ABSTRACT. What if we could make complex social and cultural questions playable? And what if we could do so through interactions with familiar digital interfaces set in alternative presents and near futures? These questions constitute the backbone of my project, Speculative Play, which sits at the intersection between the design traditions of speculative and critical design on the one hand, and the philosophies and best practices of game design, playful media and interaction design on the other.

It turns out, though, that an arranged marriage between these traditions produces unusual offspring. In this talk, I present a series of propositions about the shifting spaces and design implications that constitute Speculative Play, grounded in design examples ranging from digital self presentations after death, points-based immigration systems that rely entirely on cooking skill, what we will do after we have delegated all work to robots, outsourcing religious tolerance to technological solutions, and flirtatious AI chatbot therapists.

ABSTRACT. As a research method, analyzing digital games can inform scholars on a broad range of topics. While a game (content) analysis is an often-used method, especially in the field of game studies, no apparent consensus on how to report methodological choices and the specifics of playing sessions in a transparent way seems to exist. The current extended abstract therefore proposes a comprehensive, flexible protocol (including items on, for example, researcher background, game selection, and coding techniques) that enables authors to analyze digital games and report on their chosen approach to game content analysis in a more transparent way. As this is a work-in-progress, our goal is to further develop and expend this protocol by building on feedback from (non-)gaming scholars such as the DiGRA community.

ABSTRACT. In the context of an ongoing study bringing together architectural, landscape and game studies, this paper aims to reconsider the notion of “topology” regarding video game spaces. Drawing from phenomenology and aesthetics, the concept of “topological space”, that can also refer to “landscape space”, will be examined.

ABSTRACT. Choices in storygames do more than create narrative branches, and mean more than cause and effect. The structure of hypertext is similar to choice structures, and the way links add semantic meaning to the text they connect is similar to the way choices add semantic meaning to the events they connect. We apply research from hypertext theory to expand the theory of choice poetics presented by Mawhorter et al. (2014), outlining more detail in the choice structure they propose and reframing their discussion of choice idioms. We demonstrate this analytical framework by applying it to a reading of Sonder (Focht 2019), in which choices are written to emphasize their semantic function, to show how our framework expands the vocabulary around choices to provide more descriptive ability, and in turn more analytical insight, for critics and scholars analyzing games with choice structures.

ABSTRACT. This talk aims to develop a systematic framework of ‘story beats’ as a tool for the analysis of narrative microstructures. In line with postclassical transmedia narratology (e.g. Ellestrom 2018; Thon 2016; Ryan & Thon 2014), the tool will be applicable for many media, but this project puts focus on ludonarrative analysis of video games. The results of the project presented at DiGRA will include: 1. A (necessarily brief due to time constraints) review of existing literature on story beats in various media, and on narrative structures in digital games 2. A proposal of a comprehensive framework for the analysis of story beats as ludonarrative units in video games 3. Validation of the framework on the example of selected single-player video games. Further development may include the application of the story beat framework to other types of games (multiplayer; non-digital) and other narrative media.

ABSTRACT. Recent years have seen a new debate on game design ethics centering on freemium/microtransaction monetization models. In comparison with prior ethics debates, this notably focuses individual game design features (like loot boxes) in their immediate effects. One of the arguably earliest and most influential approaches in this vein is that of dark game design patterns introduced by Zagal, Björk, and Lewis (2013), which tries to identify design patterns that are inherently “questionable and perhaps even unethical”. In this paper, we provide a critical review of the concept of dark game design patterns and argue why it is not a productive starting point for the ethical analysis of game design. We will show why the concept is ontologically incoherent, lacks grounding in either empirical data or an explicit ethical framework, and renders the authors' subjective aesthetic preferences normative, thereby contributing to the discursive policing of what counts as "real games".

ABSTRACT. Pervasive games are a genre that blur reality and fiction by creating unique experiences that are played in and affected by real life. Because of their effective blend of reality and fiction, the genre has become popular for creating serious games that, among other things, explore the values of players and their communities. While value exploration is often discussed in the context of subgenres like alternate reality and live-action roleplaying games, little literature exists that discusses value exploration in the genre of pervasive games more broadly.

