusive forum that reflects the diversity and vibrancy of Game Studies in Australia, and that allows interdisciplinary dialogues to critically engage with games, players and the culture that surrounds them.

DiGRA Australia 2025 will be hosted at the University of South Australia’s City West Campus in Adelaide, Australia. It will run as a hybrid conference, allowing both online and in-person attendance and presentations.

This year’s conference theme is “Communities of Practice and Play”. We want to hear about the latest research in the game studies community. We welcome submissions describing research and/or creative projects that are completed or still underway. Tell us about that idea you’ve been turning over in your mind that you’d like to test out in front of an audience!

For the first time, we also welcome experimental project submissions to a new Experimental Track. The Experimental Track accepts games, playful experiences, and interactive installations in an expansive scope, including game demos, websites, posters, live performances, board games, escape rooms, and anything that can be interacted with in an exhibition space.

Submission process

Extended abstracts

This is the standard format for submissions to the DiGRAA conference. Extended abstracts of a maximum 800 words (excluding references) using the DiGRA Australia Template. Submissions do not have to be anonymised. Submissions will be reviewed by the DiGRA Australia programming committee.

Accepted Extended Abstracts will be presented at the conference as either a 10- or 15-minute talk (pending on ultimate number of accepted papers). In-person presenters will present live, and online presenters will be requested to provide a pre-recorded video to minimise technical issues. All presenters, in-person and online, are expected to be present in their session for a live Q&A.

Accepted Extended Abstracts will be archived on the DiGRA Australia website. Video presentations will be published on a dedicated YouTube channel (subject to permission). Aligning with DiGRAA social media policy, you will have the option not to have your video archived.

Extended abstracts are to be submitted via Google Form at this link.

Experimental works

In 2025, for the first time, DIGRA Australia will also be trialling a new submission format made with non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) in mind, specifically for those wishing to exhibit and present an experimental work at the conference. The Experimental Track exhibition will be programmed as part of the conference and is aimed at including industry and creative practitioners at DiGRA Australia. Conference attendees will have opportunities to mingle in the exhibition space and discuss the works.

Submissions to the Experimental Track include a description of the work and a research statement using the DiGRA Australia Experimental Track Template. Submissions do not have to be anonymised. Experimental submissions containing software must be able to run standalone or on a browser. Experimental submissions will be reviewed by the Experimental track programming committee (TBC).

Accepted works into the Experimental Track will be presented at the conference as a 5-minute lightning talk. Accepted works will be archived on the DiGRAA website. Presentation requirements, recording, and social media policy is the same as above.

Experimental works are to be submitted via Google Form at this link.

Submission rules

To ensure as many people as possible have the opportunity to present their work, only one submission may be made per lead author, per submission type, and individuals may present only one paper per submission type during the conference. There is no limit on secondary authorship.

To present at DiGRAA 2025 you will need to be a member of DiGRA Australia. Membership is optional for non-presenting authors. You do not need to be a member at the time of submission, only at the time of the conference. You do not need to be a member of DiGRA International.

DiGRA Australia conferences have a ‘grey list’ policy for accepted submissions that are withdrawn with no reason provided, or for which the presenter simply does not attend. Please familiarise yourself with the specifics of this policy here.

Tips for authors

We advise potential authors to review the papers from previous DiGRA Australia conferences as a guide to the expected tone and quality. Some further tips:

We welcome submissions that explore both in-progress and complete works, but they should represent novel scholarship. If the submission resembles previously published work, we recommend the author explicitly identify the additional contribution of their DiGRA Australia submission.
Papers can present any kind of research, analysis or commentary, but should be written so that the importance of the work can be understood by reviewers working in different disciplines or using different approaches.
We recommend that submissions articulate the issue or research question to be discussed, the methodological or critical framework used, the findings or conclusions to be presented, and/or the relevance to the wider game studies discipline.

Submissions from academics are typically expected to have references to reflect the author’s engagement with existing scholarship.

Abstract writing information session: Dr Jacqueline Burgess, an experienced conference abstract peer-reviewer, regular DiGRAA presenter and a member of the Executive, will facilitate an information session that will provide some tips and hints for writing and structuring your DiGRAA 2025 abstract and an introduction to DiGRAA for new attendees. There will also be time for questions. The session ran September 23rd 1pm-2pm QLD time. The recording is available to watch here.

