DIGRA 2018: THE 11TH DIGITAL GAMES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
PROGRAM

Days: Tuesday, July 24th Wednesday, July 25th Thursday, July 26th Friday, July 27th Saturday, July 28th

Tuesday, July 24th

View this program: with abstractssession overviewtalk overview

14:00-18:30 Session 1A: Workshop: My Desires Are Unconventional. BDSM scholarship as an inspiration for game studies

Workshop: My Desires Are Unconventional. BDSM scholarship as an inspiration for game studies

Organizers: Agata Zarzycka, Magdalena Cielecka, Justyna Janik, Tomasz Z. Majkowski, Jaroslav Švelch 

Location: C1 (82 posti)
14:30-18:30 Session 2A: Doctoral Consortium

Doctoral Consortium

14:30
From Korea to Europe: cross-cultural gender study of professional gaming (abstract)
15:00
“Why do all females play Mercy?” - The gendered imaginary in the Overwatch play assemblages (abstract)
15:20
Development of online identity in live streaming (abstract)
15:40
A gamified companion to aid students in their time-management. (abstract)
16:00
Towards the formalization of Indie Game Design (abstract)
16:20
Digital games, cultural memory, & hegemony (abstract)
16:40
Empathizing with Historical Embodied Identities Through Play? Reflections on the 'Perspective-Taking' Potential of Ludic Historical Representations (abstract)
17:00
Games of Social Control: A Sociological Study of Addiction to Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (abstract)
17:20
Understanding eSports spectatorship in Australia (abstract)
14:30-18:30 Session 2B: Workshop: Indie Game Studies

Workshop: Indie Game Studies

Organizers: Casey O'Donnel, Jonathan Lessard, Nadav Lipkin, Celia Pearce, Paolo Ruffino, Carl Therrien, Emma Westecott

Location: C3 (43 posti)
14:30-18:30 Session 2C: Workshop: On Trial: Fun

Workshop: On Trial: Fun

Organizers: David Thomas, John Sharp

Location: D3 (73 posti)
14:30-18:30 Session 2D: Workshop: Contemporary Videogames and the Museum

Workshop: Contemporary Videogames and the Museum

Organizers: Sarah Brin, Michael McMaster

Location: D2 (43 posti)
Wednesday, July 25th

View this program: with abstractssession overviewtalk overview

11:30-12:00Coffee Break
12:00-13:20 Session 5A: Platforms: panel

Panel - No Coding Required: Teaching Humanities Students How to Design Video Games

12:00
No Coding Required: Teaching Humanities Students How to Design Video Games (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 5B: Meaning-making
Location: C1 (82 posti)
12:00
Save the park, punish the traitors: Games as Historical Documents (abstract)
12:20
Past stories and Future Worlds: History and popular imagination in Fallout 4 (abstract)
12:40
Playing the Nazis: Political Implications in Analog Wargames (abstract)
13:00
Presence at History: Toward an Expression of Authentic Historical Content as Game Rules and Play (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 5C: General: panel

Panel - 20 Years of Game Art: Reflections, Transformations, and New Directions

Organizer: Eddo Stern

Chair:
Location: C3 (43 posti)
12:00
20 Years of Game Art: Reflections, Transformations, and New Directions (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 5E: General
Chair:
Location: D3 (73 posti)
12:00
Play to Win, Profit & Entertain: a Study of Double Performance as eAthlete and Streamer (abstract)
12:20
On Betrayal in Games (abstract)
12:40
Video Games, Learning, and the Shifting Educational Landscape (abstract)
13:00
From ‘Training Grounds’ to Sociotechnical Actors: Do MMORPG’s Presage/Prestage the Futures of Leadership and Work? (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 5F: Poetics
Location: D4 (76 posti)
12:00
Principles of Procedural Hermeneutics: How Do We Understand Videogames? (abstract)
12:20
Preliminary Poetics of Procedural Generation in Games (abstract)
12:40
Non-Human Gaming: Video Games for the Post-Anthropocene (abstract)
13:00
Paper-made digital games - A poetic of cardboard from Crayon Physics Deluxe to Nintendo Labo (abstract)
13:20-14:30Lunch Break
14:30-15:50 Session 6A: Meaning-making: Panel