As such, this paper amalgamates practices across pervasive game types that facilitate value exploration through play. These practices are then presented as design considerations alongside practical techniques that designers can implement to encourage playing with values. These considerations are presented to provide designers with practical ways to make their games more meaningful to and representative of increasingly diverse player populations.

ABSTRACT. To play a game, players interact with the game system by following rules. Upon interaction, different properties emerge. The experience of fun is one of the fundamental emergent properties that players seek from a game. There are multiple conceptual viewpoints of fun; however, little research on how a rule system’s qualities help create fun. We present a qualitative empirical method of data collection and analysis that connects the players’ fun experience in context to the rule system.

We describe the protocol for the method and its rationales. Two case studies employing our method on abstract analog games are presented. Our method helps researchers identify experiential elements of games that are fun and design-attributes that modulate those elements. The design-attributes also aid in interpreting the conditions generated by the rule system for fun to emerge. We discuss the method’s strengths in terms of findings and potential applications in research and practice.

ABSTRACT. Games have the power to move players profoundly and ignite personal transformation and growth, as illustrated by our own gameplay histories as well as numerous anecdotes from our gameplaying network of friends, colleagues and students. The only way, though, to legitimately claim a game to be a game for change, it seems, is if said change can be quantified and measured. We refute this measurability as the sole metric for examining transformation, and instead propose a theoretical framework for the design of games that utilize existential themes, myth and ritual, and experiential design in combination to help position players for lasting inner shifts. This work explores how we can intentionally design for personal transformation without pre-determining the kind of change the game should ignite or seeks to impose upon its players.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the potential for digital games to be used as a conduit to preserve and share Indigenous languages and traditions. It does this by interviewing game industry and academic representatives from a variety of Indigenous communities around the world to ask their opinions on the topic via three questions. The paper aims to provide justification for a model of co-design utilizing the two-eyed seeing methodology which allows Indigenous communities to be involved in every step of the design process and also to retain Sovereignty over their cultural practices and how they are portrayed and shared with the wider populace. The benefits being felt by not only the Indigenous communities themselves but also communities like DiGRA as it will help to inform and build lasting bonds between the game industry/academia and Indigenous peoples.

ABSTRACT. The release of Nodding Heads Games' Raji: An Ancient Epic has marked an important moment in the history of video game development in India. The game's stunning artwork and use of Indian mythology has received praises globally and locally, both. However, a close-playing of the game would reveal that its depiction of Indian culture is rather orientalist and exclusionary. The game has also been lauded for being feminist as Raji, the protagonist of the game, is a brave young girl. But its feminism ends right there. In this paper, we explore how Raji: An Ancient Epic, despite being a game from a non-western studio, ends up repeating orientalist and patriarchal patterns however unintentionally.

ABSTRACT. Through a study of the references to East Asian history and culture in the fantasy MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, the authors identify the persistance of tōyōshi, or "Oriental history", which emerged as an imperial discourse in the 19th century. We discuss the relationship between these lingering tropes with the status of the game as a transnational media product produced in Japan.

ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on game maps produced and used by players, seeking to understand them as recording devices which capture narratives and experiences, and subsequently preserve them. I draw upon a range of physical and digital maps, along with resources connected with a variety of games, including rulebooks, archives, blogs and the games themselves. I situate these maps within ideas of materiality, colonialism and narrative, and contribute to discussions in our field about the ways in which players make meaning from their game experiences, and the value and importance of historical practices around games. These contributions will have particular value to colleagues working in historical games studies, game history and analogue game studies.

ABSTRACT. It is becoming more and more common in online services for service recipients to make donations when they are satisfied with the service provided by the service provider. Since these donations have no upper limit and can be repeated, they can be thought of as Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) donations. This study takes Twitch as a case study and statistically analyzes the PWYW donation behaviors in live streaming channels on Twitch, where a community consists of a service provider (a live streamer) and the service recipients (viewers). The study reveals that viewer PWYW donation behaviors are influenced by the degree of viewer congestion in a channel by analyzing the top 100 live streaming channels on Twitch. Moreover, the study also reveals the large degree of channel diversity among the top 100 channels.