Conference organising committee

Associate Professor Erik Champion, University of South Australia (Conference Co-Chair)
Dr Susie Emery, University of South Australia (Conference Co-Chair)
Sophia Booij, University of South Australia
George Martin, University of South Australia
Associate Professor G Stewart Von Itzstein, University of South Australia
Louise Trudgett-Klose, University of South Australia
Dr Sarven McLinton, University of South Australia
Corey McKechnie-Martin, University of South Australia
Dr Douglas Kelly, University of South Australia
Dr Lauren Woolbright, Flinders University
Shane Bevin, Flinders University
Dr Xavier Ho, Monash University
Dr James Manning, RMIT University
Jesus Cuauhtemoc Moreno Ramos, Serenade Games
Ashlee Borgkvist, University of South Australia
Josh McLean, University of South Australia
Steve Cook, University of Adelaide

Message from DiGRAA President

Posted on July 24, 2024 Posted in Uncategorized .

Dear lovely DiGRA Australia members,

I’m saddened to inform you that I’ve decided to temporarily step down from my role as DiGRAA President, along with Madeleine Antonellos. This is due to recent events surrounding the conduct of the international DiGRA’s board.

Over the last few weeks, several board and committee members of international DiGRA, including myself, have resigned from our positions in protest of that board’s conduct. More information about this situation will be shared publicly in the coming weeks. In the meantime the ongoing situation places me in a conflicted position as president of DiGRA Australia, and so I’m regretfully stepping away from this position for the time being to ensure DiGRA Australia may continue to support the local game studies community.

In the meantime, the DiGRA Australia board has appointed Dr Brendan Keogh as interim President, who will act in the role until next year’s elections.

Please still feel free to reach out to either myself, Brendan, or other board members if you have any questions, concerns, or would like more information on the current situation.

I’m thankful and grateful for the wealth of support and kindness from our inclusive and wholesome community in DiGRA Australia. I love you all very much, and feel very lucky to be part of a wonderful cohort of colleagues and friends.

Even if I’m stepping down as DiGRA Australia President, please know that this community is and will always be my home. Thank you for being “my people” <3 I cherish you all so very much!

Warmly,

Mahli-Ann

A Heartfelt Thank You to Dr Brendan Keogh

Posted on June 14, 2024 Posted in Uncategorized .

The Digital Games Research Association Australia (DiGRAA) extends our profound gratitude to Dr Brendan Keogh for his exemplary leadership as our President from 2018 to 2023, and his service on the board up until he graciously stepped down from his position earlier this year. Dr Keogh is esteemed globally as one of the foremost scholars in game studies, and we are exceptionally fortunate to have him as a cornerstone of the Australian game studies community.

Dr Keogh’s outstanding contributions have transformed the field of game studies in Australia. Under his stewardship, DiGRAA has flourished as a bastion of multidisciplinary academic excellence, fostering critical dialogue, collaboration, and exponential growth. Dr Keogh was an inaugural recipient of the Dr April Tyack Distinguished Scholar award in recognition of his ongoing dedication to mentorship and community-building efforts in fostering diversity and inclusivity. His commitment has left an indelible legacy, cultivating a welcoming and vibrant community that will continue to thrive for years to come.

Thank you, Dr Keogh, for your unwavering guidance and support. Your leadership steered us through the challenges of COVID-19, as the only DiGRA Chapter that continued annual national conferences online. Your excellence in research and writing has inspired us to become better academic thinkers and writers, while your presence in the community has always been welcoming to newcomers, and made all of us better people. As you step down from your service on the board, please know that your impact endures and your efforts will be forever deeply appreciated.

While Tampere counts Time-to-Huizinga, DiGRAA proudly celebrates counting Keogh citations!

With heartfelt gratitude,

The DiGRAA board

April Tyack’s Distinguished Scholars

Posted on February 21, 2024 Posted in Awards, DiGRAA2024 .

Since DiGRAA’s founding in 2014, we are proud to be internationally recognised as “the local DiGRA chapter to model” and to be known as the “friendliest conference” and “most welcoming and supportive research community.” We believe we have only earned this reputation due to the contributions of core community members like Dr April Tyack. Dr April Tyack served as DiGRAA’s Vice President from 2018 to 2021 and epitomised the type of dedication to academic discourse and community-building efforts focused on improving diversity and inclusivity in games studies, which we strive to uphold as a group. Though Dr April Tyack’s bright academic career was far too short, her impact will be felt for many years to come.

