| 10:00am | Opening remarks |
| 10:15am | Finding Spaces & Play
The Growing Pervasiveness of Games and Play – Hugh Davies (pdf) Finding Ways of Being: Psychogeography in Urban Codemaking – Troy Innocent and Steven Conway (pdf) Travelling with Giuliana Bruno to the Videogame – Dan Golding (pdf) |
| 11.15am | Morning Tea |
| 11.30am | Ways of Design
Punctuate a Moving Picture: David Sudnow’s Pilgrim in the Microworld and an Alternative History of the Study of Videogames – Brendan Keogh (pdf) Finding a Way: Reducing Design Schema Friction in Narrative Design – Christy Dena (pdf) Positive Psychology in Game Design: A Framework for Collaboration – Matthew Lee (pdf) |
| 12.30pm | Lunch |
| 1.30pm | Huizinga & Play – truna |
| 1.45pm | Alternative Paths
Wing Commander and the Enduring Impact of Live-Action Video – Jakub Majewski and Scott Knight (pdf) No Heroes: The Erasure of Chronic Health Conditions from Videogames – Dakoda Barker (pdf) ‘Adam Smith Hates Your Guts’: Horror, Survival, and the In-Game Economy in Pathologic – Julian Novitz (pdf) |
| 2.45pm | Finding Communities
Broadcasting Play: Articulating Roles of Materialities and Bodies – Ben Egliston (pdf) Tapping into the Gaming Community for Roguelikes – Xavier Ho (pdf) Adolescents as Game Designers: What can be Learned from Young People? – Pilar Lacasa, Sara Cortés, María Ruth Garcia-Pernía, Laura Méndez (pdf) |
| 3.45pm | Afternoon Tea |
| 4.00pm | Australasia & Games
We Still Make Games Here: A Sustainable Australian Videogames Industry? – John Banks and Stuart Cunningham (pdf) Indigenous Depictions in Strategy Games: An Argument for Flavour – Rhett Loban (pdf) New Wave Australiana and Making a Game about Australia – Terry Burdak (pdf) |
| 5.00pm | Roundtable discussion and closing remarks. |
| 5.30pm | Refreshments. |
CFP: 2016 DiGRA Australia Queensland Symposium
Wayfinding
Academic work on games and play in Queensland is being conducted within a wide variety of disciplines and from an even broader number of conceptual and analytical approaches. DiGRAA Brisbane is thus delighted to announce the inaugural event of this local chapter, a one-day symposium aimed at bringing together those interested in the study of digital (and non-digital) games and play in Queensland (and Australia more broadly) to discuss current and future work.
We organise such an event acknowledging that ‘game studies’ should not be an exclusively academic endeavour – exciting and ground-breaking work is occurring in a wide variety of commercial, professional and amateur contexts. Consequently, we encourage non-academic game researchers, critics, designers, developers and artists to attend and contribute to the event. Submitted abstracts will not be evaluated harshly for not engaging with academic literature, as we see this as an opportunity for these disparate communities to engage and share knowledge.
The theme, ‘Wayfinding’, speaks broadly to how we as a community of games research practices in Queensland orientate ourselves—how we determine the routes we are travelling and where we hope our research is going. It invites submissions that describe projects completed or still under way, that prompt discussion, or report findings or arguments conducted by those studying games or play in the broadest sense. We welcome perspectives from game studies, UX, interaction design, narratology, media studies, and beyond. By attending and presenting works like these, your presence contributes to the theme, helping us all map what the study of games and play ‘is’ in Queensland and Australia in 2016.
Attendance at the event is also an opportunity to shape and be involved in the future direction of this regional DiGRA chapter.
The symposium will run all day on Saturday 2nd April, 2016 at This Must Be The Place (Shop 8, Bakery Lane, 694 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley), followed by an evening social event organised nearby. Attendance at the symposium is limited, and registration will be required.
After the symposium, selected presenters will be invited to submit full papers for a peer-reviewed journal issue that will build on the symposium’s themes.
About DIGRA Australia
DiGRA Australia is the Australian chapter of the Digital Games Research Association, which is the premiere international association for academics and professionals who research games and associated phenomena. It encourages high-quality research on games, and promotes collaboration and dissemination of work by its members.
Although the focus of DiGRA has historically been on ‘digital’ games, DiGRA Australia welcomes research on all forms of games and play, digital and non-digital.