ABSTRACT. Esports contests at the highest levels frequently involve millions of dollars in prize money: given such opportunities for financial success, resourceful and unscrupulous players have found a number of ways to cheat. We draw on over one thousand survey qualitative responses from esports viewers to examine how spectators perceive different sorts of cheating, grouped as “cheating to win” (where the cheat enhances a team or player’s potential to secure victory) or “cheating to lose” (where the cheat involves a more complex ecosystem of actors through which profit might be made, or advancement secured, if a match is thrown). We show a complex range of views ranking different forms of cheating, showing varying levels of understanding of the esports ecosystem, and understanding cheating as rule breaking than ethical transgression. We conclude that esports viewers’ perspectives are heavily informed by their own play and the opacity of certain elements of professionalised esports.

ABSTRACT. Gaming podcasts are one of the most prominent forms of podcast in the leisure category of Apple Podcasts, with roughly 24,000 podcasts being tagged in this category (Misener 2021). Despite this, there has been no examination of this widespread form of gaming content creation. This presentation will begin the work of examining these podcasts by presenting a typology of gaming podcasts. This typology will divide these podcasts in two ways: first by the style or genre of the podcasts, and then by the background of the creators involved. In doing so, the hope is that this will help shed light on who is creating these podcasts, as well as what they are focused on discussing. This will lay the foundation for future study of gaming podcasts.

ABSTRACT. The paid co-playing practice is a form of transaction in which gamers pay co-players to play video games with them, which indicates that gamers as customers demand playing video games with others. The majority of the previous study reveals that social factor is one of the motivations for playing video games, while few research goes deeper to focus on the motivation for playing video games with others especially in the payment transaction. This study adopts digital ethnography with data collecting from online forums to investigate the motivations for using the paid co-playing service to play video games with others. Three motivations were identified as advancing in-gaming experience, decreasing emotional cost, and gaining emotional satisfaction. This study provides the foundation to understand the pattern of co-playing in the paid co-playing practices and enriches related research on motivations of social gaming behavior.

ABSTRACT. This study compares analog Warhammer 40k to the way the game is being played on Tabletop Simulator. The aim of the comparison is to learn about the properties of analog and digital gaming as well as about player participation. The study uses participant observation to gain insight into also the culture of the game, collecting data over more than a year of weekly games and participation in both analog and digital tournaments. Based on previous work the analytic categories based here are: Crafting and making, Physicality, Social interaction, Accessibility, and Competitive play. The category of Participatory Creation emerges from the data. The biggest difference from analog to digital Warhammer 40k is that the digital version is integrated into the infrastructure for player participation and production. The digital game is defined by networked player creativity that makes it possible to play this game online and even innovates and improves it.

ABSTRACT. MÖRK BORG—an ENnie award-winning, heavy-metal, rules-lite tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG)—provides a unique case study into fan-creator and remix culture. Defying the reactionary ethos of other ‘old school revival’ games, MÖRK BORG reimagines the established dungeon crawler in politically subversive ways. Half rulebook, half artbook, MÖRK BORG has engendered an impressive response from fan-designers—eliciting hundreds of hacks, adventures, monsters, and zines. This article explores the MÖRK BORG fandom as an active zine culture and supportive community for new TRPG designers. I analyze how the visual and material design of the MÖRK BORG sourcebook—namely its visual layering, palette, typography, and deathpunk emphasis on illegibility—empowers even novice fan-creators. Pulling from game and feminist media scholars, I argue that MÖRK BORG extends ongoing discussions of punk zine culture to tabletop roleplaying games and serves as an exemplary toolkit for inclusive and remixable analog game design.

ABSTRACT. During the last twenty years we have seen a revolution of analog gaming, and it is said that we live in the “Golden Age” of tabletop gaming, as the popularity of board, card, dice, miniature and role-playing games keeps on surging. Despite the material nature of the hobby, tabletop gaming is in many ways connected to recent digital culture developments and emerging online media practices, forming a hybrid media ecosystem around the hobby. In this study a mixed method survey was conducted in order to learn about hobbyist practices when they use online media for tabletop gaming, and of the nature of contents they engage while doing so. The initial results show a multifaceted repertoire of contents and practices that form the backbone of post-digital tabletop gaming culture.