The April Tyack’s DiGRAA Distinguished Scholars are named in honour of DiGRAA’s former Vice President Dr April Tyack, who made our community better.

These accolades serve to celebrate Dr April Tyack’s life and her lasting contributions to Antipodean game studies, as well as formally recognise the indispensable but often invisible advocacy and mentorship that defines DiGRAA—what makes, sustains, and grows our community. To be eligible for selection, the academic must be a DiGRA Australia member whose ongoing support has helped cultivate our local game studies talent.

Awarded Distinguished Scholars are presented with an engraved plaque. On the plaques, a duck image was chosen to represent Dr Tyack’s beloved signature duck backpack.

Award Committee 2024

Each year, the Distinguished Scholars will be judged by the four executive members of the DiGRAA board. Academics already recognised with this honour will also be invited to participate in the selection committee for future years.

The inaugural 2024 Distinguished Scholars have been decided by DiGRAA President Mahli-Ann Butt, Vice President Erin Maclean, Secretary Stephanie Harkin, and Treasurer Madeleine Antonellos.

Future Iterations

For future iterations of the April Tyack’s Distinguished Scholar award, we will invite DiGRAA members to nominate their peers and mentors who they believe have contributed to our DiGRAA game studies community in this way and should be recognised by this award. These nominations will help inform our decisions to ensure that deserving recognitions are not overlooked.

Complaint Procedures

Ultimately, the Distinguished Scholars are named in the spirit of Dr April Tyack; those who we believe do not embody this spirit—or Dr April Tyack would not wish to recognise—are not eligible for the award, even if their contributions are significant.

If you believe an awarded or nominated Distinguished Scholar does not represent Dr April Tyack’s legacy, you can submit your concern to the current president for review:

Brendan Keogh (brendan.keogh@qut.edu.au)

~ About Dr April Tyack ~

Please see Dan Golding’s thoughtful obituary ‘In Memory of April Tyack’ to learn more about Dr April Tyack’s legacy.

DiGRAA 2024 Online via Zoom

Posted on February 11, 2024 Posted in DiGRAA2024 .

To attend online via Zoom: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/85152486682?pwd=aXZZOTJ2MFI4Z1kyS3RrZTJNeG93Zz09

Zoom Password: 561926

Attendance is free, and no registration is required!

The full programme schedule uses Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT/ UTC+11) and is available here: https://digraa.org/post/digraa-2024-conference-programme/

Tram works!

Posted on February 7, 2024 Posted in DiGRAA2024 .

No service/service changes on Swanston Street, University of Melbourne trams! https://yarratrams.com.au/service-changes/swanston-street-melbourne-university-renewal-works

There are tram works on Swanston Street next week!

If you are coming to UniMelb from the city, you can still get the 19 tram.

The 19 will take you up Royal Parade.

Get off at “Stop 12: Morrah Street.”

Then enter via Gate 14.

Map directions from Stop 12/Gate 14 to Glen Davis Building (Melbourne School of Design): https://link.mazemap.com/6v8I0BbN

DiGRAA 2024 Conference Programme

Posted on February 2, 2024 Posted in DiGRAA2024, Uncategorized .

DiGRAA 2024 will take place in the Glyn Davis (Melbourne School of Design), Building 133, University of Melbourne, Parkville (3010):

The registration desk will be next to the lifts on Level G (ground floor). Look for student volunteers wearing blue UniMelb T-shirts!
All talks will be in The Malaysian Theatre, Level B (basement).
All catering will be in the Basement Foyer, Level B (basement).

To attend online via Zoom: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/85152486682?pwd=aXZZOTJ2MFI4Z1kyS3RrZTJNeG93Zz09

Zoom Password: 561926

The programme schedule uses Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT/ UTC+11).

Day 0: Sunday 11 February

5:00pm – 9:00pm

Boardgames @ Pause Menu ヾ(о-ω･)ﾉ⌒★
74 Rose Street, Fitzroy (map | directions)

