DiGRAA 2025 will take place in the Bradley Forum Theatre at University of South Australia, City West Campus , in Adelaide, South Australia
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 9:30am Introduction 10:10am Morning Tea ☕ 10:30am Session 1 – Education & Gaming Chair: Susie EmeryNavigating 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 Chair: Lauren WoolbrightExploring the Use of Tabletop Gaming for Wellness Alyssia Merrick, Dan J Miller & Amanda Krause Commensality as a conceptual framework for TTRPG research Ruby Edwards, Playing with Players: On the Criticality of Critical Play Melissa J Rogerson & Sasha Soraine Q&A 12:30pm Lunch 🍱 1:30pm Session 3 – Philosophical & Psychological Questions Chair: Lauren WoolbrightBeyond 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 Chair: Larry MayIntegrity 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, Q&A 3:30pm Afternoon Tea ☕ 3:50pm Session 5 – Love, Romance & Desire Chair: Sarven McLintonLove 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 Chair: Sophia Booij10:10am Morning Tea ☕ 10:30am Session 6 – Business & Games Chair: Rory Thoman + Doug KellyExploring 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 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, Explaining Toxicity in Multiplayer Games Timothy Holland, Lucy Sparrow & Wally Smith Q&A 12:30pm Lunch 🥙1:30pm Session 8 – Gender, Sexuality, & Games Chair: Rory Thoman + Doug KellyUnlocking 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 Chair: Lauren WoolbrightBanh 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 🫖 3:50pm Session 10 – Heritage Games Chair: Erik ChampionFrom 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 Chair: Erik ChampionFeeling 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 Chair: Brandon WarrenPlay, watch, create: Unpacking community views on esports, game-related content creation, & gameplay careers Louise H Trudgett-Klose, 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, Q&A 10:10am Morning Tea ☕️ 10:30am Session 13 – Game Design Chair: Stewart Von-ItzsteinDesigning 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 Chair: Stewart Von-ItzsteinChallenging 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 🥪1:30pm Session 15 – Game Art & Aesthetics Chair: James ManningMaking Games to Learn Music: An intersection of Twine, activity-centred learning and creative people. Meghann O’Neill, 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 Chair: James ManningSUPER 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 🫖 3:50pm Session 17 – Media & Games Chair: Sarven McLintonJapanese Game Live Streamers: Practices and Languages Mark Johnson & Melissa 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
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
Programming Committees
Extended Abstract Track : Brendan Keogh (chair), Melissa Rogerson, Mark Johnson, Ben Egliston, Lawrence May, Cameron Edmond, Jacqueline Burgess, Stephanie Harkin, Mahli-Ann Butt, Ben Nicoll, Lucy Sparrow, Erik Champion, Rowan Tulloch, Kyle Moore
Experimental Track: Xavier Ho (chair), Susie Emery, Sophia Booij, George Martin, Cuauh Moreno, Alexander Muscat, James Manning