ABSTRACT. Over the last seven years Dungeons & Dragons [D&D] (Arneson & Gygax, 1974) has risen in prominence and popularity with a broadening of its player demographic. While there are many factors motivating renewed and engaged play of D&D, in this paper we draw on our 2019 study of contemporary Australian D&D players [n=20, 13M, 7F, aged 18–34) to present key contextual factors of the game’s modern resurgence. Through discussion of our results, we argue that the influence of representations and trends in popular media, reduction of associated stigma, and impact of convergence culture (Jenkins, 2006) on increased game access, all characterise the resurgence of D&D according to our participants and shed light on some key reasons for its success in recent years.

ABSTRACT. Serious Game Jam (SGJ) is one of the major events that DiGRA JAPAN is annually organizing since 2014, and this paper is about the development of prototype Serious Game Jam Operation Manual and its evaluation. 8 SGJs have been organized so far, and the manuals for general game jam combined with the organizer’s experiences has been applied for the first several SGJs. However, since the development process of games for entertainment and for serious games are slightly different, we needed operation manual for SGJs, therefore, we have developed this operation manual.

ABSTRACT. As has been the case with complex problems of the past, various game designers in social impact have aimed to help address the problem through play. The result is a myriad of theories and playful interventions that aim to improve media literacy and even inoculate players from misinformation and disinformation. This work analyzes the theories behind these designs, serving as a literature review and content analysis to demonstrate the propensities of such work. It examines games designed on topic of misinformation and disinformation (e.g. Harmony Square, Factitious, Get Bad News, Training Day, et al.). The games are examined across their relationship to common communication intervention theories including, transportation theory, inoculation theory, behavioral science theory and theories in game design for social impact. A rudimentary content analysis is also provided. The combination of theoretical examination and content analysis aim to provide a wide view of design characteristics in this domain.

ABSTRACT. The goal of this study is to explore the way online mass media outlets use digital games to frame political messages. The development of digital games designed to frame journalistic messages led to the emergence of newsgames, “produced at the intersection between videogames and journalism” (Bogost, Ferrari and Schweizer, 2010) were initially clearly connected to political communication. Treanor and Mateas (2009), for example, claim that "procedural rhetoric meets political cartoon", when framing their discourse about newsgames. The link between newsgames and political communication has been therefore central to the academic debate about newsgames, but the genre has evolved greatly since then. In this paper we propose to explore the evolution of the relationship between political communication and newsgames, by providing an answer to the following research question: How do media outlets use digital games to frame political communication?

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a planned study aimed at developing knowledge of interaction in game-based learning. Specifically, it is a study of debriefing in military education, where wargames are used to develop knowledge and skills in military tactics.

ABSTRACT. Alexey Osadchuk’s Mirror World series (2016) is part of an emerging genre of books that found popularity from the early 2010s, a genre characterized by narratives directly influenced by videogames and videogame conventions. In Mirror World, the roles that money play shed light on how to understand the ontological positions inhabited by the multiple worlds of the story. Money interpenetrates worlds in this work as a transferrable substantiation of affect, and its analysis reveals how this literary genre operates according to a unique conception of fictional worlds. Ultimately, this paper is interested in how the aspect of the game motif masks and naturalizes the existing affective “stickiness” of money-based values and ideologies that surround both the protagonist of the book as well as the reader.

ABSTRACT. Our study raises the question of the representation of a new type of research. It consists in developing an escape game through a participative action research and a cooperative work between designers and researchers. The presentation will rely on the premises of a research matrix design. It suggests recommendations on different reading levels, analyses and quantifiable elements of the game. The analysis is based on semi-structured interviews carried out among researchers and a case study of an escape room titled « Curious game » used as an observation and data colletion tool. We focus on a possible answer to scientific issues and challenge in observational methods. The individual will be an active participant in the research. A challenge also for unifying the methods. The aim is to move from a linear method to a more dynamic one via an escape game design.

ABSTRACT. The paper takes the concept of ludonarrative dissonance as a starting point and analyses the role-playing game Vampyr (2018) through the player's actions that are designated to be monstrous.

ABSTRACT. This abstract extends nonhuman turn approaches to games through the application of Critical Plant Studies (Hall, 2011; Marder, 2014) to game representations, building on the work of Janski (2016) and Chang (2019) by analysing Blair Witch (Bloober Team, 2019) and Darkwood (Acid Wizard Studio, 2017) as case-studies concerned with the horrifying potentials of plants.