Day 1: Monday 12 February

9:00am	Registration (^-^*)/ Level G, Foyer
	Welcome Breakfast ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ Level B, Basement Foyer
9:50am	Welcome ٩(`･ω･´)و ☀️ Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Mahli-Ann Butt & Lucy Sparrow
10:00am	✨Keynote✨	Chair: Mahli-Ann Butt
	The power of multiplayer game design: Or why players are not necessarily The Worst	✨Dr Lucy Sparrow✨
	Q&A (15 min)
11:00am	Morning Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
11:30am	Session 1 – The Games Industry Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Melissa Rogerson
	Modding Video Game Brand Authenticity	Jacqueline Burgess & Jessica Whyman
	The Dream Job Just Doesn’t Exist: Analysing the Current Games Journalism Landscape	Ryan Stanton
	The Lands Before-During-After Times: Reimagining Game Industry Events ‘Post’-COVID-19	Taylor Hardwick & Mahli-Ann Butt
	Precarity and professionalism of Indonesian mobile game e-sports	Haryo Pambuko Jiwandono
	Q&A (20 mins)
12:30pm	Lunch ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ Level B, Basement Foyer
1:30pm	Session 2 – New Perspectives on Design Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Nellie Seale
	Ambiguities of Game Design and the Challenge of the Walking Simulator	Alexander Muscat
	Hour of the Wolf – An Investigation into Puzzle Design for Live Theatre	David Harris
	Speaking of Time: Time-centric Language in Video Game Marketing and User Reviews on Steam	Thomas Byers
	Cross-platform storytelling in Dungeons & Dragons: How players use technology to explore and create stories in D&D	Ruby Edwards, Martin Gibbs, Lucy Sparrow & Tamara Kohn
	Q&A (20 min)
2:30pm	Session 3 – Game Histories Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Taylor Hardwick
	Preserving and Emulating Australian Made Videogames of the 1990s	Cynde Moya, Helen Stuckey, Melanie Swalwell & Denise de Vries
	Archival Challenges for Inclusive Games History	Stephanie Harkin
	From Mountain Ranges to Markets: Historicising Virtual Worlds	Finn Dawson
	Q&A (15 min)
3:15pm	Afternoon Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
3:45pm	Session 4 – Design Influences Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: James Manning
	The Legacy of Tabletop Role-Playing Games: Shaping Contemporary Game Design	Marc Wainwright & Adam Ho
	Myth and Misattribution: Comparing Common Conceptions of the Hero’s Journey against Joseph Campbell	Jacqueline Moran
	Workshopping the Play Community: Reflections on the role of pre-LARP workshops in Dance of Ribbons LARP	Josiah Lulham & David Harris
	Exploring the Influence of Game Designers’ Values and Thought-Processes in Practice	Mifrah Ahmad
	Q&A (20 min)
4:45pm	Close	Lucy Sparrow & Mahli-Ann Butt
5:00pm	Student Pizza Social ♡(◕ᗜ◕✿) Danda-Gat-Ith, Level 5, Melbourne Connect, 700 Swanston Street.	Nellie Seale
6:30pm	Drinks @ The Clydeヾ(о-ω･)ﾉ⌒★ (map) 385 Cardigan St, Carlton 3053

