ABSTRACT. This research seeks to examine how the language and ideology of Trump era politics has become coded into World of Warcraft since the Launch of its eighth story expansion, Battle for Azeroth. It will combine a textual analysis of Battle for Azeroth’s pre-expansion events that guided gameplay and game story towards full-out conflict with a discourse analysis of official Blizzard forums on topics related to in-game events transpiring around this period and early expansion launch. Next, it will analyze the games journalism produced around the pre-expansion event period, with particular attention to the rise of the #notmywarchief moment among horde faction players. Finally, it will connect this period to more recent events in WoW, to evidence that this “Trump effect” very much continues to be woven into the core systems, narratives, and community spaces of WoW. While it cannot offer a complete picture, this paper will explore how this community of gamers have come to view World of Warcraft, its core story, and aesthetic world, as explicitly political and divisive in the time of Trumpian politics. This research is part of ongoing work that will contribute to an edited collection of scholarship on World of Warcraft after 20 years.

ABSTRACT. Scholarly game analyses are typically narrow (e.g. specific games or genres) or broad – examining elements seen in most/all games. There is a need for game design analyses somewhere in between: e.g. at the level of gameplay systems. We provide a design overview of one common system; the modern action combat system as used across several game genres. We examined successful videogame titles, reviewed professional designer commentary, player discussions, and scholarly literature to identify the primary elements of current combat system design. We then show how these elements relate to each other and provide a framework for understanding the different styles of gameplay experience that games with real-time melee combat systems currently provide. We conclude with an overview of different styles of gameplay that distinguish popular action combat focused games.

ABSTRACT. In this paper I examine how the character Kaedehara Kazuha in the Chinese-developed global phenomenon “Genshin Impact” (MiHoYo/HoYoverse, 2020) mobilizes the ancient Japanese poetry anthology “Man’yōshū” (c. 759–785) to generate affective, cultural and commercial pleasure across multiple intersecting lines of identity, geography, and media. While Kazuha is not a historical Japanese figure, his design evokes a hybrid ‘poet-warrior’ archetype whose burst voice lines directly quote poems from “Man’yōshū.” Kazuha thus becomes a site of pleasure—literary, aesthetic, cultural, playful—within a transnational commodity game designed for global circulation. The appeal of Kazuha lies in this layered intersection: he functions simultaneously as a Japanese-coded wanderer (pleasing players attracted to Japanese historical/fantasy tropes), as a refined literary figure (pleasing those drawn to cultural prestige), and as a product of Chinese development (pleasing a global market seeking novelty and cross-cultural hybridity). This hybridity invites reflection on how pleasure is enabled, mediated and restricted by the interplay of identity (national, cultural, literary), genre (RPG, gacha-game), platform (mobile, console, PC) and politics of cultural capital. I advance two core arguments. First, Kazuha demonstrates how ancient literary texts like “Man’yōshū” are being re-deployed in digital games as flexible resources for identity-making and affective engagement, rather than as fixed, historically‐bound texts for scholarly consumption. In this sense, “Man’yōshū” is abstracted into a transnational cultural brand—detached from its manuscripts and other premodern contexts—and attached to the pleasures of game-play and fandom. Second, this deployment reflects broader dynamics of transnational media and cultural flows in East Asia: the Chinese game industry is not simply adopting Japanese motifs but is strategically re-inscribing Japanese cultural heritage into a global product, thereby producing pleasure that is simultaneously nostalgic, cosmopolitan, and commercially savvy. Within the DiGRA 2026 theme of ‘Intersectional Pleasures,’ this case invites us to ask: how do pleasure and identity intersect in digital games when textual traditions are remediated across national and linguistic lines? How does a Chinese-developed game leverage Japanese classical literature to generate a pleasure of cultural authenticity for global players? And whose pleasures are enabled (and whose restricted) in this mediated field of game-play, character fandom, and intercultural exchange? For example, while Japanese players might recognize the direct citations and appreciate them as cultural heritage, international players may derive pleasure more abstractly, perceiving Kazuha as ‘poetic’ without knowing the source. In either scenario, quoting from “Man’yōshū” functions as a form of aesthetic and symbolic pleasure that transcends (but also implicates) the histories of the text and the region. Methodologically, this study draws on textual analysis of Kazuha’s voice lines (in original Japanese and localization), player-reception data from global fan communities, and industry documentation of the game’s international design strategy. By centering the affective dimension of pleasure—both as an experience for players and as a strategic asset for game-makers—the paper contributes to game studies’ growing interest in how identity politics, cultural heritage, and global markets configure the pleasures of digital media. Kazuha’s figure illustrates how an ancient Japanese anthology can be repurposed within a Chinese-developed global game to create layers of pleasure—literary, aesthetic, cultural, fan-driven—and in doing so challenge simple binaries of local vs global, East vs West, tradition vs commodification. His case shows how digital games can become sites where classical texts are not simply preserved, but reimagined and mobilized for intersectional pleasures across identity, genre, platform, and cultural capital.

ABSTRACT. This proposal analyzes how current sociocultural challenges are portrayed through the videoludic Picaresque. It compares these circumstances with those that gave birth to Picaresque literature many years ago, showing that, in both cases, Picaresque fiction is part of an ongoing cultural interest in exploring non-normative ways of living in oppressive societies. It gives a socially conscious and historicist answer to why rogues are so popular nowadays in video games and how their current videoludic portrayal is intertwined with literature and society.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims to examine the representation of children and its ideology in post-apocalyptic games. Drawing on child characters' deaths and their causes, I argue that the game's portrayal of child mortality is a reverse affirmation of adult-defined conceptions and imaginations of surviving the post-apocalypse, which undermines the potential of the medium to challenge adult-oriented narratives and to offer an alternative vision of childhood.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores how indie pornographic videogames represent and sexualise monstrosity. Twenty-five games were analysed using qualitative content analysis to examine how design, narrative, and visual elements articulate the relationship between sexuality, fear, and taboo. Three recurring themes emerged: Sexy, Not Human, and Horny; Monstrous Seduction and the Erosion of Will; and Dominance, Violence, and Sexual Control. These themes reveal how pornographic horror games mobilise the monstrous body as a site where desire, disgust, and transgression intersect. These games employ mechanics and aesthetics that invite players to engage with fantasies of danger, submission, and control. The fusion of attraction and repulsion becomes a core ludic and affective dynamic, shaping how players experience the interplay of pleasure and horror. The analysis argues that such games reconfigure cultural narratives of gender and sexuality through interactive design, positioning the monstrous body as both object of desire and vehicle for exploring the limits of acceptable pleasure.

ABSTRACT. In this study, I holistically examine Disco Elysium to investigate how it prompts communal reflection on political, philosophical, ethical, and psychological issues. By comparing developer intentions and player interpretations, the game emerges as both a crafted, artistic, and philosophically existential work and a site for emergent, collective meaning through play and community discussion.

ABSTRACT. Please see the extended abstract

ABSTRACT. In an era of transnational mobility and digital connectivity, online games have become everyday infrastructures through which young people sustain emotional ties and cultural continuity across borders. For Chinese international students, who often navigate ambivalent senses of “home” and belonging, gaming offers more than escapist entertainment. This paper examines how digital play functions as a practice of affective home-making, enabling players to maintain familiar routines, linguistic intimacy, and shared cultural references in the midst of displacement. Drawing on Anderson’s notion of imagined communities (1983) and affect theory (Ahmed 2004; Fortier 2000), the study conceptualizes gaming as a technology of mediated belonging that links dispersed individuals through repetitive, emotionally charged interactions. Based on ongoing qualitative interviews with Chinese overseas students, it investigates how games facilitate everyday forms of sociality and cultural attachment that are otherwise difficult to sustain in transnational life. The concept of “playing home” thus highlights the affective and infrastructural dimensions of digital play, expanding understandings of how games mediate community, emotion, and identity in migratory contexts.

References

Anderson, B. R. O. 1983. Imagined communities : reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.

Ahmed, S. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge.

Fortier, A.-M. 2000. Migrant belongings : memory, space, identity. Berg.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, the dominant narratives in esports have often centred on elite competition, commercial spectacle, professionalisation and high-performance digital athletes. However, in Norway, a quiet movement has emerged—one that reinterprets esports as a participatory, inclusive, and socially rooted activity. This paper explores how the Bredde-Esport-Alliansen (Grassroots Esports Alliance) is transforming the recreational competitive gaming scene by emphasising community, accessibility, and intersectional involvement, especially among younger players.

Rather than measuring success through metrics like prize money, sponsorships, or global rankings, the Bredde Esport Alliansen focuses on everyday play: after-school gaming clubs, micro-tournaments, parental inclusion evenings, and volunteer-led mentorship. These are spaces where esports is used to foster safety, identity, and connection across lines of gender, ability, class, geography, and culture. Esports, in this context, becomes not just a sphere of competition but one of care, solidarity, and belonging.

This article examines how esports is practised, understood, and organised when the main aim is not elite performance but broad participation, inclusion, and community-building. Using the Bredde Esport Alliansen as a case study, the article looks at how esports can serve as a low-threshold, socially focused activity for children and young people. The key research question is: What kinds of community are formed and supported when esports is seen as a grassroots social activity rather than a competitive elite sport? Secondary questions include: How is the concept of “breadth” (bredde) put into practice day-to-day? How do adult facilitators—such as coaches, volunteers, and parents—influence young people’s involvement in organised digital play? And what tensions emerge between grassroots values and the dominant expectations of competitive esports? Methodologically, this paper draws on qualitative interviews with key actors in the Bredde Esport Alliansen—coaches, organisers, volunteers, and affiliated educators. Additionally, the analysis incorporates internal documentation produced by the Alliance, such as workshop summaries, operational guidelines, funding reports, and strategy documents. This combination of stakeholder interviews and document analysis provides a grounded understanding of how grassroots esports is conceptualised, organised, and implemented in a Norwegian context. The methodological focus is on capturing lived experiences, local knowledge, and organisational narratives that shape the everyday practices of inclusive esports work.

This study is rooted in a cultural studies approach to grassroots esports, drawing on perspectives that view gaming not just as digital competition, but as socially embedded practices. As in Law and Jarrett’s (2020) analysis of the Super Smash Bros. Melee scene, this paper considers grassroots esports as an alternative formation—shaped not by commercial infrastructure or elite performance, but by community effort, shared values, and inclusive participation. To explore how grassroots esports develops within the Bredde Esport Alliansen, the study builds on theories of subcultural practice (Hebdige, 1979) and participatory community media (Howley, 2005). These viewpoints enable a critical analysis of how grassroots actors resist, reframe, or reinterpret dominant understandings of esports. In this context, grassroots esports initiatives are not merely smaller or more amateurish versions of professional leagues; instead, they represent an alternative esports ethos rooted in inclusion, trust, and local knowledge.

Preliminary findings highlight several key dynamics. First, grassroots esports initiatives focus on inclusive pleasure: participation without pressure, digital literacy through engaging activities, and identity development in a non-judgmental environment. Second, the Alliance emphasises intersectional safety—crafting physical and virtual spaces where language norms, gender expressions, neurodiversity, and emotional regulation are actively supported. Third, the grassroots model is maintained through volunteer infrastructures that depend on warmth, role clarity, and peer support rather than formal hierarchy. Yet, challenges remain: persistent stigma around gaming in Norwegian society, scepticism from parents and schools, and the structural limitations of relying on local funding, volunteer labour, and fragmented institutional support. Nonetheless, these frictions provide valuable insights into how grassroots esports both navigates and challenges traditional sporting paradigms, promoting a more accessible and community-oriented model of esports.

ABSTRACT. This study focuses on identity politics and public opinion polarization in China’s ACG game communities, taking the interactive teasing labels "Mi Xuezhang" and "Ku Xuedi" between player groups of Genshin Impact (miHoYo 2020) and Wuthering Waves (Guangzhou Kuro Games 2024) as the core case. Against the backdrop that ACG communities have evolved from interest aggregation spaces to identity game arenas, existing studies lack quantitative analysis of the "label-identity-polarization" linkage mechanism. It adopts a data-driven mixed-methods design: 8,000 text samples are selected from four platforms via stratified random sampling, with a five-dimensional coding system constructed. Python and machine learning (BERT, XGBoost) are integrated for text classification and label usage prediction. Supplementary public opinion monitoring tracks heat, sentiment, and polarization indices, while triangulation enhances validity. Expected findings include: labels complete group segmentation through semantic empowerment; operational controversies and algorithmic echo chambers jointly drive polarization with a post-event residual effect; a "label-algorithm-identity" three-dimensional model is proposed. Methodologically, it quantifies label discourse evolution. Practically, it provides a "label early warning-algorithm optimization" framework for game enterprises and platforms, aiding healthy online ecosystem construction.

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract presents a developing programme of research examining how adults with acquired brain injury (ABI) participate in digital gaming communities, and how these environments may support the formation of social capital, pleasurable engagement, and community belonging. Existing work on disability and gaming has primarily focused on accessibility, impairment, and exclusion (Hassan & Baltzar, 2022). Far less attention has been given to how disabled players actively create and experience pleasure, social connection, and mutual support within gaming spaces. This research seeks to address this gap through an intersectional and social-capital lens. Contemporary frameworks of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital (Putnam, 2015) provide a useful structure for examining how adults with ABI engage in online games and gaming communities. Early empirical work suggests that online and collaborative play can facilitate low-barrier participation, enable flexible communication, and reduce social isolation for people who experience cognitive, sensory, or physical limitations (Nilsen et. al., 2024; Baltzar, Hassan & Turunen, 2024). However, social aspects remained understudied. Interaction through games may create opportunities for reconstructing social identity, rebuilding confidence, and participating in communities where competence, reciprocity, and shared goals structure social relations. The planned programme of research aims to investigate these processes more systematically, with attention to how digital play may mediate or scaffold pleasurable forms of connection for people who have an ABI. This work draws on an intersectional framework that examines disability in relation to gender, age, class, and other identity dimensions that shape access to gaming pleasures and constraints. Within this approach, pleasure is conceptualised as an affective and relational domain rather than a purely recreational one. For adults with ABI, digital play may provide modes of participation that are otherwise restricted by fatigue, mobility limitations, stigma, or reduced opportunities for offline social interaction. These are common concerns for this group (Åkerlund, Sunnerhagen & Persson, 2021; Williams & Willmott, 2012; Bracho & Salas, 2024). The sensory, social, and narrative features of games may support pleasurable engagement through both entertainment but also through feelings of agency, competence, and recognition within a community of peers. The research also considers how gaming communities operate as socio-technical systems that can both facilitate and restrict social capital. Platform design, communication infrastructures, moderation practices, and broader cultural norms all influence how disabled players participate and the types of pleasure that become available (Judin, 2025). The developing project seeks to examine these structural elements alongside players’ lived experiences, with particular attention to how individuals navigate inclusion, exclusion, and the negotiation of identity within gaming environments. Examples from preliminary qualitative and anecdotal accounts indicate that some adults with ABI use games to form supportive micro-communities, maintain long-term relationships, and access spaces where disability is less visible or less socially penalised. These examples suggest potential mechanisms through which gaming may support community-building and wellbeing, though systematic investigation is needed. The forthcoming research programme will employ mixed-methods approaches to explore these patterns in depth, with sustained involvement from people with lived experience throughout design, data interpretation, and knowledge translation. Through this orientation, the project contributes to emerging conversations within game studies about intersectional pleasures, disabled play, and the relational possibilities of digital communities. By focusing on disability as a standpoint for understanding sociality in games, the research aims to generate insights relevant to inclusive design, community governance, and methodological approaches that centre disabled players’ experiences. The work intends to support a broader understanding of how digital play functions as a site of pleasure, social meaning, and community participation for adults with acquired brain injury.

References Åkerlund, E., Sunnerhagen, K. S., & Persson, H. C. (2021). Fatigue after acquired brain injury impacts health-related quality of life: an exploratory cohort study. Scientific reports, 11(1), 22153. Baltzar, P., Hassan, L., & Turunen, M. (2024). Forced to Choose Silence: Social Gaming with Disabilities. Simulation & Gaming, 55(6), 1011-1031. Bracho, M. J., & Salas, C. (2024). The many faces of stigma after acquired brain injury: A systematic review. Brain impairment, 25(1). Hassan, L., & Baltzar, P. (2022). Social aspects in game accessibility research: a literature review. In DIGRA. DiGRA online library. Judin, K. A. (2025). Leveling the Playing Field: Online Gaming as a Communication Platform for Individuals with Disabilities. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 9(13), 227-234. Nilsen, R., Johansen, T., Løvstad, M., & Linnestad, A. M. (2024). Playing online videogames—more than just entertainment? A qualitative study of virtual social participation in persons with spinal cord injury. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, 5, 1395678. Putnam, R. D. (2015). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. In The city reader (pp. 188-196). Routledge. Williams, G., & Willmott, C. (2012). Higher levels of mobility are associated with greater societal participation and better quality-of-life. Brain Injury, 26(9), 1065-1071.

ABSTRACT. Have large language model-based AIs made games more fun than symbolic text generators? This question drives a comparative look at the symbolic text-generation systems in games versus today's LLM-driven approaches. For the last couple of years, game developers have experimented with procedurally generated text from rule-based engines to neural networks. This extended abstract explores how these technologies differ in design, narrative integration, and gameplay impact. It examines examples from the past and the present to assess if the move to LLMs is more engaging than symbolic systems, and whether LLMs enabled new gameplay possibilities or have simply expanded existing ones.

ABSTRACT. Within game development are dichotomies such as commercial and non-commercial games or licensed and unlicensed games. Amateur hobbyist game developers often create unofficial games for platforms without the consent of the hardware publisher known as “homebrew” games. The following paper is a historical analysis homebrew games for the Nintendo DS console, focusing on notable releases from these young developers. The games and project discussed were released from 2005-2013, when the handheld was still actively supported by Nintendo. This study reveals how amateur game developers developed the skills the needed to become professional programmers later, how developers from France had a notable influence on the community, and how these programmers were typically young adults or adolescents. This research contributes to video game history by exploring the releases of unofficial games and the budding scholarship on homebrew development.

ABSTRACT. Studies on classical reception in digital games have flourished in academia over the past five years (Rollinger, 2020), including the use of classics in games produced and played in North America and Europe (Clare, 2021). For example, Ross Clare (2021) proposed a valid framework for understanding the vibrant mixture of classical Roman-themed games influenced by ancient and modern historical references and their receptions. Furthermore, Dom Ford (2025) suggested the concept of ‘mytholudics’ as an analytical structure to understand classical-related games as a type of mythology, along with their surrounding folklore. Recently, the Mythological Game Studies Conference (2025) featured more than thirty papers that explored transcultural narratives, including the tabletop role-playing game Lex Arcana (Colovini et al., 1993), set in the background of the Western Roman Empire.

However, previous research overlooked the classical Roman reception in East Asian games. A notable example of this is the immensely popular role-playing game Genshin Impact, developed by the Chinese studio HoYoVerse in 2020. In the game, the player assumes the role of a traveller looking for their lost sibling. The game takes place in the fantasy world ‘Teyvat’, and heavily incorporates classical cultural references within its storylines. For example, the Sea of Bygone Eras in Genshin Impact largely referenced the classical Roman cultures. While the classical Roman receptions have not yet been discussed within the game, apart from Paul Thomas’s (2025) work on the transcultural combination and Graeco-Roman receptions within the storytelling element in Genshin Impact; It has been scrutinised by scholars, especially in terms of those who focused on its portrayal of the ‘Chineseness’ (Li and Li, 2023), or the emergence of Chinese soft power demonstrated by the delicate multicultural representation within the game (Tang and Li, 2025).

Thus, this article will examine the use of classical Roman elements in Genshin Impact’s storytelling in the Sea of Bygone Eras, analysing its dynamic reimagining of the names, philosophy, and environmental design, and follows Rachael Hutchinson’s (2019) research framework to analyse the textual and visual representations in the game. For example, Boethius and Cassiodor, two principal characters within the Sea of Bygone Eras, were derived from two famous Roman politicians and philosophers, Boethius and Cassiodorus. Both of them lived in Rome during the late Antique period of the fifth to the sixth century, at the end of the political existence of the Western Roman Empire, and the cooperation of local Roman elites and the Gothic military aristocrats.