ABSTRACT. The aim of the presentation is to combine the abovementioned perspectives in the analysis of the specific ways in which the familiarity, femininity and eeriness of the game world of Gone Home are crafted. In doing so, the presentation seeks to discuss in detail the specific ways in which the environments are crafted, as well as the poetic functions the objects within them have, and how they support and complement the story. Specifically, the focus is on the intertwining between the poetics of the feminine and the fantastic, or – on the ways in which femininity and sexuality can be conveyed through space and objects within it, while said space is defamiliarized through the use of the poetics of horror.

ABSTRACT. This is an extended abstract for a work in progress.

Using events in the game Rust as a conceptual case study, we present preliminary analysis re-visiting prosthesis as an analytical lens to consider how “prosthetic rejection” may help game scholars reframe how differently represented groups of players may relate to virtual bodies and virtual worlds.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is, thanks to a corpus of games published over thirty years, to show how the cyberpunk imaginarium has acculturated our relationship to the world. The idea is not to look for confirmations of the presence of cyberpunk in all areas of our contemporary society, but rather to analyze the games of the corpus in order to understand the evolution of the depiction of cyberpunk realia, from the first constitutive elements of a nascent xeno-encyclopedia (Saint-Gelais, 1999) to the clichéd theme park of Cyberpunk 2077.

ABSTRACT. How does whiteness as a structural category of racist oppression affect games culture today? Given both the increasing globalisation of game production, and of game studies as a discipline, and the rise of right-wing movements in Europe, this is an important question to be asking at DiGRA 2020. The panelists represent a diverse set of experiences with game design, academia, and activism, dealing with whiteness in and around game cultures and game studies.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we describe the results of a research in progress that seeks to analyze gender asymmetries in the digital games sector in Portugal. The results of its first phase indicated that the percentage of girls enrolled in digital games courses is significantly lower than the percentage of boys. This suggests that tertiary training in digital games is not attractive for girls in Portugal. We also examined physical characteristics of characters with human traits in digital games produced in the country between 2014 and 2018 through a gender perspective. Finally, we analyzed the results of the focus groups made with higher education students. Many of them argued that the under- representation of women in gaming industry is a matter of sensitivities of interest. This research points to the need to develop in-depth studies on a theme that has been neglected for years in the game studies.

ABSTRACT. Communities across the province of Ontario are experiencing an opioid addiction crisis, a long-standing public health problem across Canada, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the community of Brantford, our research harnesses autobiographical digital game design and game jamming to understand the opioid crisis from the perspectives of young adults living with opioid addiction. Digital game design enables world-building and new forms of self- and collective-actualization which might benefit youth facing social isolation, poverty, stigma, and a history of trauma—all underlying causes of addiction. Youth will be invited to a game jam to make sense of their lived experiences with opioid addiction through digital game design—i.e., ideation, prototyping, narrative design, interaction design, and audiovisual design. This arts-based, action-oriented study reframes digital game design as a sense-making tool—a tool of thought—for imagining new worlds, redefining selfhood, and challenging prevailing attitudes about addiction.

ABSTRACT. Pen & paper puzzle games are an extremely popular pastime, often enjoyed by demographics normally not considered to be gamers. There's been extensive research into generating and efficiently solving digital pen and paper puzzle games, often by creating an artificial player. However, there have been few academic studies focusing on players themselves. We conducted a qualitative study where we observed the Sudoku solving strategies of 31 participants. Our findings reveal interesting discrepancies between common assumptions about players’ Sudoku solving strategies made by both guides and AI Sudoku systems, and their actual approach. For example, in contrast to approaching Sudokus in a systematic way and applying simple deductions—a strategy commonly assumed by AI systems—we found that a range and combination of strategies are applied to even the simplest Sudokus. Our findings suggest new directions for designers (both human and AI) of Sudoku and other puzzles, informed by players rather than models.

ABSTRACT. Esports has often been likened and compared to traditional sports. This paper suggests an alternative interpretative framework for competitive gaming by focusing on the team-based first-person shooter game Overwatch. We explore Overwatch esports using multi-sited ethnography and demonstrate how the fans and viewers use a rich spectrum of cultural products to enrich and explain their relationship with esports. In the case of Overwatch, anime is particularly prominent, used not only to enrich and explain, but also to challenge ‘sports normativity’, which is visible in the media discussions on Overwatch as well as in the production choices of the esports tournament organizer. This also has consequences on the norms and the values of the fans and the viewer: for instance, it affects the way masculinity is constructed in the context of competitive Overwatch.