Important Dates
- Abstract Submission Deadline – Monday 29th Feb, 2016
- Notification of Acceptance – Monday 7th March, 2016
- Symposium Date – Saturday 2nd April, 2016
Submission Format
We invite interested authors to submit 400-800 word abstracts, accompanied by a 100 word bio. Submissions from academics are typically expected to have references to reflect the author’s engagement with existing scholarship.
We advise potential authors to review the abstracts accepted for publication in last years DiGRA Australia conference as a guide to the expected tone and quality. We welcome submissions that explore both in-progress and complete works, but must represent novel (unpublished) scholarship. If the abstract resembles previously published work, we recommend the author explicitly identify the additional contribution of their DiGRAA submission. We recommend that papers articulate the issue or research question to be discussed, the methodological or critical framework used, and indicate the findings or conclusions to be presented and/or the relevance to the wider game studies discipline. 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.
Submissions are required to use the DiGRA conference publication format. Accepted abstracts will be uploaded to the DiGRA Digital Library.
Submission Process
Submissions will be made online, via EasyChair.
Please enter your 400-800 word abstract in the abstract box in EasyChair, as well as uploading it as a formatted attachment.
Conference Chairs
Dr Christy Dena – Games Department, SAE Creative Media Institute
Dr Brendan Keogh – Games Department, SAE Creative Media Institute
truna aka Jane Turner – School of Design, QUT
Conference program available here.
Monday 29th Schedule:
| 12:30pm
3rd floor foyer, Robert Webster Building |
Registration: |
| 1:00pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Welcome
DiGRAA President: Martin Gibbs
Conference Chair: Tom Apperley
|
| 1:15pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Keynote: Expansion pack: making Games Studies a robust disciplineSal Humphreys (University of Adelaide)
|
| 2:15pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 1:Chair: Darshana Jayemanne (University of Melbourne)
Challenging Whiteness: Contrapuntal Analysis and Polyphony in Broadening Protagonist Diversity Sumedha Iyer (UNSW Australia) and Lois Spangler (Queensland University of Technology)
The Disruptive Potential of Regional Game Studies Bjarke Liboriussen and Paul Martin (University of Nottingham, Ningbo)
Algorithms Pushed Me to the Dark Side: Questions for Procedural Rhetoric Erik Champion (Curtin University of Technology)
|
| 3:15pm | Coffee Break (uncatered) |
| 3:30pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
Kensington Campus, UNSW Australia
Map: http://tinyurl.com/oecwo4g |
Session 2:Chair: Grant Bollmer (University of Sydney)
From the Sidelines: Choice and Consequence in Game Design Catherine Baird (Squiz)
Reconceptualising Gendered Game Spaces Gemma Roberts (Macquarie University)
Gone (Riot Grrl) Home: Methods of gender and genre inclusion in Gone Home Rowan Tulloch (Macquarie University) and Liz Giuffre (University of Technology, Sydney)
|
| 4:30pm(5:30pm finish)
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 3:Chair: Tom Apperley (UNSW Australia)
Playstyle and place: On the territorial identity of tactics in Dota 2 Ben Egliston (University of Sydney)
A Situated Approach to Urban Play: The Role of Local Knowledge in Playing Ingress Kyle Moore (University of Sydney)
Masquerade: Social Influence of Full-Body Game Interaction on Public Displays Niels Wouters (KU Leuven & University of Melbourne) , John Downs (University of Melbourne), Marcus Carter (University of Melbourne ) and Andrew Vande Moere (KU Leuven)
|
| 6pm-8:30pm
The Arthouse Kitchen url: http://tinyurl.com/q3eawpg
|
Dinner and drinks (catered with vegetarian options)
Please register via eventbrite if you wish to attend: http://tinyurl.com/nfymv2x |
Tuesday 30th Schedule
| 9:00am
Foyer, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building |
Registration |
| 9:30am
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 4:Chair: Marcus Carter (University of Melbourne)
Why BioShock Infinite is the best pt. 1: The Elizabeth-Anna Rabbit Duck Illusion Mahli-Ann Butt (UNSW Australia)
It’s-a-me, Mario – But who is Mario? Positioning the participant researcher in game studies Tina Richards (Griffith University)