Apart from analysing the usage of classical Roman reception in the game, this article will also discuss the reason why developers of Genshin Impact weave the classical Roman cultures within its narrative. The depiction of classical Roman reception in Genshin Impact is influenced by the Japanese role-playing games’ multiculturalism traditions, which have heavily received popularity in mainland China since the 1990s (Liao, 2016). Previously, scholars also discussed the multiculturalism traditions in the Japanese game industry. While Iwabuchi (2002) considered Japanese games using the ‘cultural odourless’ effects to achieve global success, Miyake (2015) argued that the Japanese creative cultural industry was also heavily based on Self-Orientalism and cultural stereotypes, employing parodies to soften strict themes and attract attention in the worldwide entertainment market. In Genshin Impact, compared to the previous passive Japanese cultural industry strategy, the depiction of diverse cultures originated from a more proactive multicultural approach nourished by the Chinese government’s official cultural policies (Tang and Li, 2025). Overall, this essay aims to contribute to the research on classical reception and the influence of multiculturalism in East Asian games, bridging the current studies of Genshin Impact on its Chinese influence with the classical reception studies.

ABSTRACT. The British games publisher U.S. Gold was founded by Anne and Geoff Brown in Birmingham, UK, in 1984, in parallel to their distributor, CentreSoft. The publishing label mastered the transatlantic fantasy of selling the pleasure of Americanness to European players. U.S. Gold’s catalogue included several Japanese arcade titles which engaged with Americanness, forming a byzantine cultural transaction that concealed its hybrid origins (Kocurek 2015). It reimagined Japan’s stylised versions of America, for instance the Californian landscape of Sega’s OutRun (1986) or the patriotic combat of Capcom’s 1943: Battle of Midway (1987), where the European player of a Japanese game plays an American pilot. Therefore, U.S. Gold sits at the nexus of what we term the ludoindustrial complex – the network of ideological, technological, and affective forces linking videogame production to global systems of consumption and cultural desire (Authors 2022; 2023). Reframing this concept through the lens of intersectional pleasure, U.S. Gold’s marketing and distribution practices transformed the American Dream with its promises of freedom, success, and individual agency into a pleasurable consumer experience mediated through play. These were represented as aspirational commodities for British and European audiences, offering what Ahmed (2010: 38) calls an affective orientation towards happiness and belonging – an imagined route to self-fulfilment through consumption. In this sense, the pleasure of play was not only ludic but also ideological: to play American became to participate in capitalism’s most seductive fantasy of self-making.

This paper explores how these pleasures intersect across class, gender, and geography. In Thatcherite Britain, videogames became markers of technological literacy and social aspiration, reflecting Veblen’s (1994 [1899]) and Trigg’s (2016) analyses of conspicuous consumption. The Commodore 64, marketed as both educational tool and leisure object, embodies what Bourdieu (1984: xiii–xiv), based on Kant’s critique of judgement, contends for the relationship between class and leisure: “by seeking in the structure of the social classes the basis of the systems of classification which structure perception of the social world and designate the objects of aesthetic enjoyment.” For working- and middle-class players, U.S. Gold’s glittering gold medallion logo – “All American Software” – promised access to a cosmopolitan transatlantic lifestyle otherwise beyond reach. The pleasure of digital play encodes an intersectional politics of visibility: to own and play American games was to inhabit a fantasy of class mobility and global belonging. Yet these pleasures were profoundly mediated. This simulation of Americanness, as Baudrillard (2007) would suggest, transformed geopolitical asymmetry into affective pleasure. British consumers were not buying ‘America’ itself, but an aestheticised idea of it: surf culture, neon skylines, and fast cars encoded in pixels and packaging. The resulting pleasure was both ironic and sincere: the authentic joy of participating in an unattainable dream.

Crucially, this pleasure was intersectional. Drawing on hook’s (1992: 31) analysis of cultural consumption as exchange and decontextualization as well as Fiske’s (1989: 2) notion of “popular culture as made from within and below,” we argue that U.S. Gold’s players negotiated identity through play, embracing, resisting or reinterpreting the American Dream. This generated a very postmodern mode of consumption where high and low culture intersect in the form of digital games. For some, these games offered escapist joy amid economic precarity; for others, they reinforced the pleasure of identification with hegemonic whiteness, masculinity, and Western modernity. Pleasure, here, is neither innocent nor universal: it functions as a lubricant of ideology, transforming consumption into a site of affective participation in global capitalism.

U.S. Gold’s marketing practices reveal how these affective economies operated. Spending five times as much on magazine advertising as their nearest competitor (Meades, Nolan, and Wade 2026), the company constructed an immersive ecosystem where magazine spreads, competitions, and arcade conversions merged into sensory experiences of desirability. The gold medallion logo and Californian imagery of the jewel-case game covers promised a form of digital cosmopolitanism that blurred borders and identities. These promotional aesthetics turned retail browsing into a ritual of affective investment, transforming the shop floor into a cruelly optimistic space (Berlant 2011), where pleasure depends on identification with an unattainable fantasy.

By situating U.S. Gold within the ludoindustrial complex, this paper demonstrates how pleasure operates as both affect and ideology in Cold War gaming culture. The American Dream, reimagined as a game one could buy and play, offered consumers the illusion of participation in global modernity while concealing the material asymmetries of its production. In this light, U.S. Gold’s games exemplify what intersectional pleasures look like under late capitalism: desires for belonging, power, and identity entwined within circuits of simulation, marketing, and play. In this sense, this study demonstrates that the pleasures of play are inseparable from the pleasures of consumption. Through U.S. Gold’s glittering promise of Americanness, the ludoindustrial complex exposes a central truth of digital culture: in the global marketplace of games, to play is to desire, and to desire is to consume.

REFERENCES Ahmed, S. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham, UK: Duke University Press. Authors 2022 Authors 2023 Baudrillard, J. 2007. The Consumer Society. London, UK: Sage. Berlant, L. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, UK: Duke University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press. Capcom. 1987. 1943: Battle of Midway. Arcade and Console Game. Capcom. Fiske, J. 1989. Reading the Popular. London, UK: Routledge. hooks, b. 1992. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA, USA: South End Press. Kocurek, C. 2015. Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press. Meades, A., Nolan, K., and Wade, A. 2026 (forthcoming). “Selling the U.S. Gold Dream to Europe.” In Silicon Dawn: European Creative Computing 1970-2000, edited by N. Majsova, K. Nolan, and A. Wade. Berlin, Germany: DeGruyter Brill. Sega. 1986. OutRun. Arcade and PC Game. Sega. Trigg, A. 2016. “Veblen, Bourdieu, and Conspicuous Consumption.” Journal of Economic Issues. 35(1): 99–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2001.11506342 Veblen, T. 1994 [1899] The Theory of the Leisure Class. London, UK: Routledge.

ABSTRACT. of the government-funded game jam research project That’s My Jam: Understanding the Value of Game Jams. A year-long research project that resulted in an industry white paper and an interactive toolkit, That’s My Jam interrogates what game jams are, why people attend them, and how they benefit game makers with diverse creative and professional aspirations. I will also touch upon the importance of multimodal research outputs (white papers, interactive tools, presentations, and more) in engaging diverse audiences of game developers and policymakers who are typically not interested in academic scholarship.

ABSTRACT. Extended abstract; see attached.

ABSTRACT. This paper will detail the creation of Landfill, a durational deck-building videogame hosted on Solar Server. Solar Server is a solar-powered web server created to host low-carbon games. It consists of a solar panel, an old car battery, and a microcomputer on my apartment balcony. The microcomputer is powered by the solar-generated electricity. It stores website data and videogames created for it, including Landfill. When someone visits www.solarserver.games, their browser retrieves the website’s data from the solar-powered server. The server consumes electricity to process requests and transmit website data to clients over the internet, and in this case the electricity comes from renewable solar energy. When they play a game on the website, the server sends the game’s data to their browser which downloads it on their computer. The games are designed to be small, to lessen the computational load and electrical demand of each

Landfill is the second game made for Solar Server. It is a systems-focused game that aims to reconstruct the deck-builder type of game from common designs like combat to a theme of composting and renewing land. Unlike most deck-builders, the player begins with too many cards and composts them as they play to streamline a unique deck. Furthermore, the game aims to bring players to awareness of real-life weather effects by having in-game changing abilities based on their real-life local weather. We use the geolocation of the player to determine the weather in their area and change ability modifiers for the cards, as one of the goals of Solar Server is to not obfuscate the effects of the climate on our technology.

The game unfolds as a durational experience. Players can only complete a few rounds per day, and the game then locks them out until the next day, continuing this cycle for a full week. This pacing resists the binge-play rhythms common in digital games and instead encourages a slower, more measured engagement while experiencing the changes of the weather over the period of playtime. It operates akin to a rogue-lite, returning to the same levels but with an upgraded deck. The gameplay loop is broken up and slowed down.

Though there is theming of land and climate in Landfill, the design takes from Ben Abraham that a truly eco-conscious game is “already aware of its carbon emissions, has already reduced its carbon footprint, has already decoupled itself from the resource extractive aspects of the games industry” (2022, pp. 82). The games’ environmental intervention lies in the modes it is created and shared, leaving a much smaller carbon footprint than most digital games. Landfill leaves behind popular notions of green games or eco-games being persuasive or educational to the player, teaching them or moving them to real-life environmentalist behaviour. Instead, using an autonomous and solar-powered set up with games designed to be low-carbon, allows us to focus on the pleasure of playing the game, rather than particular perceived or desired social repercussions.

Our approach to the game’s design aligns closely with Kate Soper’s concept of post-growth living, which argues that the transition away from carbon-intensive consumption does not have to be framed as sacrifice, but can open space for new forms of pleasure and creativity. Working within the constraints of solar power, limited storage, and small-scale computation allowed us to experiment with an “alternative hedonism.” The game moves towards the idea that low-carbon games can cultivate pleasure, creativity, and engagement without relying on didactic messaging, showing that sustainable practices and pleasurable play can coexist in environmental games.

References: Abraham, Ben. 2022. Ecogames: Design and Play in Sustainable Digital Worlds. London: Routledge. Soper, Kate. 2020. Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism. London: Verso Press.

ABSTRACT. As games shift toward a games-as-a-service model, monetisation has increasingly centred on microtransactions. While existing research has examined how monetisation is embedded in development and what counts as “acceptable” practice, it has focused mainly on Western industries. This study draws on interviews with 24 Chinese gameworkers involved in monetisation to explore how they negotiate it in their everyday work. Through grounded theory analysis, we identify three interconnected levels of monetisation: business strategy, game design, and ethical dilemmas. We argue that Chinese gameworkers are driven to adopt a “commercialised production ethos,” shaped by the interplay of industry norms, market pressures, and regulatory conditions, which themselves emerge from these three interconnected levels—often at the cost of creative and ethical considerations.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines how contemporary game production software---specifically game engines and asset stores---systematically transforms the intrinsic pleasure of game development from James P. Carse's concept of an "infinite game" of open-ended creativity into a "finite game" of optimization and data extraction. Through a critical theory analysis of the Unity Engine ecosystem and AI-driven narrative tools like AI Dungeon, we argue that the political-economic logics of platform capitalism (Srnicek 2017) and surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019) enforce finite-game structures upon developers. This process is theorized as a triple movement of proletarianization (Stiegler 2010), where developer savoir-faire is captured by the platform; aesthetic standardization (Adorno and Horkheimer 2002), which creates a new digital "culture industry"; and the instrumentalization of creative intuition through datafication. The paper concludes by proposing a framework for reclaiming infinite-game development practices through critical technical literacy, open platforms, and a renewed valuation of non-instrumental creative labor.

ABSTRACT. World-building is a term that is used widely throughout games production and analysis with few critical attempts to understand it. While there have been some important works that have considered games world-building from a media-theoretical (Wolf 2012), historical (Kocurek and Payne 2024) and textual (Ruberg 2025) perspective, its relationship to capitalism is mostly unexplored. Building off the work of various theorists of world-building (Ekman and Taylor 2016; Hassler-Forest 2016) this paper forwards a theory of games world-building that emphasises the embeddedness of game worlds in capitalism. Through analysing the political-economic construction of the game worlds of the Fallout franchise (1988–present) and Disco Elysium (ZA/UM 2019), I argue that world-building is not just a form of creative production but an important part in the development and prolonging of Intellectual Property (IP) for media monopolies. From a production standpoint, world-building works through the creation of what Marx defined as “fixed capital”. For Marx, fixed capital is the portion of capital that remains fixed within the production process, only giving up a part of its value in production, in contrast to “circulating capital”, which is “completely consumed in every labour process” (p. 238). Examples of fixed capital include machines and farm animals, although the most useful metaphor for understanding game worlds is land, as franchising, legal infrastructure and the creation of IP turns the player’s relationship to the world closer to that of a rentier than a consumer (Srnicek 2021). Through outlining this relationship, I present a novel way of understanding the socio-economic nature of game worlds.

I then turn to how this affects the aesthetics of games. Building off the work of Fredric Jameson (1991) and Anna Kornbluh (2024), I argue that this political-economic relationship leads to a form of fictional world-production that lacks any sense of historicity or change. If game worlds are a store of “dead labour” (Marx 1990, p. 342), it is against the capitalist’s interest to make any substantial changes to the world, as this would be a waste of the value embedded within it. Through a brief analysis of the recurring iconography of the Fallout franchise, I argue that this economic relationship means big-budget game worlds tend towards stasis: endless, ever-present and always-on worlds that exist without any meaningful change. Even further, this stasis expresses the “political unconscious” (Jameson 2013) of what Anna Kornbluh (2024) calls “too-late” capitalism—a society where history feels as if it has ended and the future feels increasingly foreclosed. The fixed nature of these worlds makes it harder for us to envision radical changes to the world in which we live: a reflection of “capitalist realism” (Fisher 2009), the belief—to quote Thatcher—that there “there is no alternative”.

Finally, I look towards a game which resists this tendency towards stasis through a deep embedding of historicity into the gameworld: ZA/UM’s 2019 role-playing game Disco Elysium. Instead of a static world, I argue that the game presents the narrative period as only a single moment in a much larger totality of historical change, destabilising the importance of the game’s specific historical moment. I argue Disco Elysium forwards a model of historical, process-based world-building which recognizes the importance of not just the people and places that currently exist, but those in the past and the things yet to come. I finish by showing how Disco Elysium still succumbed to its nature as capital, through a brief discussion of the legal-financial battle over the Elysium IP (People Make Games 2023). I show how even those works that push against world-building’s embeddedness in capitalism are still often subsumed into capitalist logics. Across these examinations, my paper expresses the need for a critical understanding of world-building within games and media studies. If, as Ruberg (2025) suggests, all games are worlds—and thus all games-production is really a form of world-building—then it is crucial that world-building as both a practice and rhetorical construct is better understood from textual, philosophical, historical and political-economic perspectives. Understanding worlds is necessary for understanding games, and this paper is an important and novel contribution for outlining the economics and ideologies that guide late capitalist games production, a necessary step to understanding a way out. In doing so, this paper speculates on how we can reclaim world-building as a radically utopian and fundamentally pleasurable practice, what Zigon (2017) calls an “experimentation with an otherwise” (para 9).

ABSTRACT. Might there be a right to play? Perhaps surprisingly, a lot hinges on the question, and exploring it can reveal some of the key political tensions of our moment. This speculative and theoretical paper will contrast and unpack three articulations of a right to play: liberal, fascistic, and compositionist. In the first instance, the paper will take up the Toronto-based international non-profit organization Right to Play which for 25 years has been supporting play-based learning in the "developing" world, in underserved communities, and in conflict zones. As laudatory as their efforts may be, the organization's framework emerges from, is integrated into, and in many ways emblematizes the dominant liberal paradigm of human rights. This paradigm has been critiqued from the left for advancing individualistic, Eurocentric, and capitalist values (Losurdo 2014). Separately, this framework has recently come under direct attack from authoritarian and right-wing forces for undermining supposedly "traditional" values and discouraging competition, producing exploitable dependencies. I explore the liberal articulation of the Right to Play with reference to John Rawls proposal of procedural justice as fairness (Garthoff 2014). Despite the American philosophers intentions, this approach has become a key justification for the neoliberal revolution in government policy around the world, animated by a drive to "level the playing field" for capitalist competition (Jagoda 2020). While inherently unequal, a market society is proposed to be nonetheless fair in its basic operations (Tomasi 2012). The right to play here is ultimately the right to compete. However, contrary to the idealism of neoliberalism's proponents, the global system it has produced over the past half-century feels to most people to be profoundly unfair (see Hochschild 2016). This has been capitalized upon by far-right and fascistic actors who often claim that the unfairness is the result of nefarious actors who are cheating the system: notably migrants, minorities, and elites. But as numerous commentators observe, these accusations are often prejudicial and politicized, often by political actors or commentators who are themselves, conspicuously, cheats (see for example Haberman and Feuer 2020). Here, I turn to Jean-Paul Sartre's (1948) enigmatic argument that fascistic actors manifest their own "right to play" with discourse, using bad faith arguments "not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." I broaden this definition to explore how play has become pivotal to the fascistic quest for what Jack Bratich (2022) calls "autogenetic sovereignty," the mythical power of unaccountable self-creation. This fascistic right to play, which can also be observed in far-right online culture and material acts of terrorism, refracts Carl Schmidt's theories about the basis of sovereignty in the power to declare a "state of exception" in the name of survival (Agamben 2005). Whereas a liberal right to play is granted by a just community of mutually respectful players, the fascistic right to play manifests itself through real and discursive violence and transgression, which is an end unto itself. Is there a path beyond this antimony? I turn, in the final section of this paper, to the work of the anarchist anthropologist David Graeber for clues. A compositionist approach takes inspiration from the anarchist traditions of political thought that inspire Graeber, but also from the work of Italian post-operaismo, which explores capitalism as a system whereby the both power and resistance are in a constant relation of recomposition (Wright 2002). I take up Graeber's (2014) well-known essay "What's The Point if we Can't Have Fun" as well as his anthropological studies of fetishism as a form of social creativity (Graeber 2005) in order to argue that the production of social life is playful in an expansive and profound sense. Systems of value (including capitalism) and domination may appear to be necessary outcomes of scarcity and authority, but are, in fact, the misrecognized and congealed form of a society's creative and playful power: the potential to collaboratively and imaginatively compose a world. The "right to play" in this sense is neither a liberal entitlement to compete nor a fascist will-to-power. It is, rather, a cooperative recognition that we are players composed as part of an infinite game whose purpose is to enable the recomposition of the game. Here, like Graeber, I turn to Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis (1997) to revisit questions of imagination, democracy and autonomy in light of this "right to play." Works cited Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Translated by Kevin Attell. University of Chicago Press. Bratich, Jack Z. 2022. On Microfascism: Gender, War, and Death. Common Notions. Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997. “Radical Imagination and the Social Instituting Imaginary.” In The Castoriadis Reader, edited by David Ames Curtis. Blackwell. Garthoff, Jon. 2014. “Procedural Justice.” In The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon, edited by David A. Reidy and Jon Mandle. Cambridge University Press. Graeber, David. 2005. “Fetishism as Social Creativity: Or, Fetishes Are Gods in the Process of Construction.” Anthropological Theory 5 (4): 407–38. Graeber, David. 2014. “What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?” The Baffler. http://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-have-fun. Haberman, Maggie, and Alan Feuer. 2020. “Mary Trump’s Book Accuses the President of Embracing ‘Cheating as a Way of Life.’” U.S. The New York Times, July 7. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/politics/mary-trump-book.html. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. New Press. Jagoda, Patrick. 2020. Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification. The University of Chicago Press. Losurdo, Domenico. 2014. Liberalism: A Counter-History. Translated by Gregory Elliott. Verso. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1948. Anti-Semite and Jew. Translated by George J. Becker. Schocken Books. Tomasi, John. 2012. Free Market Fairness. Princeton University Press. Wright, Steve. 2002. Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. Pluto.

