The metaverse has become a topic of interest in both industry and academic settings. Research and development that focus on the ‘metaverse’ explore the immersive future of the internet, where distributed people from around the world can connect through virtual social environments. Research on the metaverse is distributed throughout varying sub-domains of games research, thus bringing these groups together will help unify and provide a launching point for future progress in the field. Unsurprisingly, the term has gained traction in the digital gaming realm as many related games and play research topics directly contribute to the metaverse. We are hosting a workshop at FDG 2022 which will bring together researchers in the field and discuss the current landscape of the metaverse in game research, and opportunities and challenges to propel the future evolution of research in this area.

Submission Guidelines

The paper track will include 4-page maximum abstracts, which should clearly articulate the prior expertise you will bring to this workshop. You may frame the abstract as an articulation of the research questions you would like to explore, as a summary of the game and/or interaction design space you are most interested in, or as a vision statement of potential futures for games and the metaverse. Abstracts should be in ACM Extended Abstract format. Please see the FDG 2022 website for this information. 

List of Topics

• Content Creation: Topics relating to exploring frameworks for enabling user-generated content and the use of automation to help create more content are already established tactics in game development. 

• Access and Social Connectedness: As users move seamlessly between work and play, topics will include how merging personas affects experience and how work-life boundaries can be protected within social digital spaces 

• Identity and Representation: Topics relating to how identity and representation matter, and must be supported, in the metaverse .

• Assessment, Validation, and User Research: Topics relating to how to assess the impacts of persistent and integrated digital social spaces on the social interactions we have within the material world.

Venue

Co-located with the FDG 2022 conference in Athens, Greece from September 5 - 8, 2022 (exact date TBD).

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to raquel.robinson@ontariotechu.net