Generic Avatar Luke van Ryn (UNSW Australia), Tom Apperley (UNSW Australia), Justin Clemens (University of Melbourne) and Robbie Fordyce (UNSW Australia)
|
| 10:30am
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 5:Chair: Kyle Moore (University of Sydney)
Motion Capture and the Technical Inscription of the Body Grant Bollmer (University of Sydney)
Embodied Identities and Natural User Interfaces Marcus Carter (University of Melbourne)
The Body Language of Fear: Fearful Nonverbal Signals in Survival-Horror Games Eduardo Velloso (University of Lancaster) , Thomas Löhnert (University of Bath) and Hans Gellersen (University of Lancaster)
|
| 11:30am | Coffee Break (uncatered) |
| 11:45am
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 6: 3 x 15 minute papersChair: Rowan Tulloch
Ecological Notions in Games: A Typology Towards More Inclusive Environmental Relations Ben Abraham (independent scholar) and Darshana Jayemanne (University of Melbourne) Legitimations of digital game play in mainstream newspapers John Pike (University of South Australia)
Journey to the Moon – The First Interactive Narrative Joel Zika (Deakin University)
|
| 12:45pm | Lunch (uncatered) |
| 1:30pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 7:Chair: James Meese (University of Technology, Sydney)
The Kandy Kolored Tangerine-Flake Wall-Mounted, Water-Cooled and LED-Colored Battlestation Marcus Carter, Bjorn Nansen and Martin Gibbs (University of Melbourne)
‘Funky little amoebas and poos’ – Customising the play experience of board games Melissa J. Rogerson, Martin Gibbs and Wally Smith (University of Melbourne)
The Design of Systemic Moral Gameplay in Papers, Please Malcolm Ryan (Macquarie University) , Paul Formosa (Macquarie University) and Dan Staines (UNSW Australia)
|
| 2:30pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 8:Chair: Sal Humphreys (University of Adelaide)
SimCity and the Problem of the ‘Feedback Loop’ Eli J. Boulton (University of Melbourne)
Approaches to cultural heritage in role-playing games Jakub Majewski (Bond University)
|
| 3:10pm | Coffee Break (uncatered) |
| 3:30pm
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
Session 9:Chair: Christy Dena (SAE QANTM)
Triad of Design: Applied to Open World Quests Ivan Beram (SAE)
Escaping the room: Creating interactive puzzles from narrative space Allan Fowler (Waiariki Institute of Technology) , Foaad Khosmood, David Gillette and Michael Haungs (California Polytechnic State University)
Inviting you in: Design choices in the opening sequences of Dragon Age and Skyrim Michael Hitchens (Macquarie University)
|
| 4:30pm(5pm finish)
Room 327, 3rd floor Robert Webster Building
|
DiGRAA Meeting
Chair: Martin Gibbs (University of Melbourne) |
| 5:30-7pm
The Doncaster Hotel
Map: http://tinyurl.com/pfr9aua |
After Conference Drinks
Informal drink at local Kensington pub 10 minutes walk from campus. |
The conference will be held in room 327 on level three of the Robert Webster Building (Map below) at the Kensington Campus of UNSW Australia.
Attendance is free and tickets are available online:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/digraa2015-tickets-17475868794
The conference registration desk will open at 12:30pm on Monday and 9am on Tuesday, please check in you collect you name tag and a paper copy of the program.
The CFP for the 2015 DiGRA Australia Conference: Inclusivity in Australian Games and Game Studies, is available here:
https://digraa.org/2015-digra-australia-conference/
The conference will be held June 29-30, at UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
CFP: 2015 DiGRA Australia Conference
Inclusivity in Australian Games and Game Studies
We are delighted to announce that the second annual DiGRA Australia conference will be held at the University of New South Wales, 29th – 30th of June. The theme for DiGRAA 2015 will be ‘Inclusivity in Australian Games and Game Studies’.
Games, games culture and games studies is often exclusive. Movements, communities, norms and individuals at various scales and levels of impact continue to attempt to define who plays, where they play, how they play, and what they should like about it. Games are increasingly becoming a pervasive everyday practice, engaged with across all demographics, with wider, more nuanced and varied experiences and meanings drawn from their experience. The purpose of this years DiGRA Australia is to provide an opportunity for games scholars to be inclusive in our approach, in our understanding, and in the knowledge that our research generates.