Day 2: Tuesday 13 Feb

9:20am	Announcements ٩(`･ω･´)و ☀️ Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Lucy Sparrow & Mahli-Ann Butt
9:30am	Session 5 – Mechanics and Narrative Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Cass Barkman
	The Connection Between Mechanics and Narrative: How Are Fantasy Card Games Reflecting Their Stories	Chase Profaca
	Strategic Dialogue within Narrative Games as a Mechanic – Moving from branching Narratives to Branching Perspectives	Oneeb Bin Nauman
	In Defence of Alignment Systems	Antranig Sarian
	Monsters and Marauders: RPGs, Race, and the Sovereign Player	Sebastian Morrison
	Q&A (20 min)
10:30am	Morning Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
11:00am	Session 6 – Nature and Built Environments Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Andrea Andiloro
	Capitalocene Horizons: Producing, Exploiting and Mourning Nature in Animal Crossing: New Horizons	Lawrence May and Ben Hall
	Easing into Play: Creating invitations for urban play and games	Uyên Nguyen & Matthew Riley
	Architecture in Play: Architectonics of Atmosphere	Dorsa Kafili
	The Playable Campus: Game Design & Creative Placemaking for the “New Campus Urbanism”	Aramiha Harwood, Troy Innocent, Dale Leorke & Danielle Wyatt
	Q&A (20 min)
12:00pm	Session 7 – Children and Play Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Dan Golding
	Surveying Childrens Gameplay during the Pandemic: Australian and Chinese approaches	Hugh Davies
	Levelling Up or Cashing In? Privacy Implications for the Data Profiling of Children in Video Games	Caiti Galwey
	Game-centred school learning: It’s (not) in the game	Alexander Bacalja
	Q&A (15 min)
12:45pm	Lunch ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ & Researcher AMA Level B, Basement Foyer
1:45pm	Session 8 – Narrative and Storytelling Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Timothy Williams
	The Gamelike Nature of Narrative Complexity	Cass Barkman
	“Storytelling […] is […] not merely a simulacrum of iterative colonial categorization”: engaging Indigenous futurism for queer Indigenous futures in video games	Leandro Wallace
	The Ludo-Narrative distinction in the Immersive Multimedia Environments of the Postwar Predigital era	Jonathan Lovell
	Character Creation and Digital Storytelling using Generative AI	Matthew Stephenson, Lauren Woolbright, & Nicol Cabe
	Q&A (20 min)
2:45pm	Session 9 – Games and Health Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Kate Clarke
	Mental Jam: Co-Creating Video Games with Participants About Their Lived Experiences of Depression and Anxiety	Hsiao Wei Chen
	Game on With Motor Neurone Disease (MND): Challenges and Opportunities	Ben O’Mara, Matthew Harrison, Kirsten Harley, & Natasha Dwyer
	Encouraging Empathy of Neurodivergence: Towards a framework for design of persuasive and discursive games	Nadine Garland
	Q&A (15 min)
3:30pm	Afternoon Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
4:00pm	Session 10 – Close Readings Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Brendan Keogh
	Playing Bastion as a solastalgic game: a case study of Supergiant Games’ avant-garde era	Heather Blakey
	Playing the Ecocentric Apocalypse	Matthew Allan
	I Love My Undead Family: Prosthetic Limbs and Homecoming in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)	Max Coombes
	Immortality and The Parasite	Tania Marlowe
	Q&A (20 min)
5:00pm	April Tyack’s Distinguished Scholar Awards ╭( ･ㅂ･)و Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Mahli-Ann Butt, Stephanie Harkin & Madeleine Antonellos
5:15pm	Close	Mahli-Ann Butt & Lucy Sparrow

Day 3: Wednesday 14 February

9:20am	Announcements ٩(`･ω･´)و ☀️ Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Lucy Sparrow & Mahli-Ann Butt
9:30am	Session 11 – Games for Museums and Cultural Heritage Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Xavier Ho
	Narrative-Based Games for learning in GLAMS: Overcoming professional hesitancies through an introductory guide	Sophia Booij
	LORE-Drop: Museum Game Design	Nellie Seale, Wally Smith, & Melissa Rogerson
	Augmented Reality Game Design for Cultural Heritage	Yifan Kong [Online]
	Bioshock Infinite and Indigenous Tales: The Potential of Game Media in Expressing Australian Aboriginal Culture	Neo Xia
	Q&A (20 min)
10:30am	Morning Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
11:00am	Session 12 – Making Sense of and in Games Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Larry May
	The Ghost in the Machine: Legend-Tripping, Hypermodern Ostension and Ontological Bleed in the Grand Theft Auto Series	Andrea Andiloro
	Action Paths: A Typology of Strategy Selection	Sidney Icarus [Online]
	Synthesising the Real: How Players Navigate the Representation of Reality in Video Games	Benn Van Den Ende, & Sian Tomkinson [Online]
	The analyst’s videogame: On psychoanalytic formalism	Benjamin Nicoll
	Q&A (20 min)
12:00pm	Session 13 – Politics and Identity Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Lee Cope
	‘A political statement, whether you understand that or not’: Inclusive Gender Expression in Avatar Customization	Yisong Han & Xavier Ho
	Beyond “Representation”: Shooter Videogames and Mediated Feminisms in New Discourse	Erin Maclean [Online]
	Alt-right in gaming spaces in Italy and in Australia. A comparative analysis	Giulio Pitroso [Online]
	Playing with Integrity: Videogame Involvement and Moral Identity	Thomas Coghlan
	Q&A (20 min)
1:00pm	Lunch ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ Level B, Basement Foyer
2:00pm	Session 14 – Relating to Others Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Steph Harkin
	NPC Empathy: A Philosophical Paradox	Paul Scriven
	Parasocial Relations in the Gaming Landscape	Lee Cope
	Romance as the “real challenge”?: The implications of absent dialogue icons in Baldur’s Gate 3	Amy Brierley-Beare
	“Where there is trash talk, there is a story and excitement” – A symbolic convergence approach towards understanding trash talk, narratives and spectator perspectives in FPS esports	Sidney Irwin, Anjum Naweed & Michele Lastella
	Q&A (20 min)
3:00	Session 15 – Multiverse Research Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Lucy Sparrow
	Everything Ethnography All At Once: Reflecting on a Team Ethnography of SXSW Sydney	Fraser Allison, Mahli-Ann Butt, Marcus Carter, Kate Clark, Finn Dawson,Taylor Hardwick, Mark Johnson, Brendan Keogh, Mads Mackenzie, Ryan Stanton & Frank Meixiao Wang
	Q&A (15 min)
3:25pm	DiGRAA Best Paper Award °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Melissa Rogerson
3:30pm	Close	Mahli-Ann Butt & Lucy Sparrow
3:45pm	CAKE TIME (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪♬ Level B, Basement Foyer