ABSTRACT. Loot boxes are purchased by video game players to obtain randomised rewards of varying value. These mechanics are frequently implemented, including in children’s games, and are psychologically akin to gambling. Loot box expenditure is positively correlated with problem gambling. Emulating gambling harm reduction measures, disclosing the probabilities of obtaining loot box rewards is a consumer protection measure that may reduce overspending. Presently, this measure has been adopted as law only in China, where a 95.6% disclosure rate was previously observed. In other countries, the industry has generally adopted this measure as self-regulation. This study assessed the compliance rate of self-regulation amongst the 100 highest-grossing UK iPhone games to be 64.0%, significantly lower than that of Chinese legal regulation. Non-enforced Western self-regulation needs significant improvements before it can be as effective as legal regulation: until then, uniform and prominent disclosures should be required by law to maximise their consumer protection benefits.

ABSTRACT. Although gambling-like elements in videogames have been raising much scholarly attention, the diversity of perspectives and discourses makes the field of research fuzzy and hard to grasp. Following Gainsbury et al., we believe that “one of the current limitations in the field is a lack of consistent terminology used by researchers, policymakers and regulators, the gambling and gaming industries, treatment providers and consumers” (2015: 198, our emphasis). To unravel this complexity and illuminate the discursive power of the concepts used to refer to gambling-like elements in digital games, we will conduct a terminology mapping survey among gaming and gambling scholarly specialists. Our study consists of three parts: a literature review, the identification of relevant experts, and a survey.

ABSTRACT. With the appearance of mobile game devices and third-party game distribution channels, such as App Store and Google Play, more and more independent (Indie) game studios are doing mobile game development and publishing themselves. However, research on using game analytics to help these indie game developers with game publishing is scarce. In practice, due to lack of experience, it is hard for most indie game developers to get correct data and analyze it professionally. In order to guide indie game developers with mobile game publishing, this paper extends the existing ARM funnel model and provides a new concept of mobile game publishing, which can be recognized as two inputs and one output. Then, a mobile game publishing analysis platform called the F2PAP is developed based on the new concept. It can guide indie game developers with data collection, analysis, and visualization for game business evaluation and improve game publishing performance.

ABSTRACT. This paper thus explores the relationship between crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Gamefound on the creation of contemporary board games. The first section gives an overview of how board game crowdfunding campaigns run and considers the impact these platforms, particularly Kickstarter, have had on the traditional, three-tier, model of distribution. I then home in on the impact Kickstarter has had on the game design process, ranging from the shift the platform has had on the types of games designed. Following this the paper considers how the considerable impact of crowdfunding campaigns on visual aesthetics and component materiality both limits and opens up a game’s design space; both in terms of mechanics and fiction. Finally, the paper collects the input of the designers and critics interviewed and gives a perspective on the potential future developments in the board game industry and the role crowdfunding platforms play in this future.

ABSTRACT. Role-playing games (RPGs) have a considerable amount of text in video game dialogues. Quite often this text is semi-annotated by the game developers. In this paper, we extract a multilingual dataset of persuasive dialogue from several RPGs. We show the viability of this data in building a persuasion detection system using a natural language processing (NLP) model called BERT. We believe that video games have a lot of unused potential as a datasource for a variety of NLP tasks. The code and data described in this paper are available on Zenodo.

ABSTRACT. In the 21st century, it has become essential to observe, interact, and engage with players' experience in the gaming industry – the end-users of a game system. The involvement of end-users in design processes has demonstrated positive outcomes in many fields, including game designing(Tuhkala 2019; Lange-Nielsen et al. 2012; Khaled and Vasalou 2014; Dodero and Melonio 2016). Furthermore, academically, participatory design (PD) research leverages relevant stakeholders while investigating a phenomenon and contributes to enhanced knowledge (Könings, Seidel, and van Merriënboer 2014; Björgvinsson 2008). Hence, affirming the requirements of the end-users, not just players in the classroom but the designers and teachers as players of the product/system needs attention.

