Workshops

"United in Exclusion? Research approaches to misogyny and intersectionality in video game culture"

This workshop brings together scholars who study or are interested in intersectionality in video game culture. We discuss the topic from different perspectives, try to find solutions to existing research deficits and therefore generate new research questions in the field. The aim is to initiate research collaborations and develop practical recommendations for a more diverse and in depth research. The format includes short input-lectures, discussion panels and interactive working groups to promote open dialogue.

Sixth Workshop on Tabletop Games

This workshop is interested in the study of board games, war games, tabletop role-playing, collectible card games and other miniature games. Furthermore, this workshop aims to address the gap between research and practice, looking at how academics can apply their tools to the discussion of analog games, and highlight the connections between analog and digital games.

2nd Eudaimonia in Digital Games Workshop

16th Workshop on Procedural Content Generation

xAI in Game Playing

"Professional Development in the Game Industry Work processes and workers’ well-being in Digital Games Production"

The game industry has been constantly cited for having bad working practices, such as crunch, that may damage a professional's health and well-being. This workshop aims to tackle these problems using the perspective of organisational psychology. Our objectives will be: discuss protective and risk factors for workers in the video game industry, train essential abilities for individual and team work, create proposals to enhance well-being within our workplace and explore topics related to improvement of health and conditions at work that we would like to see more research and interventions about.

Researching Game Making: Current Themes and Challenges

In recent years, significant growth has been seen in the number of academic game design and development programmes offered in higher education. However, students may struggle to identify where their research interest in game making fits within the broader research landscape and the relationship to practice. While the multidisciplinarity of existing scholarly work showcases a breadth of approaches it can also become siloed into disciplinary dialogues. For new researchers entering the field as well as undergraduate students, there is often limited awareness of the approaches that match their ontological leanings but sit outside of the experience of their instructors.
This workshop seeks to bring together researchers who are interested in understanding and elucidating the game making process from a variety of perspectives. We want to facilitate discussion on what current themes and topics are important, and also what are the most critical gaps in knowledge. We hope that by sharing our approaches we can start to develop larger and more ambitious collaboration as well as reach towards methodological strategies that embrace the diversity of approaches employed to study how games are made.

Empowerment, autonomy, and social connections in XR serious games

While autonomy, empowerment and social connections are often highlighted as ethical and practical benefits for users of digital serious games, the potential of XR technologies in these areas remains largely unexplored. This workshop will examine what possibilities XR technologies bring serious games designers for fostering users’ autonomy (i.e. providing them with the ability to engage in meaningful choices and decisions, the feeling of being in control of their actions, and the freedom to explore), empowering them (i.e. increasing their self-confidence and make them feel capable and effective for achieving their personal goals, letting them safely try out new skills) and creating social connections (i.e. fostering collaboration and social skills, reducing loneliness) among them. By focusing on these three concepts, the workshop aims to explore their interrelationships and limitations through hands-on discussions of practical game mechanics and design elements. We welcome paper submissions on topics relevant to the workshop’s themes.

"3rd Workshop on Academic Game Development – Understanding the Opportunities and Challenges of Developing Academic Games"

Workshop on Live Game Design