Panel - The medium [of in-game photography] is the message

14:30
The medium [of in-game photography] is the message (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 6B: Context
Location: C1 (82 posti)
14:30
Free-to-Play or Pay-to-Win?: Casual, Hardcore, and Hearthstone (abstract)
14:50
Loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront II: Conflicts in the borderland between gambling and gaming (abstract)
15:10
Are Loot Boxes Gambling? Random reward mechanisms in video games (abstract)
15:30
Monetization is the Message: A Historical Examination of Video Game Microtransactions (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 6D: Platforms
Location: D2 (43 posti)
14:30
Does Platform Matter? A Game Design Analysis of Female Engagement in MOBA Games (abstract)
14:50
Overwatch as a Shared Universe: Game Worlds in a Transmedial Franchise (abstract)
15:10
"Travel Bugs": Toys Traveling Socially through Geocaching (abstract)
15:30
Production pipelines as Actor-Networks: Rethinking the game studio as a technological platform (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 6E: General
Location: D3 (73 posti)
14:30
Paper Puzzle Games: The Original “Casual Games” (abstract)
14:50
An Exploration of Interactive Paradox (abstract)
15:10
Fragmentation: between expansion packs and episodic video games. (abstract)
15:30
Stasis and Stillness: Moments of Inaction in Videogames (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 6F: Poetics
Location: D4 (76 posti)
14:30
The Toy is the Message: materiality, imagination and play objects (abstract)
14:50
Horsing Around: subjectivity of mounts in video games (abstract)
15:10
Bonding With Horses and Other Animals in Breath of the Wild (abstract)
15:30
Avatar-Kinaesthetics as Characterisation Statements in Horizon: Zero Dawn (abstract)
15:50-16:20Coffee Break
16:20-17:40 Session 7A: General: Panel

Panel - Video Games and Post-Humanism

16:20
Video Games and Post-Humanism (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 7B: Meaning-making
Location: C1 (82 posti)
16:20
Bleed-in, Bleed-out - A Design Case in Board Game Therapy (abstract)
16:40
To Hell and Back: Hellblade’s Depiction of Mental Illness and Its Impact (abstract)
17:00
‘Debris’: Exploring video game messages and values through gameplay (abstract)
17:20
From floating brains to insane painters: A review of mental illness messages in commercial video games (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 7C: Context
Location: C3 (43 posti)
16:20
Indie as Usual: Localising Australian Videogame Development (abstract)
16:40
Homemade French Videogames? How platform logic affects game producers and game production. (abstract)
17:00
Localization from an Indie Game Production Perspective – Why, When and How? (abstract)
17:20
Indie-viduals: Videogames’ Hegemonic (Re-)Production Culture (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 7D: Platforms
Location: D2 (43 posti)
16:20
The Human Machine Art Interface: Arcade Port Aesthetics and Production Practices (abstract)
16:40
Harvester of Desires: Gaming Amazon Echo through John Cayley’s The Listeners (abstract)
17:00
A Character in Your Hand: Puppetry to Inform Game Controls (abstract)
17:20
Restricted affordances: Avatar models and capacities for identity (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 7E: General
Location: D3 (73 posti)
16:20
History, Mnemohistory and Trauma in the Italian Videogame Scene (abstract)
16:40
An Ontological Meta-Model for Games Research (abstract)
17:00
Constructing digital game heritage (abstract)
17:20
Defining Genre in Video Game Historiography: Structural, Discursive, and Sociocultural Definitions (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 7F: Poetics
Location: D4 (76 posti)
16:20
Characteristically Tensive: The Unreal in Poetic Gaming (abstract)
16:40
Antimimetic Rereading and Defamiliarization in Save the Date (abstract)
17:00
Deepening Gameplay Experiences through Estrangement (abstract)
17:20
Consecutive Endings and the Aesthetic Potential of Cognitive Dissonance (abstract)
17:40-19:00 Session 8: Remembering Bernie DeKoven: An Evening of Reflective Play

Organized by Celia Pearce and John Sharp with guest panelist, Eric Zimmerman.