ABSTRACT. Serious games (SG) adoption increased in multiple fields. As a first step towards a global SG design approach, it is crucial to characterize the game intended. However, there is still a lack of what the principal and necessary SG characteristics are. This paper explores SG Characteristics (SGCs) to bridge this gap by first analyzing features from SG studies in different domains (education, health, business) and purposes (classification, learning impacts, design, and evaluation), then identifying shared features. The findings showed 12 generic classes of characteristics, named Common SGCs (CSGCs), reducing features overlapping and describing the general game structure. The CSGCs set serves as a foundation for SG design and reusability. It provides criteria for SG classification and evaluation. Designers could implement CSGCs by matching each one of them with a concrete game mechanics plethora. We present future research directions in the scope of the SG design approach using the CSGCs proposal.

ABSTRACT. The premise that "good" games embody sound pedagogy in their designs, even indeliberately, suggests that commercial entertainment games may also hold surprising educational potential. However, there is limited research exploring the potential learning experiences that entertainment games can provide, as well as how such unintended experiences could influence players' everyday lives. In this paper, we present an exploratory study surveying thirteen university students to understand their perceived learning experiences from entertainment games, how they applied these experiences to their lives, and why they believed the experiences were personally impactful. We found that participants believed they learned (1) practical skills of collaboration and planning, and (2) a wide range of everyday knowledge and educational content. Additionally, we found all reported experiences were relevant and meaningful to players’ lives outside of the game. Lastly, we utilize findings to inform the design of games beyond entertainment, identifying potential improvements for educational game design.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we argue for the value of novice play in the classroom as an essential element in understanding games and play. This opens up ludic literacies (and how and where to teach them) - which often have game mastery, repertoire knowledge and a deep understanding of game design as their goals - towards literacies that aim for a broader approach to meaning-making. Here, we focus specifically on game analysis, but the approach itself fits within a more general call within game studies to focus on a broader set of phenomena than just the traditional object of the game. It reminds us to be cautious for a disciplinary stance of “l2p n00b” when it comes to ludic literacy and builds a groundwork for dealing with students of media and culture - independent of career ambitions - to understand larger processes and phenomena of ludification in culture and society.

ABSTRACT. In my presentation I want to propose a new theoretical approach to categorizing failure in video games. I propose not only a new approach to failure but also a reading of failure through Halberstam’s queer theory, which rewrites this experience as an alternative way of succeeding, gaining knowledge, living and, in the case of my study, playing (Halberstam 2011). I will identify various types of failure using the Model of Player Involvement described by Gordon Calleja (Calleja 2011). I will conduct a case study of NieR: Automata (N:A; PlatinumGames 2017) to explore different modes of failing. The aim of my presentation is to highlight those moments of failure which appear during the gameplay and to define their functions in and purposes for constructing the story, therefore showing that its role does not limit to learning and motivating the player to complete the game.

ABSTRACT. Exergames are video games that require physical activity and that can be used for several purposes, including recreation, health, and education. Exergaming has been found to elicit several physical and non-physical effects, including body weight reduction and enjoyment as well as engagement related to physical activity. Yet, according to meta-analytic findings, some exergaming groups did not outperform comparison groups and exergaming has been realized quite differently, for instance, in home and school environments. Here, we focus on recent work on exergaming at home and in formal education to discuss how exergaming can become (more) effective.

ABSTRACT. Each technology is developed within a specific context and related to different social fields. This paper offers a historical analysis of the beginnings of press narratives about computer games in Portugal during the establishment of democracy and its entry into the European Economic Community in the 1980s. It focuses on the narratives created by two specialized computer press publications about the place of digital games in the broader social context and how gender and age group issues were presented in these narratives. It was possible to identify how computer games were directed to an imagined target population, given the worldwide tendency to relate technologies and games as a male “taste.” This helped to distinguish those legitimately interested in gaming culture and exclude all those who did not fit this norm.

ABSTRACT. The digital games industry is predominantly helmed by giant game companies catering for global unified themes. Despite the rise of handy tools and online stores that provide more opportunities for independent developers, games contents rarely reflect Israel’s current lifestyle. This paper focuses on the volatile history of Israeli games culture as we explore the specific circumstances that deterred developers from creating games that are engaged with the local way of life. We observe how endogenous and exogenous factors encourage companies and creators to deliberately strip local characteristics from their products while adhering to global trends. This tendency is widespread in the commercial and independent games industries. As gaming becomes a dominant media and art form, we urge for new actions to promote games inspired by local culture, themes, and aesthetics.