ABSTRACT. Across various game genres that feature maps to be navigated and explored, we find a design concept called fog of war (FOW), most commonly understood as the limiting of spatial and visual information until the player approaches or enters the obscured area. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost (2009) trace the concept’s origins to Warren Robinett’s Adventure (Atari 1980), but early examples of the same idea can already be found in text-based computer wargames like Walter Bright’s Empire (1977) and Chris Crawford’s Tanktics (1976). Its continued and widespread applications in popular videogames like Baldur’s Gate III (Larian Studios 2023), Civilization V (Firaxis 2010) and Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Intelligent Systems and Kou Shibusawa 2019) indicate that FOW is no mere symptom of digital gaming’s roots in wargaming and Cold War-era technoscience, but that this martial legacy is still very much alive in game design today (see Crogan 2011). This talk highlights a change in the meaning and function of the FOW concept as it has spilled over from military simulation into entertainment gaming. Analog and early digital instances of FOW emphasized the challenges associated with limited information in accordance with military history and strategic theory; in contemporary videogames, FOW stimulates and rewards the exploration of unknown territories, allowing players to experience the joys of knowledge acquisition by ‘lifting the fog’. We argue that ‘lifting the fog’ in contemporary videogames is often the enactment of a colonial fantasy that simultaneously also aligns with the ongoing wargaming renaissance in the Global North, which aims to produce military subjectivities for an age of perpetual war.

ABSTRACT. In an era where intersectional experiences shape both education and digital engagement, the use of community games in religious pedagogy offers a novel avenue for inclusive learning and spiritual expression. This study explores how participatory, community-based games can function as pedagogical tools in teaching catechism to Catholic students, fostering inclusive and affective learning experiences within the framework of Intersectional Pleasures. Traditional catechetical instruction, often dominated by rote memorization and lecture-based formats, is witnessing declining engagement among young learners (Pew Research Center, 2023). Within Catholic education, recent data from the Global Catholic Education Report (2024) reveal a 27% drop in catechetical class participation among adolescents in urban parishes. The need for an inclusive and playful pedagogy one that integrates affect, cognition, and embodied interaction thus becomes urgent. Community games, as non-digital, culturally grounded practices, align with the Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), suggesting that learners internalize beliefs and behaviors through shared observation and cooperative play. When embedded in catechism teaching, these games transform faith instruction from didactic transfer to dialogical encounter, creating affective spaces where joy, empathy, and belonging coexist with doctrinal learning. The study is theoretically grounded in Uses and Gratifications Theory (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974), which frames game-based catechetical learning as a communicative act that fulfills both cognitive and affective needs. It posits the following hypothesis: H1: Participation in inclusive community games significantly enhances Catholic students’ catechetical comprehension and empathetic engagement compared to traditional instructional methods. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research involves pre- and post-intervention surveys and thematic analysis of student reflections in three diocesan schools across Kerala, India (n=180). The study argues that integrating community games into catechism reframes spiritual learning as a participatory, affectively charged, and socially just practice. Preliminary data indicate a 35% improvement in conceptual retention and a 41% rise in self-reported joy and peer connectedness (49%) following game-based catechetical interventions. Moreover, ethnographic observations reveal that intersectional factors such as gender and ability dynamically shape engagement girls and students with mild learning disabilities, often marginalized in competitive learning spaces, exhibited greater expressive confidence in cooperative play sessions. Thus, pleasure in religious game play emerges not as escapist but as a form of radical inclusion and embodied theology. It contributes to the discourse on ludic theology and intersectional communication by positioning play as both a theological and pedagogical act of liberation, echoing hooks’ (1994) concept of education as the practice of freedom. Ultimately, this inquiry situates Catholic catechesis within a broader communicative landscape of intersectional pleasures where faith, play, and inclusivity converge to reimagine how communities learn, express, and belong.

ABSTRACT. In the face of the climate crisis, rising inequalities, fascism, and war, the imagination of the future seems to collapse in a vision of a scheduled apocalypse (Garcés, 2022). To dispute such imaginaries, critical utopian pedagogy has emerged to recover agency by demanding that critique be paired with the design of concrete projects of a better future, challenging the widespread belief that there is no alternative (Webb, 2013). Within this framework, video games intrinsically explore alternative worlds, serving as cultural media for critically engaging with ideas of utopia (Kłosiński, 2018; Farca, 2019; among others). Although their transformative potential has been theorized in multiple directions, pedagogical practices that use entertainment games from critical and future-oriented perspectives remain emergent (Coopilton, 2023). This study examines how video games as cultural media can be integrated into critical utopian pedagogy to support young people in reclaiming the agency in imagining alternative futures. It adopts a participatory action research design to explore the pedagogical practice developed in [anonymized for review], a weekly conversation club in Barcelona where young people aged 12–18 play and dialogue about the future through video games. The club began as part of a PhD research project and has since consolidated into a team of four educator-researchers over its two years of development, including one staff member from the community center where it is based. The initiative forms part of [anonymized for review], a national research project on sense of place and socio-spatial inclusion in vulnerable neighborhoods. The study explores a critical utopian pedagogy practice developed across several sessions around three Research Questions (RQ) rooted in critical utopian action research (Egmose et al., 2020): RQ1: How the pedagogical practice cultivated critique? RQ2: How it supported the co-creation of desirable and alternative future imaginaries? RQ3: How it encouraged agency and transformative action? The project seeks to move beyond instrumental uses of games toward a sociocultural approach that values them as cultural artifacts capable of sparking meaningful discussions about out-of-game issues (Gee, 2007), explicitly connecting game-based learning with game literacies. Game selection follows multiple criteria: the critical evaluation template for digital games in educational contexts (Pötzsch et al., 2023); concerns raised by participants and the educator-researcher; a progression from classical/critical dystopias to critical/classical utopias (Farca, 2019); activation of Levitas’s (2013) three modes of Utopia as Method—archaeological, ontological, and architectural—as adapted to games (Kłosiński, 2018); and the inclusion of diverse gaming experiences with an emphasis on entertainment indie titles such as Papers, Please (Pope, 2013), Everything (O’Reilly, 2017), and Townscapper (Stålberg, 2020). Sessions followed a two-hour structure, beginning with collective dialogue around a conceptual map, followed by a brief discussion of the selected game. This was followed by approximately one hour of gameplay, individually or in groups, during which participants captured screenshots and produced short written reflections and conflicts framed as questions, drawing on reflective photography data generation technique (Hall et al, 2020). Each session concluded with a guided group dialogue using these productions to center the process on learners’ voices, and a final moment dedicated to trace the dialogue on the conceptual map. Data generation combined multiple qualitative techniques. Reflective photography captured participants’ in-game experiences to out-of-game issues (Hall et al., 2020). A collaborative conceptual map traced learning processes and supported the co-construction of shared knowledge (Jové, 2024), while semi-structured focus groups and a field diary documented reflections, pedagogical decisions, and session dynamics. All sessions were audio- and video-recorded to capture dialogue, gameplay, and social interactions. As the study is ongoing, data are being analyzed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, combining inductive and deductive coding to identify participants’ contributions to the RQs alongside the pedagogical and contextual factors shaping them. Codes will be synthesized into initial themes, collaboratively refined, and interpreted in relation to literature on critical consciousness processes (Pillen et al., 2020). Crucially, a preliminary analysis emphasizes the transformative power of play rather than the game itself, highlighting that critical reflection and action depended less on the content of a given title and more on intentional pedagogical design, facilitated debriefings, and the appropriation of the game by players. Ultimately, the study aims to propose the notion of Critical Utopian Gaming Pedagogy. This emerging approach builds on existing frameworks of Critical Gaming Pedagogy, which emphasize players’ capacity to interpret, negotiate, and subvert game meanings (Crocco, 2011), by incorporating a Utopian dimension. This addition foregrounds the dialectic between critiquing oppressive conditions and envisioning concrete utopian alternatives (Webb, 2013, drawing on Freire’s critical pedagogy)—a process essential for fostering hope, direction, and transformative action amid times of imaginary collapse.

Bibliography

Coopilton, M. W. (2023). Critical Game Literacies and Afrofuturist Development [Ph.D., University of Southern California]. In ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2850948570/abstract/93CAA88DD5AA4EEAPQ/1 Crocco, F. (2011). Critical Gaming Pedagogy. Radical Teacher, 91, 26–41. https://doi.org/10.1353/rdt.2011.0023 Egmose, J., Gleerup, J., & Nielsen, B. S. (2020). Critical Utopian Action Research: Methodological Inspiration for Democratization? International Review of Qualitative Research, 13(2), 233–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940844720933236 Farca, G. (2019). The Concept of Utopia in Digital Games. Beil, B., Freyermuth, G. S., & Schmidt, H. C. (Eds.). (2019). Playing Utopia: Futures in Digital Games. (Vol. 10, pp. 99-149). Garcés, M. (2022). Imaginación crítica. Artnodes, (29), 1-8. Gee, J. P. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. St. Martin's Griffin. Hall, J., Stickler, U., Herodotou, C., y Iacovides, J. (2020). Using Reflexive Photography to Investigate Design Affordances for Creativity in Digital Entertainment Games. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1848162 Jové, G. (2024). Fils i arts. Projectes d’aprenentatge i de vida. Octaedro Educació. Kłosiński, M. (2018). Games and Utopia. Acta Ludologica, 1(1), 4-14. Levitas, R. (2013). Utopia as method: The imaginary reconstitution of society. Springer. Pillen, H., McNaughton, D., & Ward, P. R. (2020). Critical consciousness development: A systematic review of empirical studies. Health Promotion International, 35(6), 1519–1530. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daz125 Pötzsch, H., Hansen, T. H., y Hammar, E. L. (2023). Digital Games as Media for Teaching and Learning: A Template for Critical Evaluation. Simulation & Gaming, 54(3), 348-374. https://doi.org/10.1177/10468781231166213 Webb, D. (2013). Critical Pedagogy, Utopia and Political (Dis)engagement. Power and Education, 5(3), 280–290. https://doi.org/10.2304/power.2013.5.3.280

Ludography

O'Reilly, D. (2017). Everything (PC/itch.io version) [Video game]. https://davidoreilly.itch.io/everything Pope, L. (2013). Papers, Please (PC/GOG version) [Video game]. 3909 LLC. https://www.gog.com/en/game/papers_please Stålberg, O. (2020). Townscapper (PC/GOG version) [Video game]. Raw Fury. https://www.gog.com/en/game/townscaper

ABSTRACT. As video games increasingly function as complex cultural and pedagogical infrastructures rather than simple teaching supplements (Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2006; Pineda-Martínez et al. 2023; Cornella et al. 2020; Gonzales et al. 2018), the humanities classroom is undergoing a parallel transformation. While video games are known to foster skills such as communication, resourcefulness and adaptability in learners (Barr 2018), there is far less understanding of how integrating games affects the educators themselves. The use of games in higher education is also shaped by practical and cultural tensions, including restrictive platform licensing (Rivard et al. 2025) and the reality that learners may reject games as legitimate academic tools (Egenfeldt-Nielsen 2006). Since teaching is always grounded in emotion (James 2019), this project asks: what does it feel like to teach with games in the humanities, and in what ways do games reshape teachers’ sense of authority, presence and pedagogical responsibility?

This paper presents early findings from a Fulbright-funded qualitative project conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The methodological framework combines three complementary approaches. First, I carried out semi-structured interviews with faculty, staff and graduate instructors affiliated with the UNC Game Lab. These interviews were transcribed and coded in order to identify recurring patterns, emotional tensions and pedagogical challenges. Second, I engaged in teaching observations across several game-integrated modules. Over the course of one month, I observed classes, taking detailed notes on student interactions with games, with instructors and with each other. My observations focused on engagement, collaboration and the influence of games on the learning process. Classroom observation provides access to real-time pedagogical dynamics that interviews alone cannot capture (Wragg 2011; Jones and Bergin 2019). Third, these methods were contextualised through my own practice as a temporary instructor at UNC Chapel Hill, and a full-time lecturer at King’s College London.

Drawing together these strands, the current themes distilled from the preliminary interview transcripts and observation notes are the following. These themes illustrate how teaching with games produces distinctive forms of emotional, relational and intellectual labour for educators:

Video Games as a Vehicle for Values Interviewees described games as powerful tools for communicating values. Games were said to reduce the formality of classroom interactions and to decentre the instructor’s presence. Educators explained that gameplay allows students to experience ethical, social or political ideas rather than simply hear about them. They shared numerous anecdotes in which games prompted spontaneous reflection on race, normativity or inequality, often requiring the instructor to respond in the moment. This immediacy was perceived as both demanding and pedagogically generative.

The Greatest Equaliser Games were repeatedly characterised as effective levelling tools. They provide a common cultural denominator that brings students and educators closer together and helps meet learners on familiar ground. Instructors noted that games create a more relaxed atmosphere that supports participation without the sense of having to force engagement. Games also help circumvent lack of preparation, drawing students into the activity through interactivity rather than obligation.

Shared Experience and Community Building Gameplay produces shared moments of confusion, laughter, failure and discovery that foster a sense of community. Educators described awkward or unexpected in-game events as valuable catalysts for discussion and bonding. These shared experiences also extend to colleagues within the Game Lab, who collaborate regularly to exchange strategies, troubleshoot technical difficulties and reflect on the emotional work of playful teaching.

Vulnerability, “Authority” and Presence Games introduce unpredictable and sometimes unacademic scenarios, such as collective failure or morally uncomfortable decisions. These moments challenge traditional forms of academic authority and require improvisation, emotional sensitivity and responsiveness. Educators reported feeling more exposed and more present. Authority becomes a negotiated, relational practice rather than a strictly hierarchical one.

Content Preparation and Sensitive Matters Participants emphasised the need for careful preparation of game content, particularly when dealing with sensitive themes. They also noted that using games challenges normative assumptions about what constitutes legitimate teaching material. The diversity of teaching backgrounds in the Game Lab enriches this work, as instructors draw on different forms of expertise to evaluate sensitivity and appropriateness.

Experiment, Spontaneity and the Teaching Vortex Teaching with games was described as exciting, necessary and demanding. Games invite spontaneity and experimentation, producing a sense of being drawn into a vortex of constant adaptation. Educators observed a productive tension between the apparent novelty of video game-based teaching and its continuity with established humanities practices. Many reported gaining new professional skills, including improvisation, systems thinking and emotional regulation, which contribute to an increasingly vocational understanding of their role.

Overall, the project argues that the significance of teaching with games lies not only in their effects on learners but in how they transform the lived experience of teaching. By foregrounding emotion, vulnerability and relational practice, this study reframes ludic pedagogy as a deeply affective approach to humanities teaching, one that is richly generative yet not without its material, institutional and personal challenges.

References Barr, M. (2018) ‘Student attitudes to games-based skills development: Learning from video games in higher education’, Computers in Human Behavior, 80, pp. 283–294. Cabellos, B., Sánchez, D.L. and Pozo, J.I. (2023) ‘Do future teachers believe that video games help learning?’, Tech Know Learn, 28(2), pp. 803–821. doi:10.1007/s10758-021-09586-3. Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. (2006) ‘Overview of research on the educational use of video games’, Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 1(3), pp. 184–214. doi:10.18261/ISSN1891-943X-2006-03-03. James, C. (2019). Organising in schools: It's all about emotion. In I. Oplatka & K. Arar (Eds.), Emotion management and feelings in teaching and educational leadership: A cultural perspective (pp. 25–41). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-010-920191002 Jones, E. & Bergin, C. (2019). Evaluating teacher effectiveness using classroom observations: A Rasch analysis of the rater effects of principals. Educational Assessment, 24(2), pp. 91-118. Pineda-Martínez, M., Llanos-Ruiz, D., Puente-Torre, P. and García-Delgado, M.Á. (2023) ‘Impact of video games, gamification, and game-based learning on sustainability education in higher education’, Sustainability, 15(17), 13032. doi:10.3390/su151713032. Rivard, C., Hall, D.A., Kinzinger, S. and Stark, D. (2025) ‘A room to play: The infrastructure of game pedagogy’, Computers and Composition, 78. Wragg, E.C. (2011). An Introduction to Classroom Observation. London: Routledge.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines erotic BDSM role-play games within a long-standing queer leather dyke+ & trans+ community as a site of intersectional pleasure and communal resistance. Drawing on scene-focused, small-group interviews, informed by participatory observation and analysis of design materials, the study explores how kink practices, embodied sensation, and structured game design co-produce pleasure in semi-public BDSM larps. These events employ workshops, calibration tools, character work, and ritual framing to create heterotopic play spaces where queer desires and identities can be safely explored. Pleasure emerges through consensual power exchange, sensory world-building, and the fluid movement of arousal between self and character. The thematic analysis highlights four dynamics: satire of patriarchal norms, negotiation of eroticism and performance, un-shaming queer erotic action, and the un-gendering of arousal. By situating BDSM role-playing games in the intersection of larp studies and queer game studies, this paper argues that these practices constitute a form of communal queer resistance, generating transformative, survival-oriented, and affective forms of play.

ABSTRACT. This presentation aims to analyse board games that depict ecosystems as realms governed by conflict and negative interactions. It focuses on Chad Jensen’s Dominant Species (2010) and Dominant Species: Marine (2021), as well as Phil Eklund’s Bios: Megafauna. Second Edition (2017). These games employ mechanics derived from wargames to represent Earth's biosphere as a domain shaped by competition for resources and dominance over various territories and biomes. To conduct the analysis, a biopolitical framework will be used alongside methodologies of ecocritical descriptions of analog games. Paul Booth’s framework of Ludic Discourse Analysis (Booth 2021) will be used to elucidate the connections between game mechanics and narrative from a broader cultural and ideological perspective. The presentation will also draw upon Chloe Germaine’s (2023) observation regarding the influence of wargames on modern board game design as well as Germaine’s framework for analysing environmental themes in analog games. In contrast to games like Photosynthesis (Hach 2017), in which, according to Germaine, the wargaming inspiration is not explicit, the designs of Jensen and Eklund incorporate wargame mechanics to conceptualize ecosystems as arenas of overt conflict. Furthermore, biopolitical theory will be employed to examine how the mechanics of the both iterations of Dominant Species and Bios: Megafauna enable players to govern the life and death of entire species. To this end, Michał Kłosiński’s concepts of messianic biopolitics and dystopian thanatopolitics in games will be crucial (Kłosiński 2020). In Dominant Species, Dominant Species: Marine, and Bios: Megafauna, players control different animal classes (e.g., reptiles, fish, cephalopods) that migrate across a board representing the globe. The wooden pieces do not symbolize individual organisms but entire species, representing multitudes of creatures at once. Consequently, when players remove their pieces from the board, this action signifies the death of an entire population—thousands or even millions of individual organisms. This scale implies that the extinction of whole species is presented within the games' mechanics as a natural and inevitable process. Death and extinction are normalized as integral aspects of the ecosystem and can be leveraged as a strategic component in the struggle for territorial dominance and ultimate victory. A further aspect of these games is their representation of environmental interactions. In Jensen’s designs, the environment is manipulable; players can alter conditions to hinder opponents and favour their own species. In contrast, Eklund’s game features a deck of environmental event cards, making direct player control impossible. Here, players must react and adapt to ever-changing conditions following each event phase. In both games, the constantly shifting climate conditions are presented as a form of “state of exception” (Kłosiński 2020) that is used as the legitimization of the conflict. For a species to survive these environmental shifts, they must evolve and mutate. In the researched boardgames, mutations grant organisms special abilities. Both Eklund’s and Jensen’s designs represent these adaptations through acquirable cards. These mechanics allow the Dominant Species series and Bios to depict conflicts, migrations, and mutations which span over millennia or even millions of years. From this immense temporal perspective, the death of an individual organism, and even the extinction of an entire species, loses significance, provided the animal class can adapt and persist. The conflict-based mechanics borrowed from wargames are thus used to model the long-term adaptability of life. Players are tasked with enforcing their biopolitical power over life and death of whole species. Consequently, these games can be interpreted as a commentary on climate catastrophe, one that frames environmental change as a cyclical phenomenon to which organisms must continually adapt—a notion Phil Eklund explicitly articulates in an essay concluding the Bios rulebook. Therefore, by representing ecosystems as sites of what Germaine terms "Hobbesian conflict" (Germaine 2023), these games utilize the mechanics of wargames to implicitly promote a perspective that aligns with anthropogenic climate change denialism. Thus, those boardgames and the pleasures their gameplay produce ought to be evaluated from ecocritical standpoint. REFERENCES Booth, P. 2021, Board Games as Media, Bloomsbury Academic: New York, London, Oxford, New Delhi, Sydney. Eklund, Ph. 2017, Bios: Megafauna. Second Edition, Ion Game Design. Germaine, Ch. 2023, Nature games in a time of climate crisis, [in:] Material game studies. A philosophy of analogue play, Germaine, Ch., Wake, P. (ed.), Bloomsburry Academic: London, p. 143-164. Hach, H. 2017, Photosynthesis, Blue Orange. Jensen, Ch. 2010, Dominant Species, GMT Games. Jensen, Ch. 2021, Dominant Species: Marine, GMT Games. Kłosiński, M. 2020, „Frostpunk – tęsknota za biopolityką stanu wyjątkowego”, Teksty Drugie 1, p. 284-298.

ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on drinking game Flanki (Flunkyball) that combines elements of athletic competition with rapid alcohol consumption, that is popular among AGH students. The aim is to examine players’ motivations, the risks associated with the game, and its role in the social life of the Student Campus. The study will include surveys among students and interviews with regular participants.

ABSTRACT. While questions of how imperialism and colonialism have influenced the making, playing, and reception of games are crucial considerations in games studies, this approach still takes the West as a point of departure. The legacy of empire and the workings of Whiteness, understandably, become inescapable constructs that those working (and playing) in the margins must contend with. In this paper, however, I want to move away from this center of gravity by examining how the identities of TTRPG players in Singapore are shaped not only by the West but also by the rise of China. The complexity of ethnic identity plays out in the way that people find pleasure in games. I show how Singaporean Chinese players experience their identities as dynamic and processual unfoldings through the act of homebrewing their TTRPGs. In examining these player practices, I show that the construction of Singaporean Chineseness in TTRPG players is influenced by colonial and migration histories which are in turn experienced differently across generations. The pleasure of play is not incidental or escapist, but an attempt to “hold reality hostage” through acts of creation (Mizer 2019).

ABSTRACT. This is an exploratory study on the hypothesis that a typical core loop for a videogame closely resembles an operant conditioning loop and, when that is not the case, the player’s experience will decline because of it. To assess this similarity, a double-blind experimental study was conducted in which participants were randomly assigned into two different groups and each group played a different version of the same decision-based game with 24 main choices. The experimental group (n = 55) received a version in which a classic core loop rewarded “correct” choices with mechanic and narrative rewards, while the control group (n = 54) experienced both mechanic and narrative punishments for the same “correct” choices. After the play session participants answered a questionnaire about their experience. The results showed a significant difference between groups’ experiences in certain dimensions, with an overall better experience being reported by the typical core loop group.

ABSTRACT. This research takes the political relationship between Shangguan Wan’er and Princess Taiping—two of the most visible yet narratively fractured female figures in Tang history—to examine how a contemporary historical-fantasy game reorganizes contested archives and what interpretive paths, rather than definitive truths, its systems make available. It introduces ambivalent alliance to name the coexistence of collaboration and conflict in the archive, and playable memory to describe game mechanisms that transform contested materials into repeatable procedures of choice, feedback, and repair. By reading game design alongside historical records, the study brings debates in women’s history, memory studies, and critical historiography into game analysis, showing how design choices articulate questions of power, agency, and representation. Its contribution is to demonstrate that historical games serve as experimental spaces where assumptions about evidence, voice, and remembrance are operationalized in rules and interfaces, offering a portable framework for analyzing women’s political histories across media.

ABSTRACT. This extended summary presents consolidated, mixed-method results from Work Package 3 (WP3: Game Industry Ecosystem) of the Horizon Europe GAMEHEARTS project (Grant Agreement No. 101132543). The project aims to maximise the economic, social, and cultural value of the European Video Game Industry Ecosystem (EVGIE) through structured collaboration with the Culture and Creative Industries (CCI). Our goal is to critically examine the systemic failure of inclusiveness in contemporary game design. We argue that the weak institutional framework and prevailing political and organisational mechanisms foster superficial compliance, commonly referred to as „Diversity Washing”. Qualitative data analysis also reveals that practitioners perceive this practice as a manifestation of "artificially imposed" and overly formalised inclusivity, whose primary goal is to meet financial and reporting requirements rather than foster authentic, grassroots creativity. This instrumentalisation of inclusive goals limits the possibility of achieving true intersectional pleasure in game design, while simultaneously perpetuating the industry's image as "low culture" (which it has labelled „Profanum”). The article argues that realising progressive values requires not only declarative support but also deep and lasting structural changes that enable authentic, rather than formally imposed, inclusivity.

ABSTRACT. Video games, and other digital media, are not only seen and heard, but also felt. In this presentation, I explore how haptic feedback contributes to narrative experiences across digital media, and how haptics can be theorized in relation to the narratological concept of focalization. As case studies, I focus on three media from the Star Wars franchise: "Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series" (2019, ILMxLAB), "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" (2023, Respawn Entertainment), and a 2025 4DX re-release of "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" (2005, George Lucas).

ABSTRACT. Much has been made in recent years of the success found in the global market by Asian games developed outside of Japan. Many of these are successful live service games with gacha elements such as Genshin Impact, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, or Honkai: Star Rail. Others are considered successful studio debuts into traditional big-budget single-player action games such as Black Myth: Wukong or Stellar Blade. Yet, what has gone somewhat underreported in this new-wave of Asian-developed games, particularly from China, is the success and appeal of the game Infinity Nikki, the latest in the Nikki series of dress-up games. Infinity Nikki follows the journey of Nikki, a young and talented stylist, and her friend, the humanoid cat Momo, into the utopian fantasy world of Miraland. An open world action game with extensive dress-up customisation, Infinity Nikki is also a gacha game, with the prizes being different pieces of clothing and accessories. The game is known for its attention to detail in outfits which facilitate a highly flexible mix-and-match wardrobe to support player-driven fashion. Compared to criticisms of fashion options in other games (Tran, 2019), Infinity Nikki is considered, aesthetically, very strong. The lack of academic discussion of Infinity Nikki can partially be explained by the stigma and oversight that ‘pink games’ aimed at a primarily female audience traditionally face (Chess, 2017; Van Reijmersdal, et al., 2013). What little discussion there is is provided by a handful of authors looking at older Nikki games in various contexts (Fang, et al., 2023; Purnami and Agus, 2020) with only some examining the content and audience experience of pleasure within them (Chen, 2022; Ki, 2022). One notable departure from other gacha games in which the avatar’s body is foregrounded, is the lack of explicit sexualisation of Nikki herself. Compared to games that rely heavily on titillation via their characters’ sex appeal such as Zenless Zone Zero, Goddess of Victory: Nikke, Blue Archive, or Azur Lane. Likewise, Nikki’s adventure is highly compassionate and avoids relying heavily on combat for its core loop making use of a wide variety of ‘ability outfits’ to solve problems or simply to enjoy fashion. Nikki and Momo help the various residents of Miraland through the epic and the mundane all while bringing positivity and optimism to the world. While dressing up is an appeal of the game, pleasures that Nikki’s fashion presents are aesthetically limited to mostly traditionally feminine outfits. There is somewhat of a ‘misappearance’ (to borrow Krzywinska’s (2012) term) of the masculine and the queer in Infinity Nikki. Overwhelmingly, Nikki’s outfits skew towards cute, girly-girl costumes, comfort-focused feminine fashion, or elaborate, flouncy ballgowns. Outfits approaching more modern, gender-neutral, androgynous, or even masculine styles are in the minority or are conspicuously absent from a game which presents the pleasure of fashion as stemming from its infinite variety. The consideration of styles associated with, but not limited to, butch (Minai, 2022), tomboys, androgyny, ouji fashion, drag kings, styles inspired by the Takarazuka revue, or the gender inversion present in British pantomime (e.g., the principal boy) are largely absent. Despite this lack of explicit support from the developer, the game’s community do often try to create masculine or boyish outfits using the tools available to them as well as interpreting queer themes and appeals in the game’s broader narrative. Despite the lack of sexualisation associated with a heteronormative male gaze, Nikki’s outfit classification system uses five adjectives to describe clothing styles, sorting them into elegant (優雅), cool (帥氣), sweet (甜美), fresh (清新), and sexy (性感). The style ‘sexy’ or ‘性感/ xìng gǎn’ in Chinese, suggests a subjective viewer who might consider Nikki’s outfits to have a dimension related, even if only implicitly, to sexuality. However, for and to whom Nikki is gendered via a sexual identity, made object of a gaze, or ‘made sexy’ is ripe for discussion. Nikki herself could be identified as what Chess (2017) refers to as ‘the feminine ideal: white [passing], middle class, heterosexual, cisgendered, and abled’. As a hybrid of authored character and avatar for player expression, Nikki only has one slim body type and three skin tone options, and the full wardrobe, as we argue, is also somewhat limited. However, her actions as a player character are replete with agency. Nikki deposes corrupt governments and brokers peace; cures comas and solves mysteries. Yet, Nikki is often restricted to conventional (though admittedly beautiful) feminine fashion. Nikki as masculine or queer is radical. Exploring this issue necessitates a discussion of Chinese cultural content restrictions around gender and sexuality, what audiences of Nikki (and games generally) are perceived to want with respect to playing fashion, and what the role of more radical fashion pleasures holds in games, particularly dress-up games. Although many of Nikki’s players are likely women, this paper aims to consider players who may not fit this norm as well, in terms of their desires and motivations to dress up. This paper will explore a multifaceted case study analysis that uses the cultural understanding of fashion’s relationship to gender as a lens to perform a textual analysis of Nikki’s clothing options, monetisation system, and frame narrative to investigate what pleasures might be absent from Infinity Nikki’s infinite ‘sea of stars’.

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract gives an overview of ongoing research that examines the intersections between death-themed video games and the notion of “good death”: a discourse on dying that has its basis in palliative care contexts but which also pervades in wider culture.

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ABSTRACT. This paper examines cross-media collaborations in China’s gacha mobile game sector, arguing that these events perform a deeper cultural function beyond marketing and monetization. Through collaborations with other game IPs, commercial brands, and cultural or state institutions, gacha games reconfigure players’ affective relations to play, extending its spatial and temporal boundaries while aligning emotional engagement with broader ideological and civic values. These tie-ins operate as technologies of affective legitimacy—mechanisms through which emotional attachment is mobilized to secure social credibility, market value, and political acceptability.

Drawing on three case studies from mainland China, the paper analyzes official promotional materials, in-game narratives, and player discourse to trace how affect is elicited, circulated, and monetized across virtual and material domains. Theoretically, it engages the politics of affect and the concept of the magic circle to explore how media convergence redraws the boundaries of play. In doing so, the study situates gacha collaborations within broader regimes of affective governance and digital capitalism, showing how they produce affective worlds where consumption becomes indistinguishable from belonging.

ABSTRACT. This preliminary study addresses the limited focus on non-loot box dark patterns in video game research by investigating their impact and normalization among Spanish youth (ages 16–25). Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the research involved dual systematic literature reviews, a stratified online survey (N=1,000), and six qualitative focus groups. The study specifically examined seven persuasive mechanisms, assessing the young player’s call to action and sense of regret. Preliminary results indicate that affinity for random mechanics and time pressure strongly predict spending, and correlations between FOMO, virtual currency spending and Play-by-Appointment. These findings underscore the complex interplay of persuasive design and the need for targeted training and awareness campaigns.

ABSTRACT. The contemporary turn towards dystopian pleasure in game studies foregrounds the affective and ethical ambivalence of play under conditions of constraint (Frost 2016; Farca 2018; Boland 2024; Legatt 2025). Rather than framing pleasure as mastery or escape, in games, it often emerges from discomfort, hesitation, and moral implication (Schott 2016; Anable 2018; Keogh 2018; Bódi 2023). Within this affective economy, political and historical games such as Through the Darkest of Times (Paintbucket Games 2020) and Attentat 1942 (Charles Games 2017) operate as complex moral laboratories: they invite players to experience control, complicity, and resistance as embodied ethical practices and not as narrative tropes. These works construct historical dystopias that are epistemological reconstructions as sites where legality, representation, pleasure, and affect converge.

Central to this convergence is the juridical infrastructure of representation itself. §86a of the German Strafgesetzbuch (StGB), which criminalises the use of unconstitutional symbols such as swastikas in entertainment media, long excluded digital games from the ‘social adequacy clause’ granted to art, science, and education (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz 2022; Pfister 2022). Until its reinterpretation by the USK in 2018, the StGB thus functioned as an extradiegetic rule system governing the permissible horizons of historical representation in games (Puppe 2018; Pfister 2019). Developers of politically sensitive titles had to negotiate the internal mechanics of simulation and an external legal framework that codified the limits of what could be shown if they wanted their games to be published in Germany. While the politics of memory in digital games is inseparable from the politics of mediation, in the German context, mediation was also juridically enforced (Pötzsch 2017; Pfister & Postert; 2022 Chapman 2016; Šisler 2016).

This paper situates Through the Darkest of Times and Attentat 1942 within what I term juridical play: a mode of ludic engagement structured by the negotiation of legal and moral boundaries. Building on Sicart’s (2009) theorisation of ethical gameplay and Galloway’s (2006, 85–106) notion of “allegories of control,” I argue that these games transform regulatory and ideological constraint into aesthetic and affective intensity. The pleasures they produce are juridical in form: they arise from the player’s situatedness within overlapping systems of rule (legal, procedural, and ethical) and from the recursive tension between obedience and resistance. The player’s awareness of the limits imposed by the game’s internal logic and the state’s external prohibitions becomes a constitutive element of their moral and sensory experience.

Attentat 1942, developed before the 2018 reinterpretation and thus initially banned in Germany, exemplifies this logic of constraint. Its hybrid documentary structure, interweaving live-action interviews, archival footage, and interactive sequences, performs a form of testimonial realism. The game’s affective power derives from its mediation of silence as the gaps where history cannot be represented pictorially become affective triggers for reflection and empathy. In contrast, Through the Darkest of Times, released after the reinterpretation, deliberately incorporates Nazi symbols to anchor its representation in historical affect (Friedrich 2020). Its stylised, expressionist aesthetic converts the horror of recognition into a moral sensorium, compelling the player to navigate between resistance and survival. The game developers also felt a sense of pleasure by creating a distinct art that renders the creations of many artists banned by the Nazis (Friedrich 2018). Both titles deploy procedural rhetoric (Bogost 2007) to model the bureaucratic violence of totalitarian systems, yet they do so within different legal and cultural parameters, rendering law itself a designer of affect.

The juxtaposition of these two games illustrates the transformation of prohibition into aesthetic potential. The 2018 legal shift reclassified games as Kunst (art) but also reconfigured their ethical affordances. Where earlier developers performed a kind of ‘self-censorship-as-design,’ contemporary creators can now instrumentalise legality as a theme rather than a limitation. Following Esposito’s (2011) and Foucault’s (1977) reflections on biopolitical control, the StGB can be understood as a disciplinary apparatus that produces subjects of obedience, both within society and within play. In these historical dystopias, the player’s procedural navigation of fear, surveillance, and complicity mirrors the civic negotiation of state authority. Pleasure thus emerges as an internalisation rather than a transgression of control: the affective satisfaction of playing within, and against, the limits of law.

In aligning affect theory (Massumi 2002; Anable 2018) with legal-cultural analysis, this paper extends the study of political games beyond their didactic or representational value. It proposes that Through the Darkest of Times and Attentat 1942 exemplify a broader epistemological condition in which historical remembrance, legal regulation, and ludic agency intersect. Their dystopian pleasures are neither cathartic nor escapist: they are reflexive, juridical, and epistemic. To play these games is to engage in an ethics of constraint, where every decision is shadowed by legality, and every act of remembrance is haunted by the possibility of prohibition. These works thereby transform the apparatus of control itself into a site of play, revealing that within digital culture, prohibition can become not merely a boundary of representation but a productive condition for moral and affective reflection.

REFERENCES Anable, A. 2018. Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press. Bódi, B. 2023. Videogames and Agency. London, UK: Routledge. Bogost, I. 2007. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. Boland, T. 2024. “Dystopian Games: Diagnosing Modernity as the Scene of Tests, Trials and Transformations.” Cultural Sociology. 18(1), 72–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975522114383 Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. 2022. Right-Wing Extremism: Symbols, Signs and Banned Organisations. Cologne: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz Public Relations. https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/EN/right-wing-extremism/2022-07-right-wing-extremism-symbols-and-organisations.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=12 §86a Strafgesetzbuch. n.d. Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__86a.html Chapman, A. 2016. Digital Games as History. New York, NY, USA: Routledge. Charles Games, Charles University, and Czech Academy of Sciences. 2017. Attentat 1942. PC Game, Mobile Game. Charles Games, Charles University, and Czech Academy of Sciences. Esposito, R. 2011. Immunitas: The Protection and Negation of Life. Cambridge, UK: polity. Farca, G. 2018. Playing Dystopia: Nightmarish Wolds in Video Games and the Player’s Aesthetic Response. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript. Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York, NY, USA: Vintage. Friedrich, J. 2018. “We are Making the First Game that Legally Shows Nazi Symbols in Germany – Here’s Why you Should Care.” Game Developer, 17 August. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/we-re-making-the-first-game-that-legally-shows-nazi-symbols-in-germany-here-s-why-you-should-care Friedrich, J. 2020. “You Do Have Responsibility! How Games Trivialize Fascism, Why this Should Concern Us and How We could Change it.” In History in Games: Contingencies of an Authentic Past, edited by M. Lorber and F. Zimmermann, 259–275. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript. Frost, L. 2016. “The Pleasures of Dystopia.” In Brave New World: Contexts and Legacies, edited by J. Greenberg and N. Waddell, 69–88. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44541-4_5 Galloway, A. 2006. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press. Keogh, B. 2018. A Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. Leggatt, M. 2025. Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press. Massumi, B. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, UK: Duke University Press. Paintbucket Games. 2020. Through the Darkest of Times. PC Game, Mobile Game, Console Game. HandyGames. Pötzsch, H. 2017. “Selective Realism: Filtering Experiences of War and Violence in First- and Third-Person Shooters.” Games and Culture. 12(2): 156–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120155878 Pfister, E. 2019. “‘Man Spielt Nicht Mit Hakenkreuzen!’ Imaginations of the Holocaust and Crimes Against Humanity During World War II in Digital Games.” In Historia Ludens: The Playing Historian, edited by A. von Lünen, K. J. Lewis, B. Litherland, and P. Cullum, 267–284. London, UK: Routledge. Pfister, E. 2022. “‘Where the Line of Decency is Drawn.’ Imaginationen des Holocaust in Digitalen Spielen.” Spiel-Kultur-Wissenschaft (blog), 26 September. https://spielkult.hypotheses.org/1962 Pfister, E., and Postert, A. 2022. “Spiele mit Hakenkreuzen – Zum Umgang mit Ideologie und Vergangenheit.” Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 28 March. https://www.bpb.de/themen/kultur/digitale-spiele/504561/spiele-mit-hakenkreuzen-zum-umgang-mit-ideologie-und-vergangenheit/ Puppe, M. 2018. “German Authorities Allow Inclusion of Symbols of Unconstitutional Organisations in Games.” game: Verband der deutschen Games-Brache, 9 August. https://www.game.de/en/german-authorities-allow-inclusion-of-symbols-of-unconstitutional-organisations-in-games/ Schott, G. 2016. Violent Games: Rules, Realism and Effect. London, UK: Bloomsbury. Sicart, M. 2009. The Ethics of Computer Games. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. Šisler, V. 2016 “Contested Memories of War in Czechoslovakia 38-89: Assassination: Designing a Serious Game on Contemporary History.” Game Studies. 16(2). https://gamestudies.org/1602/articles/sisler

ABSTRACT. This paper reckons with the aftermath of Twitch's “Green Screen Shorts Meta” (GGSM): outage over the status of streamers, mostly women, who leverage green screen chroma-key textile to project gameplay onto their bodies. Herein, clothed buttocks and breasts came to the fore as dynamic gaming displays, forming an anatomy of surfaces for audience-player engagement and gameplay monetisation. Twitch addressed the genre by revising its Community Guidelines to explicitly prohibit content that “lingered” too much “on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time" (Twitch Safety, 2024).