Thursday, July 26th

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10:10-11:30 Session 10A: General: panel

Panel - Press Start: It’s all Pun and Games Studies (Until Someone Gets Published)

10:10
Press Start: It’s all Pun and Games Studies (Until Someone Gets Published) (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 10C: Meaning-making
Location: C3 (43 posti)
10:10
Exploring Cultural Differences in Game Reception: JRPGs in Germany and Japan (abstract)
10:30
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time; a Nietzschian approach to games (abstract)
10:50
Identities, Genre and Design in Game-Making (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 10E: Context
Location: D3 (73 posti)
10:10
Notes on a pre-history of Italian video games (abstract)
10:30
Comics, Football, and Newsagents: Italian video games production and distribution (1987-1993) (abstract)
10:50
Playing with a Brand: the Brazilian McDonald's Paper Tray Case (abstract)
11:10
How Local Policies Shape Game Production: A Nordic Perspective (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 10F: Meta-play
Location: D4 (76 posti)
10:10
From the Inside of Medium: Analytics of Retro Games (abstract)
10:30
Vietnam Romance : A Gesamtkunstwerk to Game (a pre-postmortem) (abstract)
10:50
Against Playability: Indirect Interaction in Videogame Exhibitions (abstract)
11:10
Wrecking the Game. The Artist as Griefer (abstract)
11:30-12:00Coffee Break
12:00-13:20 Session 11B: Meaning-making: panel

Panel - Existential-Phenomenological Approaches to Game Worlds

Location: C1 (82 posti)
12:00
Panel: Existential-Phenomenological Approaches to Game Worlds (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 11D: Users
Location: D2 (43 posti)
12:00
Contextualizing Pathological Gaming - A Proof-of-Concept Study (abstract)
12:20
A Comparative Study of Attachment: Fighting Games and Taekwondo in Life (abstract)
12:40
Problem Gaming vs. Gambling: Can they be treated together? (abstract)
13:00
Watching People Play. The Role of Spectatorship in Player Careers (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 11E: Context
Location: D3 (73 posti)
12:00
Beer & Pixels: Embodiment, drinking, and gaming in Australia (abstract)
12:20
Man Caves and the Fantasy of Homosocial Escape (abstract)
12:40
Avatars, Gender and Sexuality for Brazilian Players on Rust (abstract)
13:00
A qualitative study of transmasculinity in the games industry and games journalism (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 11F: Poetics
Location: D4 (76 posti)
12:00
Imaginary Russia. The Orientalisation of USSR in 'Command & Conquer: Red Alert' series (abstract)
12:20
Playing with Style: Implied Playstyles as an Analysis Tool for Player Behavior and Metagame Emergence (abstract)
12:40
Larp Typology (abstract)
13:00
Injecting Sense of Belonging: The Ideology of Chinese Educational Games (abstract)
13:20-14:30Lunch Break
14:30-15:50 Session 12A: General: panel

Panel - Refuse, Remediate, REFIGure: Making Games Sustainable for Women

14:30
Refuse, Remediate, REFIGure: Making Games Sustainable for Women (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 12B: Meaning-making
Location: C1 (82 posti)
14:30
Instantaneously Punctuated Picture-Music: Pilgrim in the Microworld and an Alternative Evaluation of Videogame Expression (abstract)
14:50
Projectuality in Digital Gameworlds (abstract)
15:10
Infra-Ordinary Game Analysis: Animal Crossing Pocket Camp as an Introductory Study (abstract)
15:30
Memory and Meaning in Analogue: A Hate Story and Nier: Automata (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 12C: Context
Location: C3 (43 posti)
14:30
Spectating Development: Backer Perspective on Games Crowdfunding (abstract)
14:50
Game engines: Design, labour, and legality (abstract)
15:10
The reception of Chinese history in Honor of Kings (abstract)
15:30
Obey or Against: The Review of Studies on Chinese Game Policies (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 12E: Users
Chair:
Location: D3 (73 posti)
14:30
The Meaning and Significance of True Line of Sight in Warhammer 40,000 (abstract)
14:50
The Play is the Message. The Everyday Context of Videogame Play (abstract)
15:10
An Inclusive Perspective on Gameplay: Towards a wide understanding of gameplay in theory and praxis (abstract)
15:30
From Interactive to Interpassive Gaming (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 12F: Meta-play
Location: D4 (76 posti)
14:30
Collegiate eSports as Learning Ecologies: Investigating Collaborative Learning and Cognition During Competitions (abstract)
14:50
Metagaming in Competitive Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (abstract)
15:10
Understanding the experience of Australian eSports spectatorship (abstract)
15:30
Understanding Player elimination in boardgames as a form of permadeath (abstract)
15:50-16:20Coffee Break
16:20-17:40 Session 13A: Meaning-making: panel