We therefore invite submissions that describe research projects completed or still under way, that prompt discussion, or report findings or arguments. We call for papers and contributions on the theme of inclusion. This is the inclusion of different people: in terms of the different backgrounds and identities of the players and characters represented in gaming and games culture. This is also the inclusion directed towards games scholars and the different perspectives that enrich our scholarship beyond the nexus of the white straight male. Finally, this is also the inclusion of methodologies and approaches: in terms of the wealth of means by which we might understand games and play.
Attendance at the event is also an opportunity to shape and be involved in the future direction of this regional DiGRA chapter.
We organise such an event acknowledging that ‘game studies’ is not an exclusively academic endeavour – exciting and ground-breaking work is occurring in a wide variety of commercial, professional and amateur contexts. Consequently, we encourage non-academic game researchers, critics, designers, developers and artists to attend and contribute to the event. Submitted abstracts will not be evaluated harshly for not engaging with academic literature, as we see this as an opportunity for these disparate communities to engage and share knowledge.
Important Dates
- Deadline extended 8th May
- Notification of Acceptance – 18th May.
- Symposium Date -29th – 30th of June.
Details
Following on from the success of last year’s conference, we fully expect that DiGRA Australia 2015 will remain a single track conference.
The conference will run from 13:00 – 17:00 on the 29th June, and from 9:00 – 17:00 on the 30th June at The University of New South Wales. An evening social event will occur on the 29th nearby. A morning doctoral colloquium will run from 9:00 – 12:00 on the 29th, which all conference attendees are welcome to attend.
Please also note that the Global Digital Humanities conference, which may be of some interest to attendees, occurs in Sydney immediately after DiGRA Australia.
The DiGRA Australia Annual General Meeting will be held during the conference.
Submission Format
We invite interested authors to submit 400-800 word abstracts (not including references), anonymous for peer review. Submissions from academics are typically expected to have references to reflect the author’s engagement with existing scholarship, but this is not a requirement for inclusion in the conference.
We advise potential authors to review the abstracts accepted for publication in last years DiGRA Australia conference as a guide to the expected tone and quality. We welcome submissions that explore both in-progress and complete works, but must represent novel (unpublished) scholarship. If the abstract resembles previously published work, we recommend the author explicitly identify the additional contribution of their DiGRAA submission. We recommend that papers articulate the issue or research question to be discussed, the methodological or critical framework used, and indicate the findings or conclusions to be presented and/or the relevance to the wider game studies discipline. 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.
Submissions are required to use the DiGRA conference publication format. Accepted abstracts will be uploaded to the DiGRA Digital Library.
Submission Process
Submissions will be made online, via easy chair.
Please enter your 400-800 word abstract in the abstract box in easy chair, as well as uploading it as a formatted attachment.
Conference Chair
Tom Apperley – University of New South Wales
Please find below the DiGRAA 2014 Symposium Program, with links to copies of the corresponding papers in the proceedings. If you note any errors, please contact Marcus at (marcusc@unimelb.edu.au).
|
Time Begin |
Time End |
Title |
| 9:00 | 9:05 | Introductions |
| 9:05 | 9:50 | Digital Gaming in Australia’s Asian Century Thomas Apperley |
| 9:50 | 10:00 | Coffee Break |
| 10:00 | 10:20 | Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: Enacting Femininity to avoid dying alone Tina Niomi Richards – Griffith University [pdf] |
| 10:20 | 10:40 | “Daily Daka”: Everyday rhythms of body and space in a Chinese Internet Café Zhang Ge – Hong Kong Polytechnic University [pdf] |
| 10:40 | 11:00 | Rhythmic Experience and Gameplay Brigid Costello – University of New South Wales [pdf] |
| 11:00 | 11:20 | Varieties of Vernacular Experience Darshana Jayemanne & Christian McCrea – Independent Scholar & RMIT University [pdf] |
| 11:20 | 11:40 | Morning Tea |
| 11:40 | 12:00 | Paratext: A More Interactive Movement Daniel Dunne – Swinburne University of Technology [pdf] |