Through a case study that analyzes the production materials, policy revisions, and media discourse surrounding the most popular channel of this genre (Morgpie, Figure 1), I situate GSSM as it filters widespread cultural attitudes towards women’s precarious status as players on the gaming platform. Specifically, this case study analyzes green screen streamers’ attire innovations as a negotiating response to Twitch’s demonstrably vague regulations around bodily performance, which have disproportionately impacted women players in platform’s recent history.

ABSTRACT. There are many ways to participate and feel belonging in game cultures. These include not only playing games and watching others play, or taking part in game creation, but also engaging with, for example, social activities surrounding games (e.g. discussion platforms, communities, clubs, events), game-related media materials, esports and other forms of competitive play, and fan creation such as fan fiction, fan art, or cosplay. All these forms of participation may provide pleasure stemming not only from the activity itself, but also from the feeling of belonging in game cultures.

However, neither the opportunities for participation nor the feeling of belonging are equally available for everyone. Potential participants are actively repelled by physical, cultural, and social environments of game cultural activities (e.g. Gray 2020, Phillips 2020, Taylor 2024). These boundaries are identity-based, reflecting the sexist, racist, queerphobic, ageist, ableist, and otherwise discriminatory structures within game culture (e.g. Cote 2020, Gillin and Signorella 2024, Gray 2024, Lavenir 2022, Ledder 2024).

In this presentation, we will approach the topic of intersectional pleasures from the perspective of game cultural participation and belonging. We will explore the great variety of ways in which people participate in, feel belonging to, and get pleasure from game cultures – as well as how these opportunities for game cultural participation and belonging are limited based on the participants’ identity positions. Our investigation is both intersectional and contextually grounded. We will focus on experiences of game cultural participants residing in Finland, aiming to map out the ways of participating and belonging – as well as the intersectional identity positions that are affecting these – that are specific to the national, cultural, and linguistic context of this country.

We will conduct a qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2012) on responses to a qualitative online survey (Braun et al. 2021) collected from game culture participants residing in Finland who are at least 15 years old. The survey will be conducted in early 2026 and our presentation will focus on the findings from our initial analysis of this material. The survey includes questions on playing and other forms of game cultural participation, on experiences of inclusion, exclusion, and marginalisation in game cultural environments, and on game cultural products, events, communities, and practices that support inclusion and belonging. We aim to recruit diverse participants in terms of age, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability and linguistic, national, regional, ethnic, educational, socioeconomic, and gaming backgrounds. This will be achieved by conducting the survey in several languages (Finnish, Swedish, and English) and distributing the survey link in communities focused on supporting marginalised groups in game cultural environments.

With this contribution, we wish to highlight the great variety of ways in which people can engage with games and their culture, the multitude of pleasures that people can find in these engagements and in their feeling of cultural belonging, and also the intersectional yet local nature of the boundaries that can prevent game cultural participation, belonging, and pleasure.

ABSTRACT. Most discussions about videogame emulators revolve around their legality or their use in video game history preservation. Little has been written about their cultural influence or their historiography. However, an active member of the emulation community at the time wrote an exhaustive history of emulators up until 2000. Expanding upon this history by Pettus, the following paper proposes five distinct periods in their history based upon pivotal events: the Dawn of Emulation (1964-1988), the Golden Age of Emulation (1989-1998), the Silver Age of Emulation (1999-2008), the Bronze Age of Emulation (2008-2024), and the Modern Age of Emulation (2024-Present). Breaking down the history of emulators into these five eras allows for additional research into the trends, events, and cultural exchanges that happened within the emulation community. Emulators and the community have reacted and adapted to advances in technology, revealing how the planned obsoletion of video game consoles is being rejected.

ABSTRACT. The Let’s Play—a form of user-generated online media, in which gameplay is recorded with commentary by the player—has become a staple of contemporary online culture. The origin of the format is commonly credited to the forums of Something Awful, an American comedy website known for its “fanatical and almost all-male following”, in 2004. More specifically, credit for the form is often placed on a single forum member: Michael Sawyer, known as “slowbeef” (Klepek 2015). This history is part of what Laine Nooney has described as the “patrilineal chronicle” of videogames, which is “punctuated by ‘founding fathers,’ ‘hacker heroes,’ and ‘game gods’”.

But what if this is not the origin of Let’s Play media?

While the Let’s Play nomenclature has undoubtable origin within the Something Awful forums, I argue the format of early Let’s Plays had an origin point several years earlier in an entirely different online community, a community that historically been marginalized in mainstream gaming culture: the primarily female player base of The Sims franchise. My research intends to correct this oversight by placing the cultural phenomenon of ‘Sims stories’ in conversation with existing research on early Let’s Play forms (as evidenced in McKitrick, Gibbs, et al. 2023; McKitrick, Rogerson, et al. 2023) to establish an alternative, feminist origin point of the Let’s Play.

(References included in extended abstract, from which this is taken.)

ABSTRACT. Conventional game archaeology treats videogames as static objects and spaces. It excels at answering “what happened in the past,” but proves less capable of explaining “why the present is the way it is.” This study proposes a game-mechanics archaeological method, shifting the archaeological object from material carriers to game mechanics. Taking the Affinity Mechanism as a case study, its historical development into three strata: the emergent stratum (1983–1987) established the mechanism’s initial form and core procedural rhetoric; the stabilization stratum (1987–1995) produced composite numerical systems and a design paths; and the generalization stratum (1995–present) witnessed cross-genre diffusion and functional mutation. The study finds that from its inception the affinity mechanism has embedded three structural contradictions: the tension between the algorithmization and irreducibility, oscillation between instrumental rationality and value rationality; and the procedural expression of gendered power relations. These contradictions are outcomes of the intersection among design paradigms, commercial logics, and cultural contexts in specific historical periods. The core contribution of the game-mechanics archaeological method lies in identifying ruptures and continuities in mechanical evolution, thereby revealing the ideological presuppositions behind “naturalized” design choices and offering a diachronic analytic tool for critical game studies.

ABSTRACT. In contemporary, “de-ritualized” Western societies (Souza 2017) where traditional rites and ritual are losing their hold (Sumiala and Jacobsen 2024), games offer new and inventive ways for people to resist the finality of death and find comfort, meaning and hope for the future. In this presentation, we will argue persuasively and passionately for "games against death" as a way to incapsulate and characterize the under-appreciated but powerful roles games can play for people grappling with the overwhelming experiences of death and mortality.

ABSTRACT. Today, video game localization has become indispensable to the international dissemination and commercial success of digital games. Yet despite its centrality, localization is still predominantly conceptualized as a downstream linguistic task—what Chandler and Deming (Chandler & Deming, 2011) describe as an add-on layer applied after core development is finished. This marginalization persists even as industry and academic work increasingly emphasize the centrality of cultural, semiotic, and experiential considerations in game creation (Mandiberg, 2015; O’Hagan & Mangiron, 2013). This becomes particularly visible when considering how localizers interact with game systems. Players, as Hurel (2020) emphasizes, benefit from deep “grips” on the game: they directly engage with a multimodal artefact in which text, mechanics, interface, and audiovisual signs operate together. Localizers, by contrast, often receive decontextualized text strings or partial documentation. They must therefore infer strategies of guidance, reconstruct systemic logic, and make design-relevant decisions under conditions of informational scarcity (Houlmont, 2025). This situation not only increases the risk of ludic or cultural incoherence, but also obscures the fundamentally design-oriented nature of localization work. Greater integration of localization into the design pipeline mitigates these issues. Game design documents, for instance, contain crucial information about mechanics, branching logic, difficulty curves, and narrative roles that can be leveraged by localization teams (ibid.). Access to such documents enables localizers to understand the distribution of video game contingency, identify ludic dependencies, and preserve guidance strategies in adapted versions. However, as Rivas-Ginel (2023) notes, such access remains inconsistent even for in-house localization teams. This paper advances the argument that localization is not simply adjacent to game design, but structurally akin to it. I contend that localization practice and game design share common operations, competences, and forms of capital, and that recognizing this proximity is essential both for improving production workflows and for crafting pleasurable, culturally situated play experiences. The contribution develops a pedagogical approach for teaching localization to game designers precisely on the basis of this conceptual overlap. Anchored in an intersemiotic view of games, the approach draws on insights from structural, pragmatic, and cognitive semiotics alongside foundational work in game studies (Aarseth, 2015; Caillois, 2009; Crawford, 2002; Henriot, 1983; Huizinga, 1980; Juul, 2011; Salen & Zimmerman, 2003; Zubek, 2020). These perspectives collectively describe games as meaning-making systems shaped by contingency, guidance, and interpretative processes—elements that localization actively manipulates. From this standpoint, localization becomes a design activity that reconfigures semiotic cues, adjusts uncertainty, modulates affordances, and reconstructs player-facing meaning across languages and cultural contexts. To ground this claim, the paper merges two conceptual tools. First, the literacy framework developed by Fastrez and Philippette (2017), structured around reading, organizing, navigating and writing media, offers a lens through which design and localization can be understood as parallel processes. Both activities require professionals to interpret systemic structures, reorganize information, and produce coherent semiotic outputs. Second, the notion of gaming capital (Consalvo, 2009; Krywicki & Dozo, 2022) highlights the specialized knowledge needed to decode and create meaning in games. While localizers and designers draw on similar capital, they traditionally do so with unequal access to information. In response, the contribution proposes a pedagogical approach to embed localization literacy within game design education. This approach teaches designers to understand how their decisions shape localizability and cross-cultural playability, and to document semiotic constraints, narrative arcs, interface structures, affordances, and difficulty progressions in ways that support adaptation and maintain systemic coherence. Crucially, by becoming aware of the shared capital mobilized by both designers and localizers, students learn to transform the documentation they produce into resources that can directly inform localization. To illustrate this, the paper presents localization kits produced by students trained with this method. These kits show how designers can identify localization-relevant elements within their own documentation (mechanics, branching systems, tutorial flows, characterization strategies, feedback structures) and express them through a shared metalinguistic and metadesign vocabulary, ultimately enabling them to anticipate cultural friction at the level of the game’s interconnected semiotic and mechanical systems, articulate contextual information, and collaborate with localization teams as design partners rather than service providers. Ultimately, this paper argues that recognizing the proximity between localization and game design is essential for creating pleasurable, culturally resonant experiences in a global industry. Integrating localization literacy into game design education supports more coherent documentation practices, more inclusive cultural engagement, and richer collaborative workflows. This contribution calls for a rethinking of creation processes that acknowledges localization as a creative, systemic, and meaning-producing act—one that deserves a central place in the design of games.

ABSTRACT. This research examines the current prevalence and compliance with Gacha mechanics in 100 top-grossing mobile games in Japan, with a particular focus on the potential presence of prohibited Kompu Gacha.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses and exemplifies how short stories can be used to communicate the need for and possibility of systemic change in the way we industrially produce games. It first explains, based on previous work, why we need systemic change, and then offers several short stories that aim to share this perspective. These short stories are modeled after a concept called “What is the problem represented to be” (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016), or WPR. WPR’s function is to make it possible to critically interrogate the discursive framing of a problem in order to make that framing visible. The presented short stories are in this way meant to allow people who make games to approach sustainability action within the frame of systemic change, and possibly even to share this framing with their peers. The aim of this presentation at the conference is to both share this approach and some of stories for feedback and to invite others to share similar stories and perspectives so that we can present them together and reach further to support sustainability in games. An earlier version of this article has been published in a recent book chapter.

ABSTRACT. Probability disclosure is a widely used consumer protection method to inform players of the probability of obtaining rewards from loot boxes. Taiwan is the second jurisdiction that legally requires loot box probability disclosure, after Mainland China. However, the prevalence of loot boxes and companies' compliance with related regulations remain unknown.

This paper explored the compliance with Loot Box Probability Disclosure and Warning Regulations in Taiwan (China). This paper collected data from the 100 highest-grossing iPhone games and conducted content analysis.

Loot boxes are prevalent in Taiwan. However, the disclosure of the presence of loot boxes is poor. Compliance is poor when assessing whether all loot boxes in a game have disclosed their probabilities as required. Compliance with the requirement to provide warning messages is extremely poor.

ABSTRACT. There has been an emergent pattern of storytelling in video games of all scales in the past decade, in which the components of a game’s storyworld are presented across multiple media forms within the game, such as audio logs, journal entries, magazines, and environmental objects, inviting players into a process of deductive and interpretive thinking. This form of environmental and fragmented storytelling constructs a sense of a seamless, unified world through the placement of interconnected artefacts scattered across different environments. Each fragment narrates its own partial story while contributing to an overarching narrative structure. Narrative designers expect players to explore these spaces, uncover these story holons, and connect the dots together. Doing so reveals that many of these experiences are self-contained yet collectively enrich the larger world, leaving deliberate gaps for players to fill through their own interpretation and cognitive work.

This paper argues that such design practices exemplify the aesthetics of creatorship, a concept honed by Regina Seiwald (2023) as a negotiation between the author’s intent and the audience’s agency. In this model, the structure of the game affords both the capacity to affect and to be affected by the player’s decisions, distinguishing it from linear or nominal forms of storytelling. Participatory storytelling thus becomes a distinct kind of aesthetic pleasure, specifically an intersectional pleasure formed at the meeting point of interpretive agency, environmental exploration, and player subjectivity. One that depends on cognitive autonomy, the player’s self-aware engagement with fragmented narratives that demand personal evaluation, choice, and synthesis.

The paper proposes the term Holarchic Storytelling to describe this emerging style of narrative design. Drawing from Arthur Koestler’s theory of the holon, a system that functions simultaneously as a whole and a part. Holarchic Storytelling conceptualises each narrative unit as both self-contained and relational, maintaining internal coherence while contributing to a greater narrative structure. This model is also informed by Roman Ingarden’s phenomenology of the artwork, which emphasises the interpretive role of the perceiver, and by James Dalby’s Holarchic Media Theory, which extends Koestler’s logic to digital media systems. Through these frameworks, the study positions the game, the gamer, and the developer within a dynamic network of co-creation, where narrative meaning is constantly negotiated rather than delivered. In this sense, holarchic design generates a multi-layered, intersectional pleasure grounded in the simultaneous experience of agency, structure, and worldness.

Methodologically, the paper conducts comparative close readings of contemporary video games—including Cyberpunk 2077, Prey, and Alan Wake II—to analyse how environmental artefacts, modular quests, and scattered textual traces form holarchic structures of storytelling. These examples demonstrate how the role of the narrative designer shifts from author to architect, crafting systems that encourage interpretive participation rather than prescribing singular meanings.

By theorising Holarchic Storytelling as both a design practice and an aesthetic condition, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions in game studies around participatory authorship, environmental narrative, and the procedural aesthetics of meaning-making. It aims to name and frame a phenomenon that has become central to contemporary game design, clarifying how developers enable players to inhabit, interpret, and co-produce storyworlds through the aesthetic experience of holarchic, intersectional participation.

ABSTRACT. Recent research in the fields of social psychology and human-computer interaction has turned to the concept of eudaimonia to affirm videogames’ potential to elicit meaningful experiences and offer insights into the human condition. Often rooted in first-person accounts of play, such research often aims to challenge the suspicion and stigma that still attach to gaming. This paper reads the concept of eudaimonic play in relation to two texts which cast digital gameplay is cast in demonic terms: novelist and literary scholar Michael W. Clune’s Gamelife: A Memoir (2015) and psychotherapist Alexander Kriss’ The Gaming Mind (2019). Rather than dismissing this tendency to frame digital gameplay as demonic or eudaimonic as an etymological coincidence, this paper argues that exploring how these discourses are mobilised can help us to understand the allure of digital games, and the terms on which it is possible to argue for their social and cultural value.

ABSTRACT. 1. Introduction With the growing adoption of artificial intelligence and gamification in digital cultural experiences, narrative has increasingly shifted from static content presentation to a dynamic process driven by player action. In VR’s embodied interaction environments in particular, players trigger system responses through task-based actions, enabling narrative to unfold through iterative loops. Existing studies, however, largely employ gamification to enhance engagement while paying limited attention to the structural mechanisms that drive narrative progression. For instance, both Sangamuang (2025) and the Wenya Residence MR experiment report that gamified systems can extend interaction time but contribute little to deeper cultural understanding or narrative meaning-making, suggesting that current applications remain predominantly motivational. In terms of narrative technologies, Gatti et al. (2024) demonstrate AI’s potential to generate dynamic story content, and Hou and Kenderdine (2022) highlight the role of explainable AI as a cultural mediator; yet no framework currently integrates AI, task structure, and VR-based embodied interaction into a coherent mechanism for narrative construction. Addressing this gap, this study proposes an AI-driven gamified narrative mechanism. A minimum viable prototype will be developed to examine how players construct cultural meaning through alternating cycles of task performance and AI feedback within a digital cultural environment, with the mechanism currently in an exploratory stage.

2. Research Question This study aims to clarify how artificial intelligence functions within a gamified task structure in VR to iteratively drive the gradual construction of narrative, and to validate the feasibility and reusability of this mechanism in cultural understanding contexts through a prototype. RQ1: What narrative-mediating role does AI play within a VR-based gamified structure? RQ2: Can a reusable narrative mechanism be constructed to explain how narrative states are progressively built and updated? RQ3: In the VR prototype experience, can players gradually form cultural understanding and advance the narrative through this mechanism?

3.Theoretical The theoretical framework of this study consists of three components. First, the MDA framework (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004) conceptualizes games as layered structures composed of mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics, emphasizing how task rules and feedback loops generate behavioral patterns and narrative rhythms during system operation. This provides the formal foundation at both the mechanics and dynamics levels for the preliminary “task–feedback–unlock” narrative loop proposed in this study. Second, embodied interaction theory (Kenderdine, 2015) posits that bodily actions in VR function not merely as input methods but as essential triggers that activate task nodes, establish immersive engagement, and sustain narrative participation, enabling the loop to be naturally invoked and experienced. Third, drawing on the perspective of explainable artificial intelligence (Hou & Kenderdine, 2022), this study positions AI as an interpretive mediator within the feedback stage. Through transparent and traceable system responses, AI updates narrative states and supports players’ meaning-making, ensuring that the proposed loop operates on an analyzable, verifiable, and transferable structural basis.

4.Research Method Methodologically, this study first derives the preliminary “task–feedback–unlock” narrative mechanism through a synthesis of gamification mechanics and VR-based embodied interaction theories, and then incorporates the regulatory function of explainable AI at the feedback node to construct the conceptual framework. The study employs a Research-through-Design (RtD) approach by developing a minimum viable prototype (MVP) themed around Taichi to examine how the proposed narrative mechanism operates in practice. The prototype, built in Unity, consists of a simplified immersive VR environment in which players activate task nodes through embodied actions such as imitation or grasping. The system then provides interpretive feedback—delivered through text or audio—that conveys narrative cues. Upon receiving the feedback, the next task or narrative segment is automatically unlocked, completing one loop of the mechanism. After the prototype is completed, approximately five participants will be invited for short guided sessions. Through observing players’ interactions within the initial mechanism cycle and their emerging narrative understanding, the study will document (1) the naturalness and perceptibility of task triggers, (2) the interpretive effectiveness of AI-mediated feedback, and (3) the narrative coherence produced by the unlocking process. Iterations of the mechanism will focus on three core dimensions: refining the clarity and perceptibility of task activation, enhancing the narrative modulation delivered by AI feedback, and strengthening the directional coherence of the unlocking stage in the progression of the narrative.