Panel - Out of Tokens: Queer Game Studies Beyond Representation

16:20
Out of Tokens: Queer Game Studies Beyond Representation (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 13B: General: panel

Panel - Entertainment and Authenticity

Location: C1 (82 posti)
16:20-17:40 Session 13D: Users
Location: D2 (43 posti)
16:20
"Clementine will remember that." - Methods to Establish Design Conventions for Video Game Narrative. (abstract)
16:40
Relation and regime. On aesthetics and cosmetic microtransactions in Path of Exile (abstract)
17:00
Towards Design Principles for Humor in Interactive Emergent Narrative (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 13E: Context
Location: D3 (73 posti)
16:20
A digital gap in Polish families on the example of video games (abstract)
16:40
(Re)play the beginning of the end: 1988 as prequel to Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong (abstract)
17:00
Body Count (abstract)
17:20
Playing Whiteness in Crisis in The Last of Us and Tomb Raider (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 13F: Poetics
Location: D4 (76 posti)
16:20
The City in Singleplayer Fantasy Role-Playing Games (abstract)
16:40
Game Narrative Through the Detective Lens (abstract)
17:00
The Ruins of Meridian 59: Abandoned MMOs as Poor Objects (abstract)
17:20
The Quest for Serious Sex Adventures: A Structural Analysis of Puzzle and Humor (abstract)
Friday, July 27th

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10:10-11:30 Session 15A: General: panel

Panel - Current Situations in the Japanese Game Research and Game Development Pedagogical Practices

10:10
Current Situations in the Japanese Game Research and Game Development Pedagogical Practices (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 15B: Context: panel

Disruption, Struggle, Re-construction and Re-negotiation: The messy reality of co-creative game design

Location: C1 (82 posti)
10:10
Disruption, Struggle, Re-construction and Re-negotiation: The messy reality of co-creative game design (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 15C: Users
Location: C3 (43 posti)
10:10
Videogames, analytics and the ‘becoming-gramme’ of play (abstract)
10:30
A Three Person Poncho and a Set of Maracas: Designing Ola De La Vida, A Co-Located Social Play Computer Game (abstract)
10:50
Is My Avatar MY Avatar? Character Autonomy and Automated Avatar Actions in Digital Games (abstract)
11:10
The Other Otherness of the Avatar: Technological Alterity in Player-Avatar-Relations. (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 15E: Meaning-making
Location: D3 (73 posti)
10:10
Incentivizing Correct Waste Sorting by Game Design (abstract)
10:30
Games Biting Back: ANATOMY and Ecofeminism (abstract)
10:50
‘Missing is the Message’: Addressing India’s Girl-Trafficking Problem through a Videogame (abstract)
11:10
Playing for Real (abstract)
10:10-11:30 Session 15F: Meta-Play
Location: D4 (76 posti)
10:10
Ethics at Play in Undertale: Rhetoric, Identity and Deconstruction (abstract)
10:30
Design Concepts for Empowerment through Urban Play (abstract)
10:50
Mechanisms of Disclosure: A Socio-technical Perspective of Sociality in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Video Games (abstract)
11:10
Conversation, Discourse and Play: Interaction and Moderation in Twitch.tv Live Streaming (abstract)
11:30-12:00Coffee Break
12:00-13:20 Session 16A: Context: panel