ABSTRACT. As one of the largest and longest running Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games, World of Warcraft has attracted an audience in excess of 100 million over its lifetime. In the 17 years since the game was released, there have been numerous changes and expansions to the design of the game. Such changes have not always been well-received, leading some players to seek an alternative World of Warcraft experience. To support these and other experiences, a significant private server community exists, developed and operated by often anonymous third parties. Through classifications and examinations of case studies we reveal the significant scope, variety, and labour associated with the World of Warcraft private server space. We demonstrate that these practices are far larger than simply providing free to play World of Warcraft like experiences, and that the private server space has diversity that has yet to be explored by researchers.

ABSTRACT. The concept of “critical play” comes from Mary Flanagan and her work on games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique (2009). This extended abstract builds on Flanagan’s notion of critical play by coming back to the question: what does it mean to play critically? It is an exploration of three different, but intimately intertwined, playful states of mind which I argue are enablers for critical play to occur in a real-world environment, namely brink awareness, boundary flexibility and openness to ‘world’-travelling. These will be briefly elaborated upon in this abstract, with the intention to set the ground for future work.

ABSTRACT. In our research, we examine animated porn videos based on the game Among Us and the reception of these videos.

ABSTRACT. Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where pornographic games are funded; even the most successful game developer in terms of the number of members is developing a pornographic game. We looked at 42 developers and their Patreon pages in order to examine the effects of the Patreon crowdfunding model on videogame development. Especially we studied membership rewards. As a result, developers were not only selling the game, but rewards we much about Community, Influence, and Recognition. Regulating Content Access is used regularly but often the latest version of the game is made available to everybody, just later to the members funding the development. We propose that certain rewards are similar to backstage passes in the music business and suggest that Patron pornographic games funding deviates from the crowdfunding model is not following mainly product-oriented commodity logic but a more community-oriented concept.

ABSTRACT. This panel discussion combines the participants’ expertise in philosophy, psychology, ethics, computer science, and law. Questions that the panel will seek to explore include: • What do we already know about loot boxes through the existing literature? • What are the weaknesses of the existing literature that should be addressed through further research? • Is the current push for regulation of loot boxes and gambling-like content in video games similar to or different from the ‘moral panic’ surrounding violence in video games of the decades past? • Is legal regulation the only solution, or can industry self-regulation be just as effective? • Are restrictions or ‘bans’ on loot boxes the only option or can loot boxes be designed in more ethical ways to reduce potential harms? • Exactly what is ethical game design? What makes one loot box implementation ethical but another unethical?

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract provides a starting point for understanding the impact of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the mechanics of game design, and particularly to consider how these tokens fit into a historical trajectory of efforts at replicating the experience of analog game collection and ownership in digital game contexts. We propose a taxonomy of early NFT adoptions, considering the range of implementations and their reliance upon familiar incentives for monetization.

ABSTRACT. This study explains how the gacha, a random-type item provider system in mobile online games or game apps, is reported on in Japan by analyzing 233 newspaper articles. Results revealed that business frames were the most frequently used. After gacha became controversial in 2012, its problematic social nature was reported. After the controversy, news stories shifted focus more to the inaccuracy of probability rates of special items. The Japanese newspapers reported the innovative but controversial nature of gacha by balancing complaints from consumers, concerns and criticism from governmental organizations, and the developments and social responsibility of the game industry.

ABSTRACT. Few Super Nintendo / Super Famicom titles have received as much attention from videogame hackers as Final Fantasy III (Square Soft 1993). ROMhacking.net currently hosts over 200 different hacking projects for the game, ranking it among the console’s most intensively modified titles. One key trend that has emerged amongst these projects is a desire to transform Final Fantasy III into something more authentic, with many hacks claiming to repair, uncensor, or restore the game in various ways. These discourses are primarily concerned with undoing changes that occurred when the original Japanese release was localized for North American audiences. In this presentation for DiGRA 2022, I analyse several hacks for Final Fantasy III to dissect the emergent, sometimes contentious, notions of authenticity that permeate their communities. Tracing these fan activities reveals competing discourses of authenticity and the impossibility of establishing a definitive version of a game that exists in multiplicities.