By analyzing pauses, misinterpretations, or breaks in coherence observed during the loop, the study will further articulate the mechanism’s structure, specifying its conditions, boundaries, and optimal forms. This validation aims to assess the operability of the mechanism and the clarity of its narrative construction logic rather than to conduct large-scale user research. Through experiential observation, the study will refine the mechanism nodes and establish a foundation for its future application in cultural games and hybrid narrative environments.

5. Expected contribution At the theoretical level, this study integrates artificial intelligence, embodied interaction, and gamified structural logic into a formally describable narrative mechanism model centered on “task activation–interpretive feedback–narrative unlocking.” The model systematically defines how narrative can be dynamically constructed through iterative loops, clarifying the role of AI as a narrative mediator and revealing how AI, when coupled with VR-based embodied tasks, shapes meaning-making, narrative pacing, and action pathways. This contributes a new mechanism-oriented framework to game studies.

At the practical level, the VR minimum viable prototype demonstrates how the loop operates, stalls, or becomes activated in real interaction scenarios. The prototype not only verifies the operability of the mechanism but also exposes the boundaries and refinement points of task activation, feedback structuring, and unlocking rhythm. These insights provide a transferable structural method for the design of cultural games, immersive narrative systems, and mixed-reality experiences.

ABSTRACT. The main goal of this presentation is to summarize the author’s initial diagnoses in a broader research project devoted to revisiting and refining the theoretical frameworks used to analyze ludic narrators—understood here as more or less substantial characters or entities that verbally recount, frame, or comment on the events taking place within a game and/or its fictional world. While the concept of a narrator is among the most established tools in classical and postclassical narratology, its adaptation to digital, interactive, and multimodal media has remained somewhat limited. The present work therefore seeks to reassess both the usefulness and the limitations of traditional models of narration (especially those developed by Gérard Genette, Franz K. Stanzel, and Wayne C. Booth) when applied to ergodic media, and proposes a more integrative, game-oriented approach. In particular, Daniel Vella’s seminal notion of the ludic subject serves as an important conceptual anchor for distinguishing ludic narrators—entities that speak, recount, or verbalize—from the broader and much more widely discussed category of ludic narratives. Ever since the emergence of digital game studies as an academic field, scholarly attention has disproportionately centered on narratives rather than on narrators. This imbalance was shaped partly by the formative context of game studies, which sought to establish methodological independence from literary and film studies. Early foundational works encouraged a methodological “de-colonizing” of the field by emphasizing the specificity of games as interactive systems (cf. e. g. Aarseth 2001, Perron & Arsenault 2015). As a result, influential theorists grounded in narratology and intermedia (cf. e. g. Jenkins 2002, Ryan 2014) highlighted the digital games’ distinctive modes of storytelling—emergent narrative, spatial narrative, and environmental storytelling—while others (cf. e. g. Aarseth 2001, Eskelinen 2001, Frasca 2003) questioned whether the concept of narrativity, inherited from older media, is even applicable to games. Although the narratology/ludology debate is no longer central to the field, its consequences continue to shape the theoretical landscape. One lasting effect has been the near-unquestioned assumption that digital games primarily exhibit distributed and multi-agent forms of narrative, in which designers, systems, algorithms, interfaces, and players jointly construct meaning. Most of the theories which aim at providing tools for analyzing digital games’ narrative often take into account all of these aspects (cf. e.g. Farca 2011, Domsch 2013, Koenitz 2023), concentrating on synergies between various modes of storytelling. Within such frameworks, the figure of a single, stable narrator often appears marginal or unnecessary. Yet this assumption overlooks the fact that many digital games do contain explicit narrators—whether textual, voiced, diegetic, extradiegetic, system-generated, player-instantiated, or hybrid. The absence of a coherent typology that accounts for this diversity leaves the phenomenon theoretically underexplained, although it should be noted that some academic efforts at signalling the problem have already been made (cf. Kania 2018, Sakoğlu & Süngü 2025). The author argues that his framework requires a shift from a performative conception of games centered on player agency to an understanding of the game as an autonomous, bounded entity and of the narrator as a prescripted, finite construct. In this respect, Daniel Vella’s theory of the ludic subject (Vella 2015) —emphasizing player agency and rooted in literary theory—provides a particularly productive counterpoint to a theory that does not view the narrator as an inherent part of digital games but as merely one possible form of narrative agency within them. When narrators do appear in games, they cannot be understood as straightforward remediations of literary narrators; rather, they are shaped by interactivity, multimodality, and procedurality. Classical narratological tools remain valuable for identifying narrative voice and focalization, yet they must be supplemented by considerations specific to digital media. In developing a more adequate framework, the project draws on three key areas. First, it acknowledges the influence of analog ludic forms, especially tabletop role-playing games, whose game masters and player-narrators offer significant precedents for digital narration. Second, it highlights the multimodality of verbal expression in games: ludic narrators may manifest through voiceover, textual pop-ups, UI elements, cutscenes, or meta-commentary delivered via system messages. Third—and most importantly—the framework integrates interactivity as a constitutive dimension of narrators in games, acknowledging that narrators may respond to player actions, comment dynamically on gameplay, or restructure their verbal output based on real-time systems. As part of this conceptual expansion, the author is considering the inclusion of several new distinctions that better capture the spectrum of narrative agency unique to games. These include the differentiation between playful and serious narrators, which acknowledges the tonal variability and self-reflexivity often present in game narration; between fixed and interactive narrators, which distinguishes narrators with predetermined scripts from those whose discourse adapts to player behavior or systemic conditions; and between voiced and textual narrators, which recognizes the multimodal forms through which narration is delivered. These distinctions are not intended as rigid taxonomic categories but as analytical tools that reveal the heterogeneity of narrators in contemporary digital games. The presentation will outline these preliminary components of a new typology of ludic narrators—one that bridges classical narratology, game-oriented theoretical frameworks, and the affordances of digital interactive media. REFERENCES Aarseth, E. 2001. “Computer Game Studies, Year One.” Game Studies. 1 (1). Arsenault, D. and Perron, B. 2015. “De-framing video games from the light of cinema.” G| A| M| E Games as Art, Media, Entertainment. 4 (1). Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Domsch, S. 2013. Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games. Berlin: De Gruyter. Eskelinen, M. 2001. “The Gaming Situation.” Game Studies. 1 (1). Farca, G. 2011. Narratives in Video Games. Thesis from University of Augsburg retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309232813. Frasca, G. 2003. “Simulation versus Narrative”. In: The Video Game Theory Reader, edited by M. J. P. Wolf, B. Perron. New York: Routledge. Genette, G. 1980. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, translated by J. E. Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Jenkins, H. 2002. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”. Computer. 4. Kania, A. 2018. “Why gamers are not narrators.” In The aesthetics of videogames, edited by J. Robson and G. Tavinor, London: Routledge. Koenitz, H. 2023. Understanding interactive digital narrative: Immersive expressions for a complex time. London: Routledge. Ryan, M. L. 2014. “Story/Worlds/Media: Tuning the Instruments of a Media-Conscious Narratology.” In Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology, edited by M. L. Ryan, J. N. Thon. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Sakoğlu, N. A. and Süngü, E. 2025. “Would You Kindly Present the Game? Analyzing Narrators and Monstrators in Video Games”. Etkileşim. 16. Stanzel, F.K. 1971. Narrative Situations in the Novel, translated by J. P. Pusack. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vella, D. 2015. The Ludic Subject and the Ludic Self: Analyzing the ‘I-inthe-Gameworld’. Kopenhagen: IT University of Kopenhagen.

ABSTRACT. This study represents the first systematic attempt to transform ethnographic texts into playable game experiences using knowledge graphs (KGs) as an intermediary framework. While large language models (LLMs) promise automated KG construction from text, dense ethnographic writing resists full automation: its interpretive richness requires human expertise to preserve nuance, ensure transparency and maintain scholarly integrity. We therefore introduce a pioneering two-stage hybrid workflow that integrates expert interpretation with computational assistance. In the first stage, a domain expert collaborates with an LLM to construct a knowledge graph, guiding the model to extract salient concepts and relationships from ethnographic source material. In the second stage, a custom tool procedurally renders this KG as a playable 2D platformer where concepts become traversable platforms and relations appear as interactive mechanics such as ladders, bridges and navigable gaps. Using the anthropological classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific as a case study, we analyze through autoethnographic analysis how players experience what we call experiential hermeneutics, a fusion of epistemic, kinaesthetic and interpretive pleasures, when moving through theoretical structures rather than merely reading them. We argue that this hybrid workflow offers a pragmatic and reflexive path for integrating LLMs into playable scholarship while foregrounding the interpretive and affective dimensions of game-based knowledge representation.

ABSTRACT. Games are frequently employed in theatre pedagogy as training tools for developing physical and improvisational skills. Theatre pedagogists use rules and goals to craft spaces of agential possibility in which actors can discover, experiment, and train various abilities. An analysis of theatre games can therefore reveal how even seemingly minor modifications may produce markedly different experiences. In this short essay, I examine the pedagogical work of the theatre group Hospites Teatro, focusing in particular on how failure conditions are deconstructed and subverted in the design of their theatre games.

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract proposes the lens of game as inquiry to envision a game design process that sits at the intersection of persuasive games and games for social impact on one side, and humanistic understanding of games on the other. It is both a theoretical proposal as well as a recounting of authors’ experience leading the game design team in a funded initiative named EDIT-STEM, seeking to develop interventional technologies around the issues of EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). While the field of serious games and its closely related field of persuasive games lend themselves to this goal, the authors are also engaged in bringing in works exploring racial, gender and other social justice topics within game studies (Everett et al., 2017; Fickle, 2019; Ruberg, 2019). Game as inquiry is the authors’ attempt to synthesize these distinct scholarly communities. It is worth noting that the current version of this abstract is written when the project is still in its early ideation stage. The authors fully anticipate the ideas changing as the project(s) progress. However, the overall goal of a theoretical and practical synthesis remains the same. The presentation portion of this work will dive into further detail of the project’s development.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a structured method for designing and evaluating emotionally credible virtual victims of domestic violence through a serious game: the Victim Interview Simulator (VIS), developed within the EU-funded ISEDA (Innovative Solutions to Eliminate Domestic Abuse) project. The simulator aims to train police officers in conducting first-contact interviews with victims by providing an interactive environment that realistically communicates the victim’s psychological state and supports risk assessment.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION ------------ Game designers and researchers have used a range of technologies to create “smart” hybrid tabletop games. In narrative-focused games, strategies have included adding soundtracks to boardgame sessions (Farkas et al. 2022), and using large-language models to assist (Kelly et al. 2023) or replace game masters (Ang et al. 2023) in tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). Various works have, however, implied that the inclusion of digital tools can negatively affect player experiencei (PX) based on what is automated (Kankainen 2016; Larsson et al. 2020; Wallace et al. 2012). Understanding the impact of game designs on PX is important to game designers, however little existing work has looked at how digitised functions impact PX in Hybrid Digital Boardgames (HDBs), let alone narrative-focused tabletop play. Yet a 2023 review of games catalogued on BoardGameGeek as “Digital Hybrid – App/Website Required” found that more than 25% used Storytelling mechanisms, making this the second-most common mechanism for HDBs (Rogerson et al. 2023).

We are interested in hybridity in narrative boardgames, story-oriented boardgames where narratives are constructed by players engaging with the rules and play of the game ​(Arnaudo 2018, Ch. 1)​. These are similar to TTRPGs in that players often have a character that represents them in the game world, who they act through to make choices that shape the overall gameplay and narrative. However, the narrative events in these games are predominantly game-specified rather than player-created​ (Sullivan and Salter 2017)​. Narrative HDBs have been commercially explored through game series like Adventure and Crossroads. The digital tools in these games provide Storytelling (enhancing and representing a game’s theme and story) and Informing (controlling the flow of information to and between players) functions (Rogerson et al. 2021). Therefore, this paper asks how do hybrid Storytelling and Informing functions influence PX of a narrative boardgame?

METHOD ------------ We invited eight self-formed groups of 3-4 players (29 total) to play the first of four chapters of Adventure Games: The Volcanic Island (Dunstan et al. 2019) (Adventure), a cooperative campaign-style game played by exploring numbered, card-based locations and reading the associated paragraph entry in either a storybook or an app (Figure 1). Groups were instructed to use the app for the first fifteen minutes, after which they could use any storytelling method (app, book, or both). In this paper, we report on post-game interview data, which we analyse using reflexive thematic analysis ​(Braun and Clarke 2023)​.

[A table with a tablet and cards] Figure 1: The initial layout for Adventure, with the app open and components on the table

THEMES ------------

Using the session recordings and our notes, we generated two key themes in response to our research question.

The app helps balance sociality and efficiency ------------------------------------------------------------

Players identified Adventure as a family-weight game, and expected it to be leisurely, discussion-based and social. All groups felt that looking up information in the app was faster and more convenient than searching for it in the booklet. This allowed everyone to have equal and simultaneous information access, and afforded them more time to engage in pro-social play through discussing the information received.

Players treated the app as a communal resource and described an implicit social etiquette for interacting with it. Modulating the scrolling speed to match the reading speed of the play group was important, even if it was faster or slower than the narration. Another consideration was how to review information to avoid a player “hogging” the app. Players expressed that the optimal configuration was to have the app as the main information source and book as secondary/back-up for personal reviewing.

The app offers value as (imperfect) game master ------------------------------------------------------------ Players took on four roles at the table (Figure 1), each of which serves both a game and social purpose. Rule-bearers were knowledgeable about how to play and acted as a leader when others were confused. Note-takers functioned as the group memory and were considered reliable experts on in-game information. App-managers interacted with the technology and modulated the game pace. Storytellers added flavour and created an appropriate tone at the table.

[Image and description of four player roles] Figure 2 Four roles players take on when playing the game: rule-bearer (top left), notetaker (top right), app-manager (bottom left), and storyteller (bottom right).

Players felt that the app took on the Storyteller role, albeit with subpar acting. Many suggested that being a Storyteller is difficult, and that the app allowed more players to play the game instead of someone facilitating it. They wanted the app to also take on the Rule-bearer role so it could teach them how to play and clarify their understanding when confused.

Players seem to conceptualise the app as an imperfect game master (GM). In line with the role as laid out in the Dungeon Master’s Guide ​(2014, 4)​, players expect a GM to dramatically realise the game world and make calls about the rules so that players can “avoid confusion…[and have] more time…to be immersed’’ (P15). Players recognise this as significant labour and so perceive that the app-as-GM takes on an undesirable role that a human player would otherwise have to fill. This allowed the players to engage more with each other, thus supporting the social PX.

CONCLUSION ------------ Our case study of Adventure suggests that players expect an inherently social PX from narrative boardgames. Despite the app’s simplicity and shortcomings, players viewed it positively because they perceived it as supporting sociality through making Informing a communal activity and taking on GM-style labour, freeing players to engage with each other.

Our analysis suggests that players perceive a tight coupling between the app’s Storytelling and Informing functions, possibly because those are the expected functions of a GM, thus matching their expectation of this type of narrative boardgame. In the context of narrative boardgames, this implies that hybrid Storytelling and Informing can have a positive influence on PX when they support the expected social PX through taking on non-social labour.

ABSTRACT. While games suggest the presence of social activity, board games in particular have had a long and widespread presence in human history. Early excavated examples include the Royal Game of Ur or the Game of Twenty Squares from Mesopotamia (2600–2400 B.C.) and Senet from Egypt (1390–1353 B.C.), followed by a long legacy of boards ranging from those of antiquity to modern forms. Ancient boards were crafted in materials such as wood, bone, ivory, and various semi-precious stones. Beyond portable boards, however, another widespread material trace of early play cultures appears in incised graffiti boards, etched onto stone floors, walls, and open platforms in both religious and secular spaces. These include Alquerque games, Mancala cupule rows, race games, Morris or other alignment games, and multiple other variants. Their permanence and visibility set them apart, offering material evidence of social practices that unfolded repeatedly in shared spaces across sites around the world. According to scholars Alex de Voogt, Maria Nilsson and John Ward, ‘such graffiti game boards in most contexts have not only attested to human presence in different historical periods but, in some cases, have also assisted in dating an archaeological context’ (de Voogt, Nilsson, and Ward 2020). However, as noted by archaeologist and games scholar Barbara Care, ‘contextualizing these (graffiti boards) items chronologically and culturally remains a critical issue, and their interpretation is often controversial’ (Care 2022). Rather than tracing chronology alone or treating boardgame etchings as isolated marks of recreation, this research explores how such carvings exhibit continuity in form, function, and spatial placement. Their recurrence in shared, accessible public spaces suggests that these markings operated as material infrastructures of society, expressing collective identity across centuries. The study also examines their proximity, clustering, and multiplicity, arguing that the abundance of incised games within a single site reflects not just the presence of play traditions but deeper patterns of material continuity, cultural transmission, and community engagement. These engravings often appear in dense clusters, sometimes comprising dozens of different kinds of games within a confined area, which may suggest repeated gathering, interaction, and shared practice both geographically and across time. At (Vijayanagara) Hampi, games scholar and archaeologist, Elke Rogersdotter (2015) documents over nine hundred and sixty-five boards of multiple variants spread across mandapas, market streets, and temple platforms. The continuity of etching boards to play games both on stone slabs and on soil is also evident from colonial anthologies documenting board games across India by various anthropologists and geologists (see Ray & Ghosh 1999). Recent documentation by Project Kheliya in India reveals archaeological sites containing board games of multiple variants spread across the subcontinent. A digital archive of Ancient Indian Boardgames under the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC), and the JPN Centre for Excellence, IIT Indore, also documented, geotagged, and mapped locations of incised graffiti games at various sites in South Asia while exploring their possible play traditions through ethnographic inquiry, providing insights into their spatial distribution and forms of play (indiaboardgamesarchive 2025). Comparable patterns appear far beyond South Asia. At Gebel el-Silsila in Egypt, de Voogt, Nilsson, and Ward documented numerous graffiti boards carved into quarry surfaces, suggesting habitation and the transmission of games across three periods along trade routes (de Voogt et al. 2020). In Athens, Care (2022) records game boards carved into public pavements and civic spaces, correlating material culture with communal space based on the function of play. Incised boards have been similarly recorded in preliminary field research from sites such as Ellora, Ajanta, Khajuraho, and many others across South Asia, revealing that both sacred and shared public spaces have long been sites of interaction and gathering, with games serving as tools of expression and material culture. These games, although varying in their ludic elements, often appear in striking proximity. For example, in the Kailasa temple of Ellora, an area identified as a fire altar contains an incomplete 8×8 Ashtapada or checkers grid, a race game of Tablan, an Alquerque game of Tigers and Goats, and multiple Mancala cupules on the floors. Despite belonging to different gaming traditions and modes of play, they occur within the same compact space. The carved surfaces or ‘sites of memory’ thus may have functioned as ‘game parlours’ of the past which could be suggested as socially inclusive for community engagements. Despite widespread presence across cultures worldwide, incised or graffiti board games remain a significantly under researched area. This study therefore draws on field investigations in South Asia along with secondary analysis from global contexts to examine the spatial clustering and material culture of carved game surfaces. Rather than attempting to fix these markings within strict chronology, given the difficulties of dating such engravings, the research emphasizes continued lived traditions of etching boards to play a game, and also considers how material traces of play may reflect recurring patterns of communal expression across centuries.

ABSTRACT. Historical games are created through a process of abstraction. Designers select a set of elements that are going to be simulated in the gameplay, while other elements are ignored. As wargame designer Mark Herman writes: “When I design a strategic level game, or any game for that matter, it is important for me to consider what to incorporate and what to leave out” (Herman, 2024, 76). It is self-evident that a simulation that would try to take into account “everything" would not be a playable simulation, but a 1:1 Borges-like reproduction of the real world. But it is also self-evident that the choice of which elements are going to be incorporated into the game and what is going to be left out is anything but neutral. From their very beginning in the mid 1950s till the first decade of the XXI century, hobby wargames (i.e.: recreational products meant for the general public, as opposed to simulations used by military personnel and defense analysts) have normally ignored all those aspects of warfare that do not directly deal with combat, such as politics, ideology, and especially the role of noncombatants, whose life can be tragically impacted by military operations. As game designers Brian Train and Volko Ruhnke write:

Wargames evoke strongly negative reactions, especially when they appear to transgress existing and popularly held moral codes or political agendas, or even concepts of fair play. In order to avoid such a reaction, perhaps, wargames will rarely if ever feature game mechanics representing terrorism or genocide, though these are common features of actual warfare (Train, Ruhnke, 2016, 514-515).