Panel - Non-English-Language Game Histories: Methodological Considerations

12:00
Non-English-Language Game Histories: Methodological Considerations (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 16B: Meaning-making
Location: C1 (82 posti)
12:00
Interpretive Challenges in Games (abstract)
12:20
Quilting the meaning: gameplay as catalyst of signification through cognitive & interpretative processes (abstract)
12:40
Cause, Effect, and Player-Centric Time (abstract)
13:00
Markers of Subjective Perception in Larp (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 16D: Platforms
Location: D2 (43 posti)
12:00
Audiencing on Twitch (abstract)
12:20
Implementing Intelligence: The Platform Culture of Intellivision (abstract)
12:40
The Women of Twitch: The Affordances of Live-Streaming Digital Games (abstract)
13:00
Revision of Queer Bodies: Modifications of Sexual Affordances in World of Warcraft (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 16E: General
Location: D3 (73 posti)
12:00
Through Games. Uses, Practices and Habits. (abstract)
12:20
(Game) Design methods in Game Studies (abstract)
12:40
Good Game Feel: An Empirically Grounded Framework for Juicy Design (abstract)
13:00
Make Tents, Not War: Queer Play as Play-That-CritiquesCritical play, queer play, play studies, play fiction, play-that-critiques (abstract)
12:00-13:20 Session 16F: Meta-play: panel
Location: D4 (76 posti)
12:00
An Embodied Turn: Game Studies Across Worlds and Bodies (abstract)
13:20-14:30Lunch Break
14:30-15:50 Session 17A: General: panel

Panel - Next Level: Creating Larger Research Units in Game Studies

14:30
Next Level: Creating Larger Research Units in Game Studies (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 17B: Meaning-making
Location: C1 (82 posti)
14:30
Archival Adventuring (abstract)
14:50
From Silent NPC to Active Consumer : Representing Female in Chinese Video Game Culture (abstract)
15:10
BioWare, Eroticism and Modernity (abstract)
15:30
Body Horror as Body Shaming: Fatness and Monstrosity in Video Games (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 17E: Context
Location: D3 (73 posti)
14:30
Next gen? A critical examination of historical periodization in video games (abstract)
14:50
Landscape Trouble: Why we are surrounded by climate change games (abstract)
15:10
Beyond Paratexts, Towards Paratextuality: A Case for Granular Analysis of Video Game Paratextuality (abstract)
14:30-15:50 Session 17F: Context: panel

Panel - (Trans)mediality and Playership in and around Japanese Videogames

Location: D4 (76 posti)
14:30
(Trans)mediality and Playership in and around Japanese Videogames (abstract)
15:50-16:20Coffee Break
16:20-17:40 Session 18B: Context: panel

Panel - Beyond the Core Development Team: Exploring Emerging Roles and Responsibilities in the Global Game Industry

Location: C1 (82 posti)
16:20
Beyond the Core Development Team: Exploring Emerging Roles and Responsibilities in the Global Game Industry (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 18D: Context
Location: D2 (43 posti)
16:20
The Moral Calculus of Vocational Passion in Digital Gaming (abstract)
16:40
Depleted Hearts: Coping and ‘Self-Care’ in Gaming Culture (abstract)
17:00
Discourses of "realism" in game journalism (abstract)
17:20
Indie Game: The Movie: The Paper – Documentary Films and the Subfield of Independent Games (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 18E: Users
Location: D3 (73 posti)
16:20
If You Guild it, They Will Come: Organizational Leadership in Games (abstract)
16:40
“A pure meritocracy blind to identity”: Exploring the Online Responses to All-Female Teams in Reddit (abstract)
17:00
Video games as an extension of youth? Gaming among third age people (abstract)
17:20
Video Games in the Convenience Store (abstract)
16:20-17:40 Session 18F: Meaning-making
Location: D4 (76 posti)
16:20
‘We’re Not Gonna Take It.’ The Countercultural AAA Aesthetics of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (abstract)
16:40
On Striated Wilderness and Prospect Pacing: Rural Open World Games as Liminal Spaces of the Man-Nature Dichotomy (abstract)
17:00
Meaning Through Performance: Transgressing Boundaries in Shadow of the Colossus (abstract)
17:20
The Aesthetics of Ambient Data: Playful Data-Sharing in the Dark Souls series (abstract)
Saturday, July 28th

View this program: with abstractssession overviewtalk overview

10:10-11:30 Session 20A: General: panel
10:10
Publishing in Game Studies: Thoughts and Discussion with the Editors: With: Jose Zagal, Jen Jenson, Aaron Trammell, William White, Suzanne de Castell and Espen Aarseth (abstract)
11:30-12:00Coffee Break
13:30-14:30Lunch Break