Call for DiGRAA 2024 Student Volunteers

Posted on January 29, 2024 Posted in DiGRAA2024 .

We are looking for student volunteers to help us ensure the DiGRAA 2024 conference runs smoothly. Please nominate your interest here: https://forms.gle/fWne7xmfndi2aiiP8

When and where will the conference be?

The conference will be held at the Parkville Campus at the University of Melbourne from Feb 12-14, 2024. Each of the 3 days runs from ~9am to ~6pm. This will be a hybrid conference with online participation options.

What will I be asked to do?

Your primary role will be to help us ensure the conference runs smoothly. Depending on your availability, you may be asked to assist with tasks like registering attendees in the morning, packing up catering, answering attendees’ questions and providing directions, and making sure everybody feels included and welcome.

What do I get out of it?

You will have lots of networking opportunities, and you are welcome to attend any of the talks and ask presenters questions. There will be free food. Student volunteering also looks great on a CV!

How do I sign up?

Please fill in your details in this form. We ask that you share a bit about why you’re interested in being a student volunteer to help us understand who would benefit from this position the most. If your application is successful, we will be in touch via the email you provide.

Expressions of interest are due by Friday, Feb 2.

What if I have further questions?

Please feel free to email the conference co-chairs Lucy Sparrow (lucy.sparrow@unimelb.edu.au) and/or Mahli-Ann Butt (mahliann.butt@unimelb.edu.au).

DiGRA Australia Conference 2024: Paper Resubmissions

Posted on December 15, 2023 Posted in DiGRAA2024 .

Congratulations again on having your work accepted for presentation at the DiGRA Australia Conference 2024! Please submit the final version of your abstract using this form: https://forms.gle/UGvpVfDVPWy8Nc876

Please submit your camera-ready abstract by January 19, 2024.

Please check that your submission is not anonymised, that you have included a brief biography section for all authors at the end of the paper (before the references), and that your submission is attached as a .docx or (preferably) .pdf file.

Presentations will be 10 minutes each.

Inaugural Class (2024)
Marcus Carter	Dr Marcus Carter is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Digital Cultures at The University of Sydney. He is also currently director of the Sydney Games and Play Lab. His research focuses on digital games and emerging mixed reality technologies, and he is the author of several books including Treacherous Play (2022) and Fantasies of Virtual Reality (2024). Marcus co-founded DiGRA Australia in 2014, and has served as Treasurer (2014-2015), President (2015-2018) and as a board member (2018-2021, 2023-Present).
Dan Golding	A/Prof Dan Golding (he/him) is Interim Chair of the Department of Media and Communication at Swinburne University, and the author of two books, including Game Changers with Leena van Deventer. He also created the soundtrack for the BAFTA, DICE, and GDCA winning Untitled Goose Game (2019), as well as Mars First Logistics (2023), and the Frog Detective series. Dan helped host DiGRA International when it came to Australia in 2017, and was co-chair of DiGRA Australia in 2016. Before that, Dan wrote games journalism and was director of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival (2014-2017).
Brendan Keogh	Dr Brendan Keogh (he/him) is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication and a chief investigator of the Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology. He is the co-author of The Unity Game Engine and The Circuits of Cultural Software (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019; with Benjamin Nicoll), and is the author of The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist (MIT Press, 2023) A Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames (MIT Press, 2018) and Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops The Line (Stolen Projects, 2012). He has written extensively about the cultures and development practices of videogames in journals such as Games and Culture, Creative Industries, and Convergence, and for outlets such as Overland, The Conversation, Polygon, Edge, and Vice. He served as President of DiGRA Australia from 2018 – 2022, and chaired DiGRA Australia’s 2020 National Conference.