Things partially changed in the 2010s, with the rise of the so-called COIN games, games on asymmetrical conflicts, such as guerrilla warfare, anti-colonial insurrection and urban revolt (COIN stands for “counterinsurgency”). The COIN games, designed, among others, by Train and Ruhnke, are clearly connected to the key role that the notion of counterinsurgency played in the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hobby wargames being largely an American phenomenon. By no chance, one of Train’s and Ruhnke’s most well-known game, A Distant Plain (GMT, 2013), is focused on the American intervention in Afghanistan. But even before the rise of COIN games, sometimes wargames ventured into the dangerous territory of asymmetric warfare and ethnic cleansing.

I could identify nine analog historical simulation games, published between 1975 and 2025, entirely or partially devoted to the first Arab-Israeli War (1947-’49), whose outcome was the birth of Israel and the beginning of the Palestinian diaspora, with the expulsion of large sections of the Arab-Palestinian population, known in Arabic as “Nakba” (“the catastrophe”). Contrary to what one could expect in the light of the abovementioned switch of cultural paradigm produced by COIN games, the most recent games do not depict in any way the impact of the war on the civilian population. Stephen Rangazas’ The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire (GMT, 2023), while being part of the COIN series, is strictly focused on the miliary struggle between the British security forces and the right-wing Zionist underground organization Irgun, with virtually no mention of the presence of Arabs in Palestine. David Kershaw’s Israel 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (White Dog Games, 2025) is a strategy level game which depicts the struggle between the newly formed Israel Defense Forces and the armies of the Arab countries trying to “push the Zionists back into the sea”. In this game, there is no mention of the many atrocities committed by both sides against the civilian population and the many episodes of ethnic cleansing: the conflict is depicted as a “regular” conflict, with a strict focus on the military dimension.

On the contrary, two of the oldest games, John Hill’s Jerusalem! Tactical Game of the 1948 War (SDC, 1975) and Joseph Miranda’s The First Arab-Israeli War, 1947-’49 (Decision Games, 1997) openly address the issues of terrorism and ethnic cleansing, albeit the mechanics of these games are rooted in the tradition of the so called “hex and counter” wargame, which is not particularly well suited to simulate irregular warfare and more generally the sociopolitical dimension of armed conflicts.

In sum, the paper intends to explore a corpus of nine historical simulation games on the First Arab-Israeli War, analyzing their “procedural rhetoric” (Bogost, 2007), i.e. the way these games address (or fail to address) political and ethical questions through their mechanics, especially focusing on the representation of the Nakba and more generally of the fate of civilians during the conflict.

ABSTRACT. Kitbashing is an information practice within rule-based game systems. It is a process in which players and games co-craft information solutions within an analog system to balance the tensions between play experience, game mechanics, and materiality. The abstract highlights opportunities for a new framework that investigates dynamic materiality through craft-based cases. The framework proposes using miniatures’ bases as a material anchor of this dynamic and considering the sizes of kitbashed miniatures as negotiated consensus.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the concept of ‘slow gaming’ by situating it within the broader slow movement, which advocates mindful and sustainable alternatives to fast-paced, consumption-driven lifestyles (Honoré 2004; Rauch 2018). Within this framework, slow gaming emerges as a form of play that questions dominant cultural expectations of speed, efficiency, and constant progression, which appears to reflect Scully-Blaker’s (2019) notion of “radical slowness,” a form of play that may function as a site of resistance by encouraging players to move, observe, and interact at a pace that disrupts the acceleration characteristic of contemporary media ecologies. Drawing on research on the slow movement (Honoré 2004), as well as studies of stillness (Scully-Blaker, 2018) and coziness in digital games (Bell and Hollows 2005; Palmer 2004; Raisborough 2011; Waszkiewicz and Bahun 2020; Bódi 2024), the study investigates how these principles manifest in digital play and how they may shape post-anthropocentric perspectives on the human–environment relationship.

Through comparative analysis of Journey (2012) and Stray (2022), the paper explores how mindfulness, slowness, and coziness inform each game’s aesthetic and gameplay design while portraying a world after humanity. Journey (2012) offers a minimalist pilgrimage through vast desert landscapes, emphasizing fluid movement, meditative pacing, and soft musical cues to cultivate a meditative form of slowness.

Meanwhile, Stray (2022) invites players to inhabit the perspective of a small cat navigating an abandoned cybercity, where danger and stillness interweave. The game was widely advertised and visually framed as cozy, featuring a cute animal protagonist, warm neon lighting, domestic micro-spaces, and tactile interactions. However, upon entering the game’s world, these expectations are swiftly complicated. Idyllic play is interrupted by scenes of grotesque decay and violence. This abrupt confrontation with threat destabilizes the promise of coziness that surrounds the game’s marketing and opening sequences.

Although both games may appear slow and “cozy” at first sight, Stray uses slow gaming techniques to complicate and ultimately subvert its aesthetic of coziness, emphasizing the hidden grotesque of its post-humanist world instead. Building on Waszkiewicz and Bakun’s (2020) categories of coherent, dissonant, and situational coziness, the paper situates Journey (2012) as an example of coherent coziness: its visual harmony, smooth movement, and minimal conflict consistently reinforce an atmosphere of near-meditative experience.

Stray (2022), however, mobilizes dissonant coziness. It introduces soft, charming, and cat-centered interactions while simultaneously exposing the grotesque decay of its post-humanist world. The player oscillates between comfort and unease, as stillness, such as curling up to rest or playing with robots, is set against environmental ruin, infestation, and infrastructural collapse. Stillness, slowness, and repulsion interact, echoing Nixon’s (2011) concept of slow violence, suggesting that the remnants of human presence continue to exert destructive force even in their absence. Through this juxtaposition, the game reveals an unsettling critique of post-anthropocentric worlds, exposing layers of destruction and violence that linger long after humanity has vanished.

Through the interplay of slowness, stillness, and coziness or dissonant coziness aesthetics, both Journey (2012) and Stray (2022) illuminate how digital worlds can shape cultural perspectives on environmental awareness and foster deeper engagement with post-humanist imaginaries. By aligning gaming with the ethics of slow culture, the paper argues that slow gaming not only enriches player experience but may also serve as a critical tool for interrogating ecological dimensions of play while shaping cultural perspectives on environmental awareness.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a work-in-progress investigation into how and why players come to be invested in games. Investment is here construed as occurring at both a material and affective level, and we argue that it both shapes and is shaped by a game’s design and its player community. Using Papergames’ Love and Deepspace (2024) (LADS), as a case study, we outline five dimensions of player investment (monetary, temporal, storage, affective, and fandom). Though certainly non-exhaustive, this list offers insights both into LADS’ design and its players while suggesting that investment is a fruitful lens for understanding how neoliberal capitalism shapes leisure time.

ABSTRACT. As an extended abstract no abstract is needed

ABSTRACT. This study analyzes three contemporary mecha games—Titanfall 2, Daemon X Machina, and BattleTech—to ask how embedding AI in player-controlled mechs produces hybrid human–machine agency. Using comparative close reading of missions, combat systems, assist functions, scripted interventions, UI messaging, and fan paratexts, while drawing on actor–network–theory, cyborg theory, posthuman ethics, and procedural rhetoric, it maps design patterns of AI–mech collaboration. The analysis identifies three design concerns: regimes of control transfer between pilot and machine; audio-visual and interface scripting that organizes the legibility and evaluation of handovers; and genre-specific risk economies that calibrate AI authority and responsibility. The study finds that AI–mech units function as situated collaborators that redistribute initiative, obligation, and vulnerability rather than neutral tools or autonomous villains. Its contribution is to theorize hybrid agency as a framework for player–AI allocation of action and to operationalize posthuman perspectives in concrete design analysis.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates how dynamic visual customization in role-playing games (RPGs), where a character’s appearance evolves in response to narrative decisions and in-game events, affects player emotional engagement and behaviour. Using a mixed-methods case study of Baldur’s Gate 3, the research combined discourse analysis of Reddit discussions, a survey (n = 149), and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). Findings show that dynamic customization strengthens emotional engagement by visually reinforcing narrative progression but rarely redirects player behaviour, instead reinforcing pre-established roleplay intentions. Players also engaged in manual dynamic customization to maintain visual coherence when game systems were insufficient, revealing a gap between player expectations and current design practices. This study reframes customization as a sustained narrative mechanism rather than a one-time aesthetic choice, demonstrating that evolving visual identity functions primarily to support player-constructed roleplay narratives rather than to redirect decision-making in character-driven games.

ABSTRACT. This paper argues that player-inhabited videogame worlds, such as that of the MMORPG MapleStory, can stage scenarios that simulate how climate change is experienced by their inhabitants. This likewise entails that MapleStory’s history, with the emphasis on the Big Bang update’s epochal transition between states of the game's virtual world, can be divided in pre- and post-climate change event sensibilities, thus reflecting the spatiotemporal division experienced through Earth’s climate crisis. The analysis of this example presents a possibility for situated forms of ecocriticism and their cross-fertilization with other analysis angles, such as auto-ethnographical and historical pursuits.

ABSTRACT. Scholarship has considered representations of working-class experience in games. However, there is a need for ongoing analysis of how games afford accounts of working-class culture as a whole way of life. This paper contributes to this discussion through an analysis of Still Wakes the Deep. Set on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland in 1975, Still Wakes the Deep is notable for its representation of ordinary working-class lives, which developer paratexts frame as authentic. Simultaneously, it engages with a fantastical application of Lovecraftian horror. Characters in the game are not only entwined with the cultural specificities of their class, but also subject to the influence of survival horror ludic and aesthetic conventions. This paper explores how the game balances representation of working-class culture-as-ordinary with the extraordinary qualities of survival horror. By extension, this paper asks what it means to produce an authentic representation of working-class experience in games.

ABSTRACT. This study offers a formalist comparative analysis of My Child Lebensborn and Bury Me, My Love, two narrative games that depict experiences of war trauma and displacement through distinct design strategies. Drawing on close reading, it examines how mechanics, interface structures, narrative progression, and player-character relationships shape emotional resonance and ethical engagement. While both games foreground the tension between agency and inevitability, My Child Lebensborn conveys this through intimate caregiving routines constrained by historical prejudice, whereas Bury Me, My Love embeds it within mediated communication and the precariousness of a refugee journey. Through these contrasts, the analysis demonstrates how formal design choices direct emotional investment, position the player as a witness, and shape the expressive potential of games to represent trauma with nuance and depth.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION This research interrogates the hegemonic design paradigm that privileges seamless, precise, and predictable control in digital games. In contrast, it posits that moments of breakdown—glitches, input lag, erratic force feedback, and unconventional mappings—constitute a productive aesthetic and political terrain. Framed by DiGRA 2026’s theme of "Intersectional Pleasures," this study investigates how these "unruly forces" generate distinct forms of pleasure and agency for players marginalized by mainstream design norms and cultural expectations. We argue that the friction inherent in non-standard control schemes is not merely noise to be eliminated but a source of creative expression, identity negotiation, and subversive enjoyment. By analyzing practices ranging from custom controller use to intentional glitch exploitation, this project challenges fundamental assumptions about mastery, accessibility, and the very nature of playful pleasure. Theoretical Framework Our analysis is grounded in a synthesis of critical game studies, disability studies, and queer theory. We draw from glitch aesthetics, which reframes errors as revelatory interventions that expose and destabilize standardized systems, and queer theory’s affirmative revaluation of deviation and non-normativity. This allows us to conceptualize control malfunctions as a form of "queering" the polished, commercial game experience. Furthermore, we engage with critical perspectives on player agency, moving beyond simplistic notions of control-as-empowerment to consider agency as something negotiated within and often against designed systems. Central to our inquiry is Sara Ahmed’s work on orientation, considering how pleasure can be found in following unexpected paths away from the "straight" line of intended use. This framework positions the pleasures found in alternative control not as compensatory but as inherently valuable, emerging from the struggle and creativity required to navigate or repurpose unruly systems. Methodology The research employs a multi-modal qualitative approach centered on digital ethnography and critical technical practice. We engage in sustained ethnographic observation within communities whose practices revolve around alternative control, including accessibility-focused gaming groups, emulator and speedrunning subcultures, and glitch artists. This is complemented by in-depth, semi-structured interviews with community members to understand the lived experience and subjective pleasures of these interactions. Simultaneously, we adopt a hands-on approach through critical technical practice, which involves modifying controllers, creating simple glitch mods, and simulating conditions like input lag. This practice-based dimension provides a phenomenological understanding of the interaction dynamics and serves as a material basis for analysis. The study culminates in a comparative analysis of case studies, juxtaposing mainstream AAA titles’ pursuit of polished control with intentionally "unstable" or "rough" control designs in independent and art games. Experiments & CASE STUDY Our investigation focuses on several concrete domains. We examine the use of custom-configured controllers by disabled players, where the unique mapping between input and game response creates a novel tactile-kinesthetic language, fostering a sense of mastery and pleasure distinct from ableist design assumptions. The world of emulation provides another rich site, where differences in frame rates and input latency compared to original hardware generate new, community-specific challenges and techniques, redefining authenticity and skill. In the realm of artistic play, we analyze deliberate glitch exploitation in mods or performance art, where triggering physics engine failures becomes a curated aesthetic, transforming chaotic, unruly forces into a poetic medium. Finally, we consider the adaptive tactics developed by players in low-bandwidth environments, where high-latency multiplayer gaming necessitates a form of predictive, collaborative sociality, generating a resilient pleasure born from continuous negotiation with an imperfect system. Conclusion This study makes several key contributions. First, it bridges the gap between functionalist accessibility discourse and critical aesthetic inquiry, revealing the creative and political potency latent in alternative control schemes. Second, it expands the scholarly understanding of "intersectional pleasure" within game studies by theorizing a form of enjoyment rooted in struggle, re-appropriation, and the subversion of normative design—a pleasure often located at the margins of identity and ability. Finally, it offers a critical provocation to game design praxis, suggesting that the pursuit of seamless universality may inadvertently homogenize pleasure. We advocate instead for a design philosophy that embraces openness, malleability, and the right to creatively "misuse" or even "break" a system, thereby making room for a wider, more diverse spectrum of bodily and cognitive engagements. In doing so, this research underscores that pleasure in play can be profoundly found not only in compliance with a system’s rules but in the beautiful, agential friction generated at its fraying edges.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the impact of game interface technologies on player experience. An original game and a game-specific custom controller were designed to investigate the effect on player experience between tangible user interfaces, as opposed to keyboard and mouse, across twelve data points. Using a quantitative research approach, a sample of 32 participants took part in the study over a five-week period. The results revealed significant trends in three areas: (i) objective data distribution; (ii) perceptions of the self; and (iii) playstyle differences. The findings revealed that the custom controller group had more similar objective results than the mouse input group, suggesting a more commonly shared experience. The custom controller group was also more goal-oriented, with a quicker completion time and focus on evading enemies, while the mouse input group achieved higher amounts of player-dealt damage. This research contributes to the existing studies on tangible user interfaces and game input research. The results may encourage game developers, academics, and artists to create controllers to shape the player experience for their uniquely designed game mechanics in experimental or creative projects.

ABSTRACT. This extended abstract proposes a theoretical framework for comparing how button mashing and hold-to-complete QTE inputs shape the suspense curve in survival horror games. Using a sequence from The Last of Us Part II, it models how accessibility-driven changes to physical input demands may alter the player’s experience of suspense. The work contributes to discussions of inclusive game design and the affective structure of high-stakes interactions.

ABSTRACT. Existing game ritual research predominantly focuses on large-scale collective rituals in MMORPGs, neglecting the understudied nexus between "lightweight, daily and long-term" practices in simulation games and players’ virtual belonging. This mixed-method study takes Stardew Valley’s "sacrifice flow" as a case—semi-structured interviews analyzed by IPA along with an auto-ethnographic diary to reflection and GEQ/IMI scales—to explore how such rituals shape belonging and its formation trajectory. Findings will validate that lightweight rituals foster belonging via emotional spaces, intermediary trust, and symbolic sacrifices, addressing the gap in non-sacred mundane game rituals and offering actionable "micro-ritual+meaning feedback" recommendations to inform other simulation games emotional design research.

ABSTRACT. In the late 90s and early 2000s, GameSpy was integral to the popularization of online gaming communities. Hundreds of games for PCs and videogame consoles declared that they were “powered by GameSpy.” GameSpy’s once influential consolidation of videogame networks and digital news content began to falter in 2009, and by 2014, it was completely defunct, shut down in favour of new models of connectivity and real-time content distribution in the digital media and entertainment industries (Mirrlees, 2024). Our study of GameSpy brings crucial insights on institutional platform power and platform evolution from critical platform studies into game studies. In particular, we analyze Gamespy as an early instance of “platform infrastructure” (Hesmondhalgh et al., 2023) in which the possibilities of user activity, content, and online sociality are routed through, and structured by, highly contingent and connective technologies (Poell et al., 2022). GameSpy is a case study in how digital media firms are both enabled and constrained by their platform affordances. By closely analyzing the traces of GameSpy’s dead platform infrastructure, we bring forward a more nuanced analysis of platform failure that can move beyond more deterministic accounts of platform power and success, while demonstrating the role of GameSpy in shaping contemporary games media and online gaming ecosystems.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores 1980s Japanese arcade shooters and their use of Hollywood action film aesthetics, such as commandos and jungle settings. Rather than mukokuseki products for the global market, I argue they represent Japan's negotiation with post-Vietnam American militarism via film. These design choices reflect Japan’s reception of U.S. heroism and its own postwar victimhood narrative, blending homage and ambivalence. Using game texts, marketing, and interviews, the study situates these shooters within transnational exchanges, and frames early gaming as part of global film-game interactions.

ABSTRACT. This article traces how Game Informer’s 1991–2011 reviews of fantasy video games framed the pleasures of spellcasting, arguing that their recurrent emphasis on destruction, spectacle, variety, creativity, and mastery helped construct ludic magic systems as rationalized, technocratic, and implicitly masculinist technologies of control.

ABSTRACT. We argue that 1xBet and Qatari investment in PSG are topical examples of the ongoing (re)colonization operations conducted in the worldwide gaming and political ecosystems, crash sites where many contemporary cultural, political and economic developments collide. Both the deaths of migrant workers erecting infrastructure for Qatar’s World Cup 2022 (Syed 2022) and the marginalized gig economy workers that make 1xBet streams possible remind us of the uneasy work that takes place behind current-day games and the inequalities associated with contemporary platformized cultural production. Looking closely enough at the highs and lows of contemporary football offers a perspective to see the ulterior motives that are often at stake in sports and games. We believe the lessons learned in these case studies can change how we see the contemporary gaming landscape.