| 12:00 | 12:20 | Affect, Responsibility, and how Modes of Engagement Shape the Experience of Fiction Kevin Veale – The University of Auckland [pdf] |
| 12:20 | 12:40 | “Blackout!”: Unpacking the ‘Black Box’ of Game Steven Conway & Andrew Trevillian – Swinburne University of Technology [pdf] |
| 12:40 | 1:00 | Towards a Unified Theory of Play: A Case Study of Minecraft James Hooper & Penny de Byl – Bond University [pdf] |
| 1:00 | 2:00 | Lunch |
| 2:00 | 2:20 | Literacy in the Digital World of the Twenty First Century: Students, Curriculum, Pedagogy, Games and Play Catherine Beavis, Clare Bradford, Joanne O’Mara, Christopher Walsh, Thomas Apperley & Amanda Gutierrez [pdf] |
| 2:20 | 2:40 | Theorising Film-to-Game Adaptation Scott Knight – Bond University [pdf] |
| 2:40 | 3:00 | The Adventures of ‘Mad Jack’: An Experiment in Documentary Game Design Rebecca Wolgast & Debra Polson – Queensland University of Technology [pdf] |
| 3:00 | 3:20 | Videogame Visions of Post-Climate Change Futures Ben Abraham – University of Western Sydney [pdf] |
| 3:20 | 3:40 | Afternoon Tea |
| 3:40 | 4:00 | Remembering & Exhibiting Games Past: the Popular Memory Archive Helen Stuckey, Melanie Swalwell, Angela Ndalianis & Denise de Vries [pdf] |
| 4:00 | 4:20 | Software Migration Applied to Commodore BASIC Video Games Craig Harrington & Denise de Vries – Flinders University [pdf] |
| 4:20 | 4:40 | Game Design Inspiration in Global Game Jam Xavier Ho, Martin Tomitsch & Tomasz Bednarz – University of Sydney [pdf] |
| 4:40 | 5:00 | Ten Years of Pushing Buttons: The Role of Freeplay in Australian Games Discourse Hugh Davies – La Trobe University [pdf] |
| 5:00 | 5:30 | Game Studies’ Australian Fringe: Communities, Critics and Conversation Round Table Chair – Dan Golding |
Registration for the 2014 DiGRA Australia Symposium is now open. Please note that if you intend to come to both the talks and the social event, you need to register for them both separately.
Symposium – Free!
The conference will be held on June 17th, in Theatre 1 of ‘The Spot’ Building, 198 Berkeley St, at The University of Melbourne.
Registration will begin at 8:30 with talks commencing at 9:00 and concluding at 5:30. A detailed program will be circulated closer to the date to those registered on the eventbrite page.
Please click here to register for the symposium.
Light snacks will be provided for morning and afternoon tea. No lunch is provided.
Social Evening Event – Free!
Following the symposium, we are hosting an informal social occasion with exciting digital and tabletop games, beer, wine and some food. This will commence at 7:30pm, and will be an enjoyable opportunity to network with other Australian game academics.
Attendance is limited to those who have registered in advance.
Please click here to register for the social evening event.
Light snacks will be provided, but attendees are recommended to enjoy a dinner before the event with other academics on nearby Lygon St.
NOTE – There is not going to be an extension!
If you’re having any difficulties submitting your abstract, please contact Marcus Carter at marcusc@unimelb.edu.au.
Submission FAQ
Do I need to upload an attachment in my submission?
Yes. Please upload a version of your abstract formatted in the DiGRA Template. This will make reviewing much more pleasant for your reviewers (and we like keeping reviewers happy!).
Does my Abstract go under Abstract or Introduction in the template?
Yes. Please place your 400-800 word abstract under the Introduction subheading. Please then write another very short abstract (of your abstract) for the Abstract section. This assists with online retrieval of your article (through search engines like Google Scholar) and will help other authors find your work at the conference.
Do I need to provide references?
Not necessarily. Typically, academic abstracts of this length reference a small number of academic texts demonstrating awareness and engagement with the literature. However, this is not a strict rule, and a submission without references won’t necessarily be prejudiced. If you are not writing from an academic background, you are not expected to engage with academic work (though it would be nice).
Will I have an opportunity to change the submission after review?
Yes. After the feedback has been given you will get a short window in which you can incorporate this feedback and send back a perfectly formatted version of your submission for the conference proceedings.
Its 11:50pm on April 15. I left submitting my abstract till the last minute and I have critical questions about formatting/easy chair isn’t working/I got distracted by Skyrim. What should I do?
Email a copy of your submission to Marcus (marcusc@unimelb.edu.au) and he will manually upload it for you.