ABSTRACT. extended abstract

ABSTRACT. There are multiple reasons to use preexisting spaces in fiction, from nostalgia to faithful simulation. These specific environments facilitate the telling of certain narrative forms. We believe that, in the case of Kamurocho, the well-known representation of Kabukicho in the Yakuza/Judgment (2005/2018) series, the narrative and ludic wealth content in the virtual world reflect the personal urban understanding/experiences of the members of the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. To pursue this line of thought, we explore the following questions: Can gameplay and narrative design be influenced by virtual urban design? Is the particular approach to spatio-narrative design of RGG Studio discernible in Kamurocho’s design? In previous work (Barroso & Huang 2025), we proposed a “triple modality of space” analytical framework for urbanism in video game (virtual) environments. Despite our proposal, we focused on the design of the virtual city and the strategies for “reducing” real (preexisting) space into a playable environment, that is, “ludoforming” (Aarseth 2019). By considering game analysis in tandem with urbanistic theories, we examined the specific approaches to translating Kabukicho (the actual Tokyo) into Kamurocho (the in-game setting). The first modality refers to the city level (perhaps “map level” would be appropriate), thus, we analysed space at this level through Roberto Venturi’s study of Las Vegas (Venturi et al. 1997) and Kevin Lynch’s “five elements” (1996) that render a city “imageable”, both in terms of real and virtual urbanism (vid. Dimopoulos 2017, 2020, 2022). Here, we also introduce the vernacular zakkyo buildings, which, as emergent multipurpose structures distinctive of Kabukicho (Almazan & Studilab, 2021), echo the game structure of the Yakuza/Judgment series. Descending to street level, the second modality refers to the design and arrangement of the space navigated by people; to study this layer, we abstract models from both real and virtual cities (following Luke Caspar Pearson’s work, 2020), and then discuss the degree of proportional transformation (D/H and W/D ratios) employed by RGG Studio through the lens of Yoshinobu Ashihara’s work in The Aesthetic Townscape (1983) to better differentiate between a building’s original facade and its attached billboards that is, their “primary profile” and “secondary profile”. In this project, we take an in-depth look at the third modality of space in video games. This layer takes the whole city district created by RRG Studio as what the architecture studio Atelier Bow-wow calls “environmental unit” (Kaijima et al. 2001), which refers to built environments where “any particular building (...) can perform several roles within multiple urban sets”. This conceptualization of space-activity symbiosis finds its counterpart in game studies, as seen in Adam Chapman’s idea of “narrative gardens” (2016), a conceptual structure where “space and narrative are deeply and inextricably linked” (101), a space that gives players the opportunity (and responsibility) of enacting certain (hi)stories. As we carefully examine the models of in-game Kamurocho and compare them with those taken from Google Earth and on-site three-dimensional scans of Kabukicho, we abstract and describe the different tendencies or strategies employed by the development team to guide and channel both the story and gameplay. Through a series of axiometric diagrams in the architectural ethnography/urban sociology tradition widely practiced by Japanese architects and urbanists (vid. Matsumoto 2000; Kuroishi 2016), we schematize how the re-usage of in-game design resources affords the creation of specific and varied narrative-gameplay situations. In this regard, two design strategies stand out above the rest: the efficient use and reuse of architectural/urban assets, and a direct relationship between the openness of an environment and gameplay mode and difficulty adjustments. These strategies result in an evolving rapport between the virtual city and the life in it, simulated yet emergent. Ultimately, how does the real Kabukicho relate to the virtual Kamurocho? Through a playful/gameful narrative, RGG Studio crafts a compelling video game world and projects its own understanding and experience of the city. As the developers have stated on record, they have tried to honor the city to which they were exposed, fictional and not; furthermore, they also wanted to make the often impossible possible in the city, creating a new sort of urban experience through gameplay.

ABSTRACT. My ongoing research project explores methods for which live-service videogames can be preserved in cooperation with game developers. This paper shares findings from this pilot study for a new subset of methodology concerned with studio studies and the ways in which worker mobility can impact the preservation of game history.

ABSTRACT. Within the lively sub-field of queer game studies, a pocket of research on ethical non-monogamies has grown to offer new vantage points for understanding games’ potential to challenge normative logics of pleasure and success. So far, this research has largely focused on analyzing representations of non-monogamies in digital games, critiquing how they have routinely reproduced hetero- and mono-normative assumptions about what kinds of intimacies are normal and desirable, and which are transgressive and taboo (Adams & Rambukkana, 2018; Dwyer, 2021; Rambukkana & Adams, 2025). Recently, non-monogamies have shifted somewhat from the fringes of games media and culture into the mainstream, for example, in popular, commercially successful, and polyamory-inclusive titles such as Hades (2020) and Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023). Still, researchers have yet to examine 1) how a variety of non-monogamous players are responding to these representations and 2) how creators might engage with non-monogamous intimacies to produce games that better resonate with queer desires and orientations.

As a PhD candidate, the goal of my research-creation dissertation is to engage these problematics using a player-focused and design-oriented approach. My presentation would give DiGRA audiences an overview of this project-in-progress, sharing the thinking behind a participatory design method for studying player-NPC relationships. What alternatives do non-monogamous players imagine for dating and relationships in digital games? What can we learn about designing for queer(er) play by documenting and realizing those alternatives through speculative design?

I will begin by touching on the project’s theoretical commitments, including queer phenomenology and queer use (Ahmed, 2006, 2019; Youngblood, 2015), queer mechanics and affect (Ruberg, 2019, 2022), anarchist sexuality (Portwood-Stacer, 2010), and relational significant otherness (Haraway, 2003; Shotwell, 2017). In particular, I will focus on a theory of “polydisciplinamory”: a research-creation framework that adopts the affective dimensions of polyamory to help researchers navigate a variety of attachments to different disciplines, methods, sites, subjects, and creative outputs (Loveless, 2019).

From there, I will transition into a breakdown of my methodology. To answer the research questions outlined above, I am using a feminist speculative creative practice (Auger, 2013; O’Martins, 2014) that combines the informal design knowledge of game players with the formal design knowledge of professional game developers working within the milieux of the “queer games avant-garde” (Ruberg, 2020). The first step is a multi-stage interviewing process wherein I collect input from non-monogamous players about how they received non-monogamies in existing games, what they would want to change, and why. Players will be asked to fill out an open-ended questionnaire about their gaming and relationship histories and preferences and then follow up with a “gaming interview” where they can contextualize and expand upon their answers as they play.

From there, I will alternate between regular consultations with players and game developers as I iterate upon a series of game prototypes to explore what non-monogamies can tell us about queer(er) play and design. In particular, my presentation will focus on this project’s use of the Method for Design Materialization, or MDM: an approach intended to help researchers capture a game’s design-in-process through software version control (Khaled et al., 2018; Khaled & Barr, 2023). This means using GitHub to document the design trajectory of my game prototypes, pairing time-slices of game code with reflective journal entries that express and contextualize the design thinking behind each decision. In my presentation, I will discuss what it means to apply MDM in this specific research-creation context, highlighting the affordances and challenges of involving players at multiple points in the design process and offering insight to other researchers who are using participatory methods to make and study games.

As non-monogamies become more culturally legible and commonplace in games media and cultures, this project asks critical questions about how those representations may or may not resonate with actual non-monogamous lived experience, as well as how dating and relationships in digital games can be re-imagined through queer interventions in interaction design.

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References:

Adams, M. B. & Rambukkana, N. (2018) ‘Why do I have to make a choice? Maybe the three of us could, uh...’: Non-monogamy in videogame narratives. Game Studies, 18(2).www.gamestudies.org/1802/articles/adams_rambukkana

Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Objects, orientations, others. Duke University Press.

---. (2019). What’s the use?: On the uses of use. Duke University Press.

Auger, J. (2013). Speculative design: Crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity, 24(1), 11–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2013.767276

Dwyer, C. E. L. (2021). Trouble in paradise: Non-monogamies and queer play in digital games (master’s thesis, #988937). Concordia University, Montreal.

Haraway, D. J. (2003). The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness. Prickly Paradigm Press.

Khaled, R., Lessard, J., and Barr, P. (2018). Documenting trajectories in design space: A Methodology for applied game design research. Proceedings of the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Conference. Malmö, Sweden.

Khaled, R., & Barr, P. (2023). Generative logics and conceptual clicks: A case study of the method for design materialization. Design Issues, 39(1), 55–69. www.doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00706

Loveless, N. (2019). How to make art at the end of the world: A manifesto for research creation. Duke University Press.

O Martins, L. (2014). Privilege and oppression: Towards a feminist speculative design. In Lim,Y., Niedderer, K., Redström, J., Stolterman, E. and Valtonen, A. (Eds.), Design's Big Debates - DRS International Conference 2014, 16-19 June, Umeå, Sweden. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drsconferencepapers/drs2014/researchpapers/75

Portwood-Stacer, L. (2010). Constructing anarchist sexuality: Queer identity, culture, and politics in the anarchist movement. Sexualities, 13(4), 479-493. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460710370

Rambukkana, N. & Adams, M. (2025). Now you're playing with polyamory: Ludonarrative resonance and intentional non-monogamy in games as queer play. In M. Wysocki and S. Shook, The Bloomsbury handbook of sex and sexuality in game studies (First edition). Bloomsbury Academic.

Ruberg, B. (2019a). Videogames have always been queer. New York University Press.

---. (2020). The queer games avant-garde. Duke University Press.

---. (2022). Hungry holes and insatiable balls: Video games, queer mechanics, and the limits of design. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 61(3), 107–128. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cj.2022.0026

Shotwell, A. (2017). Ethical polyamory, responsibility, and significant otherness. In G. Foster (Ed.), Desire, love, and identity: Philosophy of sex and love (pp. 277-286). Oxford University Press.

Youngblood, J. (2015). Climbing the heterosexual maze: Catherine and Queering Spatiality in Gaming. In M. Wysocki and E. Lauteria (Eds.), Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games (pp. 240–252). Bloomsbury.

ABSTRACT. Please see the extended abstract

ABSTRACT. Videogame characters are complex entities, acting as both ‘fictional beings’ and ‘game pieces’ (Schroter and Thon 2014, 40). This paper analyses the particular quality of pleasure to be derived from moments where videogames intentionally undercut their own fictions by inviting players to see in-game characters not as dynamic, lifelike agents, but as inert digital objects. Joining recent discussions about forms of comedy native to games (e.g. Bonello Rutter Giappone et al. 2022), it also ventures some broader points about the ontology of digital games and their cultural status.

ABSTRACT. This paper proposes a media-phenomenological reframing of interactivity through the emerging practice of “finger-interactive” short videos on platforms like TikTok/Douyin. I argue that interactivity does not rely on system feedback but is constituted by the pleasurable experience of embodied engagement. By introducing the concept of “Participation Illusion,” the study reveals how playful agency emerges even when technologies do not technically register the user’s actions.

ABSTRACT. This study deconstructs the complex and multifaceted pleasure experiences in video games by integrating embodied cognition theory with an intersectionality framework. Findings from neuroscience indicate that these pleasures are supported by distinct yet interactive neural circuits, such as the reward system (e.g., ventral striatum) for mastery and the mirror neuron system for cultural empathy. The study applied mixed research methods (model construction, participant observation, in-depth interviews, and player experience analysis) and found out that multimodal spatial environments form the foundation for activating players' perceptual neural pathways, with their sense of realism deeply intertwined with players' emotional experiences. Identity formation arises from the synergistic interaction between virtual bodies and embodied cognition, manifesting through sustained "role-playing". Culture and embodied emotion exhibit a bidirectional shaping relationship: cultural design provides social contextual scripts for emotion, while bodily practices reinforce their interconnection. The findings unequivocally demonstrate that game pleasure is not a universal sensation, but an intersectional experience emerging from the dynamic interplay of body, space, identity, and culture, which is rooted in and reflected by the plasticity and complexity of the human brain.

ABSTRACT. This article discusses the design logics and process of "Gotta kill 'em all!" – A Game about Billionaires and Climate Obstruction, our satirical game about self-defense against the richest and most powerful who actively stand in the way of us building a humane future and meaningfully addressing climate change.

ABSTRACT. Narratives about grief are popular in video games and serious desktop games for medical staff training. However, a virtual reality game approach to storytelling about grief is not widely accessible in therapeutic gaming, and few studies involve psychology and healthcare experts in the design process. In this paper, we introduce a design framework that includes a modular narrative with embodied interactions for a virtual reality game based on Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief. Furthermore, we provide qualitative reflections from twelve (N=12) professionals in the fields of behaviour science, mental health, and social work who have played and evaluated the game. Our findings show positive attitudes toward adopting virtual reality and ludic mechanics in therapy and bereavement support. Additionally, we find that such games can support emotional learning for children and neurodivergent individuals who may benefit from safe and gamified exposure to difficult conversations related to grief. Lastly, we provide design recommendations for similar games that aim to supplement grief therapy and support groups.

ABSTRACT. Digital games in education predominantly reflect Western industrialized ideologies, often marginalizing alternative cultural perspectives. This comparative study explores the role of digital games in early childhood education (ages 3–5) in Sweden and Bhutan, two nations with contrasting technological and cultural landscapes. Sweden, despite its advanced digital infrastructure, faces recent policy reversals regarding screen time effects on young learners. Conversely, Bhutan integrates technology cautiously, guided by Gross National Happiness and a commitment to cultural preservation.

Utilizing a mixed-methods approach comprising quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, and policy analysis, the project aims to examines how cultural contexts influence game usage, access, and learning outcomes. Preliminary findings from this ongoing project indicate that while Sweden utilizes games for digital literacy, concerns regarding over-stimulation persist. In contrast, Bhutan prioritizes content alignment with Buddhist values to enhance rather than replace traditional pedagogy. Both nations grapple with digital divides, driven by parental choice in Sweden and infrastructural and familial constraints in Bhutan.

ABSTRACT. From classic debates over violence in video games to more recent discussions over monetization, crunch, and sustainability, video games generate interesting moral problems and many positions associated with them. Accordingly, video game ethics has become a core area within games research and academic programs, accompanied by growing scholarly interest and the development of game ethics courses. With this fast-paced, but relatively new growth, two questions arise. The first is pedagogical: How do we more effectively guide students to have more effective debates about moral issues? The second is research-based: how can we foster productive conversation and collaboration across disciplines when the assumptions, aims, and evaluative standards of our disciplines are so diverse? This extended abstract introduces two classes of techniques familiar from analytic philosophy--constructing cases and engaging perspectives--to supplement the empirical and theoretical work commonly taught in game ethics classrooms and used in game ethics research.

ABSTRACT. Avatar customization systems have become key sites where players negotiate and explore gender identity. Recent attempts to make customization more gender-inclusive remove explicit gender toggles and instead let players shape bodies, voices, and outfits through sliders and modular options. These designs present embodiment as a spectrum rather than a fixed binary, but they also make it harder for scholars to analytically grasp how gender is encoded in customization systems. Existing approaches either focus on discrete, visible interface elements, or demonstrate a rich system-focused reading but is difficult to scale across structurally diverse games. Building on this work and Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity, this paper proposes a methodological framework for analyzing gender affordances in avatar customization systems. Developed through a comparative study of twelve contemporary games, the framework foregrounds gender as its primary focus while remaining open to intersectional readings, offering a transferable tool for systematic, cross-game analysis of how avatar customization affords, channels, and limits gender expression.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the idea of pleasure through absence, here understood as play occurring in the absence of a main agent or subject, a coherent narrative, clear in-game objectives, or ludic challenges. The paper argues that such instances of absence engender pleasurable play by enlisting players in filling in the gaps left open, thereby creating emotional, narrative, and ludic connections where the game fails to provide them. The paper proceeds in three steps, focusing on 1) the characteristics of what we call minimalist digital horror games, 2) the choices in game design that encourage pleasurable play despite/through absence, and 3) the responses to these types of games by flesh-and-blood players. To illustrate these points, Adam Pype and Tibau van den Broeck’s No Players Online (2019; 2025; hereafter NPO) will serve as a case study for absent pleasures in gameplay and the pleasure absence can generate beyond the game.

The majority of scholarship on player experience focuses on elements of game design that make playing enjoyable (Swalwell and Wilson 2008; Deterding 2015: n.pag.): the promises of control and mastery (Grodal 2000; Atkins 2006), the pleasures of identifying with a fictional character (Bates 2001: 48; Gee 2005a: 213), the satisfaction of aligning one’s goals with in-game objectives (Gee 2005b), and following an emotionally engrossing narrative to its conclusion (Järvinen 2008). Some studies venture beyond definitions of pleasure as something present in games, for instance to consider the pleasures of non-play and looking (Newman 2002; Atkins 2006). But what if gameplay is intentionally reduced, narrative prompts remain elusive, and characters are absent? In our analysis, we frame these absences not as a “lack,” but rather as a form of “narrative [and ludic] seduction” (Moenandar 2025). Indeed, in games like NPO, it is precisely the conspicuous lack of conventional game elements–a teasing suggestion of what could be there but isn’t–that prompts the player into following the trail of breadcrumbs laid out by the game and to imaginatively fill its gaps, leading to forms of pleasurable play that often take place well beyond the game window.

In narrative theory, absent, insufficiently detailed, or hidden narrative cues (what has been called minimal narrative or undernarration [Prince 2023]), are understood to immerse readers by spiking their curiosity and drawing their attention to the gaping narrative holes which they must fill through acts of story construction (Moenandar 2025). Regarding videogames, the kinds of curiosity-inducing minimal narratives we are interested in are particularly common in “found phone games” such as SIMULACRA (Kaigan Games OÜ 2017) or A Normal Lost Phone (Accidental Queens 2017): players find a lost phone and piece together the story of its original owner by navigating apps and text messages. Compelled to take on the role of a private investigator, players are tasked with solving the usually grim mystery of the lost phone, engendering pleasurable experiences through puzzle solving and the illicit access to another’s personal affairs. Another influential lineage can be traced to analog horror, which in turn draws on found footage film and (early) internet phenomena, such as creepypasta and alternate reality games (ARGs), combining retro graphics, analog nostalgia (Garda 2013; Thibault 2016), and hypermediacy with cryptic messages, ideas of haunted media, and decentralized, participatory forms of play across virtual space (Zawacki 2024).

NPO presents an interesting variation of these familiar formulae, pairing a scarce narrative with multiplied retro interfaces and hacking-themed detective work (Lauteren 2002). The game was originally released as a short freeware game in 2019 with a “spiritual successor” having been released on Steam in November 2025 (Beeswaxgames 2025). NPO (2025) works on a similar premise of voyeuristic sleuthing as “found phone games,” yet moves beyond the neatly confined limits of a single narrative. The game opens with a start screen of a 1994 computer booting up and players logging in to a guest account. Without any overt prompts or information regarding quests, game goals, or plotlines, the only lead players have are the other two accounts on the computer, both of which are password-protected. Branching out from this, players can uncover the identities of these users through the digital traces they left in different games-within-the-game, but on the whole, the characters around which the emergent minimal narrative appears to revolve remain absent and largely obscure.

NPO’s play with absence was anticipated by its 2019 version, in which players navigated the dead server of a multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS). Despite its short play time of about twenty minutes, the game quickly became a hit with online communities trying to collectively solve its puzzles. One of the three endings was locked behind a code which could only be acquired during an ARG, including “Linux-only textures that could be read as Braille, Morse code played over a hotline and a physical note hidden in the woods in Belgium” (Klimentov 2019: n.pag.). Players congregated in Google Docs in what scholars in television studies have called “forensic fandoms,” combing through the game for clues and having “faith in its narrative design and purpose” (Mittell 2009: 134–5).

To analyze the different types of pleasure offered by NPO explore the different types of pleasures that NPO offers players, combining a close reading of its narrative elements, audiovisual style, and gameplay with a qualitative analysis of selected reviews, which illuminate actual players’ engagement with and reactions to the game’s minimal narrative and reduced design. NPO illustrates how pleasure can be derived through absence, or rather, how conspicuous absences can become sites of pleasure as players interpret them as points of departure for detailed and large-scale collaborative investigations that take place on and across various online platforms.

ABSTRACT. This paper uses the puzzle game "Arctictopia" as an example to problematize how cozy, casual video games frame the climate crisis through cute aesthetics and easily accessible gameplay mechanics. While this strategy might work to raise awareness for ecological degradation, it also turns navigating precarious environments into a pleasurable activity. Picking up the conference’s theme of “Intersectional Pleasures”, this paper focuses on who gets to experience imagery of melting polar ice as a pleasurable diversion, rather than as an existential threat. Based on an analysis informed by both ecocritical and postcolonial approaches to game studies, I argue that Arctictopia’s narrative, audiovisual elements, and gameplay mechanics, as well as the reception of the game, make visible the ambivalences and contradictions inherent in how cozy games can represent the climate crisis and its effects, illustrating both their potential to inspire ecological thinking and their pitfalls.

ABSTRACT. not applicable